Monday, March 16, 2009

Long Forgotten

Many years ago, when I was an AFS student in Caracas, I refused to let anyone call me Anita (the diminutive of Anne in Spanish) because of Anita Bryant and her anti-gay campaign.

This was something that I had totally forgotten about and, in fact, there are people in the Spanish speaking world who call me Anita now; it doesn't bother me.

All of this came back to me over the weekend when P and I went to see Milk.

It was a good movie. I remember a lot of the story; I was coming of age at the time, but I'm glad that the movie filled in some holes and reminded me of different things that I had forgotten, or that I understand differently now that I am an adult. It made me happy to see people fighting for their rights and gaining from their activism. It made me sad that he was killed. It made me sad too, because it reminded me of friends lost to AIDS since then.

Sean Penn is a fantastic actor. I'm glad he won the Oscar.

So of course the question came up after seeing the movie, "What ever happened to Anita Bryant"

The answer is not pretty. She paid dearly for her campaign against the gay community.

Makes you wonder.

Karma and all that.

1 comment:

Suzique said...

While I've been reading Agent Zigzag, I keep thinking that Chapman looks a bit like a gaunt Sean Penn!