A Queer Position

The gay marriage campaign in Ireland has no direction. Before the civil partnership bill passed, it was quite clear the routes that were available: you could support civil partnership as providing some of the benefits of marriage to gay couples, or you could oppose it for its creation of a separate, inadequate institution solely for gay people. For both groups of people, the goal of full civil marriage was largely the same, but they were energised by the very immediate issue of impending legislation. And with its passing, all involved are faced with a sobering question – just where do you go from here?

It accounts, I think, for the admittedly disappointing turn-out at the most recent March for Marriage. It's rare that the masses will turn out to march without some concrete motivation. At the March for Marriage, the rallying point was an opinion: we would like civil marriage. That opinion doesn't especially mobilise people; it doesn't even enthuse people, particularly when accompanied by the tacit admission, "…but we really don't know yet how we're going to go about getting it."

There were some indications that a mass postcard campaign is planned. What about our TDs' opinions at the moment requires changing? Their broad support for gay rights is matched by a broad agreement that any gay marriage legislation would require a constitutional referendum. They may be wrong in that belief, but there are no plans to disabuse them if they are. That would require a legal argument, which, particularly in light of the recent Supreme Court judgement concerning the lesbian couple and their sperm donor, seems problematic. In that case, Justice Denham was quite explicit: "Therefore, arising from the terms of the Constitution, "family" means a family based on marriage, the marriage of a man and a woman."

The call for a referendum could perhaps be the issue around which the campaign could rally, but none of the advocacy groups particularly mention it, and the word "referendum" was not heard once at the March for Marriage. Why not? If the belief is that a referendum is not required, let's hear the case for it, and let's put that case to TDs. Otherwise the mere demand that gay marriage be introduced is rather toothless.

In fact, the recent Irish Times/Behaviour Attitudes poll, in which 67% said gay couples should be allowed to marry, ought to have been a spur to the call for a referendum. Here at last was some solid evidence that gay people need not necessarily be afraid of a socially conservative electorate. Instead, Marriage Equality called for the Government to legislate on civil marriage immediately. Their position seems to be that the Government should introduce legislation that it, and the rest of the Dáil, fully believes will be immediately struck down by the Supreme Court, just so we can be absolutely sure that a referendum is necessary. I don't believe that that's a successful position from which to campaign.

Of course, despite this majority, it's also true that only the pro-gay marriage groups are actively campaigning at the moment. A referendum would bring out of the woodwork, as well as moderate objectors, all the vicious anti-gay bigots, and it would give them licence to peddle their most homophobic arguments in the interests of national debate. In the face of that, it's certainly possible that support will slip. The prospect of losing a referendum is particularly pernicious to the gay marriage campaign, to have fired up the homophobes not only with no benefit but with a clear mandate from the electorate not to introduce gay marriage any time soon.

Perhaps then the unspoken consensus is to continue to call (but in no specific manner) for the introduction of gay marriage, with the intention of accumulating public support. But without a clear direction, without some concrete goal for the gay community to mobilise around, the next March for Marriage risks being even smaller. And that in turn risks sending the message that gay people are satisfied with things as they are.

Notes from the Movie Business

Here are ten things you may not have known about the cinema:

1. You're probably eating yesterday's popcorn. Like, 50% of the time.
2. The irony of the amount of waste produced by the average screening of Wall-E is lost on everyone.
3. The nacho cheese comes in big cardboard boxes. It's liquid at room temperature.
4. People drink in the cinema. I once found a bag full of empty bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
5. They play the film even if there's no one in the screen. Spooky.
6. If you brought me a bouquet of roses, it couldn't make me any happier than bringing your own rubbish down after the movie is over.
   
7. There is a twenty-eight year old usher who has been there as long as anyone can remember and will never make supervisor. That is his life. It's a little depressing.
8. When I'm standing at the front of the screen with a bag in my hand, it means I'm waiting for you to leave so I can clean up. There probably isn't one of those cutscenes after the credits, and if there is, it's almost definitely not worth seeing. So just LEAVE already.
9. The phrase, “It's just downstairs to your right” gets real old real fast.
10. Who wants to see Hancock? A lot of people, apparently. Although why is anybody's guess.

Lisbon

Found this summary of most of the things the Treaty does particularly helpful. It doesn't talk about the rotating Commissioners (that is, for five out of fifteen years, Ireland would not have a Commissioner in the Commission (the body which proposes European legislation)). To anyone who is concerned about that system somehow being undemocratic, remember that every country will be without a Commissioner for an equal amount of time - such is the nature of rotation. And the Commissioners are nominated, not elected, anyway. And the Commissioner is above state politics, so they're not supposed to be acting in Ireland's interest anyway; they propose legislation for the benefit of Europe. And basically the Commission has no other power than the proposal of legislation, i.e. our democratically elected representatives in the Council and the Parliament will still decide on and implement everything...

So basically, nothing has persuaded me to vote No yet, and there seems to be good reason to vote Yes. :)

Changing the Subject

Because of exams, I've been pressing this to the back of my mind, but now that they're over, I suppose I should face it head-on: I think I need to change subjects.

I've been talking about changing almost since I began, but I never came to any definite decision. I enjoy Latin and Philosophy: it's interesting, relatively challenging, and I'm good at it (I think – I guess we'll see when the results come out!). But the more I think about it, the less of a good idea it seems. I suppose the impetus for this comes from a feeling that I haven't really clicked in the subjects I'm doing. I'm not certain I can see myself doing this for four years, and definitely not certain I can see where I'd go afterwards.

I've been tracing my interest in philosophy, and I think a lot of it came out of a concern for practical ethics. In secondary school I was quite involved with our Amnesty International group. I hated the death penalty; I couldn't understand how human beings could treat one another like that. It would be a topic commonly-debated in competitions, and I found myself making the same arguments over and over again: arguments from its ineffectiveness, arguments from its cruelty, etc. etc. But they seemed to leave the fundamental objection unaddressed, or if it was addressed, only in terms of a dogmatic belief in the sanctity of human life.

But the more you ask why such-and-such is right or wrong, the more areas you open up to more questions. Does right or wrong require free choice, and if so, do we have free choice, and if so, what's the nature of that freedom? Does right or wrong require God, or some transcendental reality, and if so, is there a God, and if so, what's his nature and how does he interact with our world? And so on and so forth. The fundamental ethical choices with which we motivate our actions everyday (whether explicitly or implicitly) involve a whole range of metaphysical issues – basically, a very large chunk of philosophy.

I've completed a year now, and I'm very glad that I've learned something about the great thinkers, but I've come no closer to satisfying one of my original cravings. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think that after only a year in Philosophy, I would have discovered a completely coherent body of ethical beliefs with a firm foundation. But I don't think I'm even one step closer to that goal. If to be a good person, you need to be a moral person (I'm no closer to discovering if that's true either), then this year I've become a better-informed person, but not a better person.

But where else do I even have a hope of touching on these kinds of issues? True. But I think the point is, I'm tired of the search. Especially when it seems so fruitless.

And then there's Latin, one of the great loves of my life. It's logical and methodical, but at the same time capable of so much passion and beauty. I was in no small measure influenced from an early age by my love of Greek and Roman mythology. And for the six years I studied Latin in secondary school, I had a wonderful teacher, who no doubt made me associate Latin with all the lovelier aspects of humanity. But to be perfectly honest, I think the main driving force behind my decision to study Latin at third level was a sense of protectiveness. I felt that I had to help continue Latin scholarship, that I couldn't let something that was so wonderful to me just die away. I felt I would be abandoning it. But I'm not certain that's a good reason to continue in a subject.

So what would I do instead? At the moment, I'm thinking about Medicine. It satisfies my love for science and my interest in human biology. I don't think there's a better pursuit in my mind than helping to protect life in general, probably the most beautiful and continually awe-inspiring thing I've discovered, and human life in particular, being the most perfect expression thus far of life's process.

I'm certain some of the original decision away from Medicine was railing at the silly notion of Medicine being what smart people do, regardless of their talent or interest. I didn't want to be that person. But I realise now that it works the other way around: if you are interested in it, and you think you'd be good at it, the stupid stereotype shouldn't deter you. I'm not concerned about money, except peripherally, i.e. an ill-defined concern for people who might be financially dependent on me someday. But I won't deny the options it would open up would be comforting.

There are so many other things to be considered as well. I apologise for this entry being long. Truth be told, this post is more for myself than anyone else, trying to get it straight in my head. Which doesn't mean, of course, that I wouldn't appreciate anyone's input. I think I need all the advice I can get!

I guess there are really two separate questions at hand here: 1) Should I change subjects? 2) If so, should I do Medicine instead? The second involves a lot of ancillary questions, like “Would I be any good at it?”, “Would I have the dedication required?”, etc.

And, of course, most importantly, could I withstand the sneers of the Arts students?

Iron Man: Why They're Off the Mark, and Why I'm Off the Wall

Okay, so the energy I put into my recent tirade against Iron Man might have been better directed into... oh, say, passing the first year of my degree. But after having this particular rotten tomato hurled at me by Ronan, I felt some re-evaluation of my position was in order. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've disagreed with Rotten Tomatoes – ever heard of a little gem called Romance and Cigarettes? This much-maligned musical actually scored much lower on the Tomatometer around the time of its release (I recall it was around 30%), but instantly became one of my favourite films. But I'm not going to talk about Romance and Cigarettes, much as I'd love another excuse to watch it. I'm going to talk about Iron Man, and why everyone else in the world (yes, it does seem like that many!) is wrong about it.

I've been accused of reading too much into it. It is, of course, just a film about a man in a high-tech suit. And from reading the swathes of reviews, that's as far as anyone thinks we should read into it. And yes, there was something to the humour and the fast-paced action sequences and the general charisma of Robert Downey Jr.... And yes, we could criticise Gwyneth Paltrow's acting, or the hit-and-miss nature of some of the improvised scenes, or whatever. But my argument is that there is something more sinister going on in the wings. I believe that this film comes very close to propaganda. At the very least, this film makes some claims at having a message beyond a simple story or uncomplicated moral truth, the only things that we tend (for some strange reason) to expect of the superhero genre.

In fact, let me address that before I make good on my wild allegations. Amid cries of, “It's just a superhero film!”, I have to throw in a protesting, “So?” If you believe that means it can't have a political message, then clearly you haven't read the original Iron Man comics; yes, on one level it was just a straightforward superhero story. But on another, he is a defender of American consumerism, whose enemies are Communists, the bane both of American values and Iron Man's own commercial interests. There was very clearly a propagandistic thread running through those stories.

Essentially, this movie was an update of those original Iron Man ideals. Tony Stark himself represents America – an affluent and powerful entity with a particular affinity for cheeseburgers, whose own reckless attitude towards the international arms trade ultimately brings it under fire itself... Is the analogy becoming clear now? Tony Stark, so moved by his own personal 9-11, vows to change his ways. And what is the solution? Iron Man, an almost invincible military force, takes unilateral action against the baddies, equipped with the latest high-tech weaponry – sparing with absolute precision the lives of the civilians, of course. Having saved the day (and received so little recognition for it! Poor Tony Stark is still alone in the world. Aside from his assistant, to whom they perhaps should have given a British accent.), Iron Man must then fight off a wicked businessman, who represents the evils of capitalism, evils which, of course, Iron Man (er, America) must regulate. Without any help. After all, Iron Man is the only one who can.

I'll leave you to flesh out the analogy further. Needless to say, it makes perfect sense that a message of this kind would be made using a superhero film, which aside from being a staple of American culture, is littered with themes of strength, dominance, independence, etc. This is why all the critics are off the mark – they were too busy looking at this film in the simplistic vein of a typical action-adventure, they didn't even think about it in the context I've sketched above, if only to dismiss it.

And ironically it's also why I'm off the wall. Am I so incapable of just sitting back and enjoying a movie that I have to find these oddball theories into why they were made? Am I crazy, or is there actually something to my ideas about Iron Man? Or can it be both?