Gynecocracy Films, LLC Exposes Homophobic Backlash of its feature film "The Non-Conformist" from within the GLBT community.

Within the past two years, since our company's inception there have been blatant cases of this unfortunate ugliness directed at our film from two lesbian web sites and one gay casting director.

Mt. Clemens, Michigan (PRWEB) December 14, 2003 --Within the past two years, since our company's inception there have been blatant cases of this unfortunate pettiness directed at our film from two lesbian web sites and one gay casting director.

In the November issue of The Advocate, Lambda Legal Defense sites gay people as being good at relationships. From my experience of being an out lesbian for over 20 years active in the gay community I've witnessed predominately: drug and alcohol abuse, internal and external homophobia, self-hatred of own gender by attempting to emulate opposite gender, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of self and partners, and low self esteem. It is my belief that more hate crimes are perpetrated amongst gay people within the gay community then from outside. According to AARDVARC (An Abuse, Rape and Domestic Violence Aid and Resource Collection), www.aadvardvarc.org, domestic violence occurs in approximately 25--33 percent of gay and lesbian couple relationships.

May the adult gay community wake up and become role models before all the teenagers take their lives. May the media take a hard look in the mirror to witness if they like what they see beyond the veneer.

In February 2002, I, Michelle Vernier, producer, attended a GLBT seminar called "Project Yes!" which forever changed my life. Directed by Martha Fugate, a courageous activist for gay rights brought me out of a fog. A month earlier, I'd filed the paperwork for the formation of Gynecocracy Films, LLC, to commit to producing my feature film "The Non-Conformist". A romantic dramedy featuring lesbian, bisexual and straight relationships with a happy ending.

Martha taught the group that 33% of gay teenagers commit suicide, 50% are kicked out of their homes, 97% of students hear anti-gay comments at school each day, in 38 states a person can be fired on the grounds of being gay alone, and in only one state in the US, as of November, gay people can be legally married, of which this legal institution offers over 1500 economic benefits.

To fulfill my commitment to "Project Yes!" I was assigned a debate with a Rabbi over the Bible in a suburban community college during two of his classes. The students gave me a standing ovation. I witnessed the paradigm shift in our youth.

I was on a crusade after learning this information in the producing of the film. This vision is confirmed every second when I think of Harvey Milk and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and am cognizant of the fact that the civil rights movement is a far cry from being over. The most frightening aspect of the lack of its fulfillment is that I don't believe it is straight people that are preventing its fruition; but homophobic gay people who are.

A vast majority of people in the entertainment industry are gay, more than in any other profession. I assumed that gay people within the industry would support this beautiful, feminine, romantic dramedy. The polar opposite has been true. All of the support has been freely given in the form of straight men and women who love the screenplay.

The only attacks on the film have come from within the gay community via a vicious male casting director who ripped the script to shreds because it wasn't "edgy" enough. A lesbian web site owner who had a link to our site but because of changes made in our marketing campaign we decided to remove it. She accused me of being homophobic.

The next web site, www.lesbianalliance.com, placed our company's information on their web site. Its image, photographs, and synopsis. These two lesbians requested interviews to promote our film. One interview before the New Year and one in February of 2004. I suggested that I go to my team to ask the questions to make it easier for them. Close to ten straight people who know the script, the film, and myself, wrote the questions. Suddenly, these women reneged on their word and changed their entire story.

As of the present moment, there has not been one stable gay person affiliated with this film, (beside Athena Reich), yet an abundance of straight people. Surreal but the underlying theme of the script is unconditional love which I wish for the gay community.

A few weeks ago I received the new Wolfe catalogue for gay/lesbian films and videos. I'm not impressed by 95% of the catalogue's product and the portrayals of gays and lesbians in films and on television. They are generally stereotypical, clichéd, over-the-top-sexed-out without a plot; lesbians are butch/femme, barflies, incestuous, killers, gays attempted to being reformed to straight, junkies, or gays who murdered or who kill themselves at the end. Is it a surprise that so many (a genocide) of gay teenagers are committing suicide? What roles models do they have? Examine the fashion in which gay lifestyle is represented in all mediums.

I just finished perusing issues of Out, Curve, The Advocate, Girlfriends (the best-selling lesbian publication), and On Our Backs magazines and discovered what I constitute as derogatory terms against gay people in gay magazines: homo, fag, queer, dyke, and butch. I discovered such terms on the lesbian-sited website. The February 2004 issue of Girlfriends magazine has a full page column dubbed "Ask Fairy Butch", which used the term "daddy" to describe a "butch/femme" relationship. Cluttered with barbaric terms: dyke, queer, and butch. Dyke is a slang term. This same issue displays the images of the lesbians for the new series which premiered on Showtime on January 18th. I'd feel like an accomplice to a serious hate crime viewing this series. The title is : The L word. Similar to the "N" word, the "F" word, the "C" word, the "B" word, on and on, all derogatory terms to subconsciously criticize a select group of people, as if they were target practice. This show and its homophobic connotations run deep and are insidious, because of the packaging it comes in. I thought the L word stood for LOVE. To me, they are just exploiting lesbians as if it is a lifestyle choice and a "bad word", which it is neither. I have heard though that it is a great program. On Our Backs magazine epitomizes this slang term at its utmost grotesque. The December/January 2004 appears to be one gigantic advertisement for solely dildos not to be purchased without the leather strap on harness. A pictorial titled "Sybil + Undine: Hot Femme Fags", shows the supreme vulgarity associated with the term lesbianism. It depicts one woman penetrating another wearing a mustache with this pseudo phallic substitute and then giving this dildo fellatio. But the crème de la crème of severe psychological wires being crossed is perfectly captured in a photograph. Entitled: Climax, it displays a "women/man" wanna be with a mustache exposing her breasts while seated on a chair with her "penis" as it climax's a large amount of white substance from "her penis". The word lesbian is defined in the dictionary as a female characterized by sexual desire for those of the same sex as oneself. An extremely disturbing contradiction which I think would've served them better to have worked their issues out in therapy instead of choosing to publicly pronounce their "gay pride" in this fashion. This is similar to a black person calling a black person the "N" word. In one of the sited magazines it advertises a web site: same-sex sells...are you buying it? Their web site address is www.commercialcloset.org. If this is not homophobia what is? How are these disgusting portrayals of the gay community then having a parade once a year to "show off" gay pride to straight people moving progress forward? Having perused all these different gay mediums I noticed another common denominator. The "community" appears to be in love with fighting against issues and discrimination, instead of banding together as a collective and standing up for something positive: Love itself.

Is this the 21st century or the Dark Ages? There is a severely twisted "problem" when people with a huge identity similarity outwardly display malice aimed at people of their own predominantly shared common denominator. The black community justifiably complains about the billboards placed in their urban neighborhoods. Why don't gay people boycott advertising in the gay mediums? It is distasteful and insulting. According to Richard Morgan, "Now there is a backlash against bisexual people, gay people are striking out against them", quoted from one of the mentioned magazines. Senseless because they are the B in GLBT and are equally entitled to their rights. Plus, statistically a much larger demographic population combined than GLT. It has been proven that there is strength in numbers.

The positive perspective is straight people globally have lent more support, understanding, and giving to gay people and the GLBT community, (with certain undisclosed exceptions), than the gay community itself. Ironically, without the several willing bullet takers ready at any given moment to stand up for justice and the civil rights movement, (those courageous, outspoken people who shared the same common denominator of oppression), the masses (vast majority) of people would not be holding these free mind sets today.

May 2004 bring on even more massive and magnificent social change from the rise of the suffragettes up until the GLBT movement realized. Gandhi, Mr. Milk, and Dr. King, Jr. were not martyrs, nor was Jesus, they have resurrected. It is time for Dr. King, Jr's " I Have a Dream" speech to be actualized for all of humanity, a clean slate, and a new beginning.

Michelle Vernier, Producer, Gynecocracy Films, LLC
Web Site address: www.the-nonconformist.com
Phone: (586) 212-3196

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