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on the verge

@mrgaretcarter / mrgaretcarter.tumblr.com

Maria, 20s. I have only ever cared about women.
‘If I wasn’t a human girl I think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.’ L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables
  • SANDITON (2019 - 2023)
  • ANNA KARENINA (2012)
  • HOWARDS END (1992)
  • ANNE OF GREEN GABLES: THE SEQUEL (1987)
  • BRIGHT STAR (2009)
  • MARIE ANTOINETTE (2006)
  • ATONEMENT (2007)
  • BRIDGERTON (2020 - )
  • THE SECRET GARDEN (1993)

horror as a genre peaked with courage the cowardly dog… and this isn’t even hyperbolic or supposed to be funny it’s genuinely the scariest fucking thing that’s ever been created i’m still traumatized 

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

RATING: RELIABLE

you can listen to the clip of the 1954 interview here and find him on wikipedia here

the way that "Karen" originally meant primarily white women using ther privilege to abuse people of color and service workers and the internet turned it into a stand-in for "bitch"...... the way that "NLOG" originally meant girls and women who performatively separate themselves from femininity and put down other women out of internalized misogyny but the internet turned it into a stand-in for their lesbophobic or transphobic slur of choice for masculine women.....the way "manic pixie dream girl" was originally a critique of a sexist trope in fiction and the internet turned it into a way to insult real life girls and women for being weird or quirky....never fucking ending

nick mohammed saying that when given the opportunity to find out abt the end of the show prior to shooting s3 his #1 question and priority was knowing if ted and rebecca got together, we know thats right king!