Late Night With Roy

Basketball season is upon us. Enjoy!

-Allie

Photos by: Allie Mullin, Traci White and Julie Turkewitz

Reality versus Representation

The Netherlands has long been reputed for its tolerance and progressive social policies. Many groups of people who are marginalized and prosecuted in other countries find freedom and acceptance in the Netherlands. I studied abroad in the Dutch city of Groningen two years ago and experienced this “live-and-let-live” philosophy first hand, and this past summer I returned there to do a photography project about the differences in representation and reality of gay culture in Dutch society. While the degree of tolerance is somewhat diminished in recent years, gay men and lesbian women still experience unprecedented freedom in all respects of their lives, and are in fact supported by the Dutch government in the same ways as heterosexual couples. Tolerance is not interchangeable with acceptance, but gay men and lesbian women are just like any other member of society in most considerations. However, many people from the so-called “gay community” do not identify with the more flamboyant representations of gay lifestyles that are perpetuated by pride parades and drag shows. At the best people consider them harmless, at worst they are deemed counterintuitive to making homosexual people any more accepted by society.

These are some of the photographs from this summer that depict and hopefully lend some insight into the differences between gay portrayals and gay realities.

1. Michelle duBarry, a 72-year-old Canadian drag queen, leers at the camera during the Gray Pride party at part of Amsterdam Pride week of 2007. The party was for gay men and lesbian women over 50 years of age.
   
2. A flamboyant float enters the end point of the Amsterdam Pride canal parade on Saturday, August 4, 2007.
   
3. An exotic dancer leaps onto the pole on a boat participating in the Amsterdam Pride canal parade in August 2007.
   
4. Rean Meulendijk holds his 6-month-old son Yannick while his mothers Linda (left) and Marina (right) look on. Meulendijk is the surrogate father for Linda and Marina, a lesbian couple from Den Haag, the Netherlands. Meulendijk is also gay, and wanted to be able to have a child, and decided to act as the surrogate for these two women, who coincidentally lived only two blocks away from where Meulendijk and his boyfriend live.
   
5. Maurice Foucoult and Peter Jager look through their bills and program a new telephone at the apartment in Groningen, the Netherlands. Foucoult and Jager have been in a committed relationship for nine years, and describe themselves as “completely bourgeois.” The freedom to lead a bourgeois life is the standard among gay and lesbian couples in the Netherlands, where homosexuality is more tolerated by the historically progressive society.
   
6. A photographer makes a portrait of one of the participants in the Gray Pride party on August 2, 2007.
   
7. A young gay man dressed as an angel appears to have a halo behind him as he rests after the Amsterdam Pride canal parade on August 4, 2007.

Smile at the camera.

It is interesting to me as a photographer to see all different kinds of reactions from people that I photograph. Many have been very self-conscious about the way they look, including myself. But then there are so many who love to be on camera, especially children.

 

 

In the modern world, it has become a sort of universal language. Through the images that bombard us from every media outlet, we experience with the rest of the world the pains, joys and sorrows of each other. And yet, that might only be a romanticized view of how the mass media works. While the world is globalizing at an increased rate and information travels faster every day, there remain so many stories untold, so many issues ignored.

 

While, yes, there are the kids who smile at the camera for its novelty and its beauty.

 

 

There is also the underlying socioeconomic condition in which they live, both absolute and relative. While these kids and their families work hard to survive and keep warm, we “poor” college students are traveling around the world and going to malls not more than a few hours away from said village

 

 

 

However, this is not an indictment to make us college students feel bad. Rather, it is a reminder to look at the world through many eyes. Travel the world. The more you see and the more you learn, the more you will be able to understand the people who smile at your camera and the people who do not.

Well, that’s enough writing for me.

Until next time, keep your eyes open.

-Ricky

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