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“Is internalized homophobia causing the damage we are seeing within the gay community?”That’s how the gay actor and model American Barrett Pall started his latest video published on Instagram. The harsh questioning was motivated, according to Pall, by the perception of what he qualified as “lack of leadership” not only in the country, as a whole, but also within what he calls throughout the video “gay community”.
According to the model, there is a clear link between the problem of leadership and “ageism, the AIDS pandemic and why we feel the need to perpetuate toxic masculinity within the gay community”. The question develops around representativeness. Pall explains that it is difficult to deal with maturity as a gay man without someone to look at and look up to, as an example of attitudes, choices and overcoming difficulties, especially in public spaces. And this is happening because, on a large scale, the AIDS pandemic started in the late 1980s, but which still affects the LGBTQIA+ community, has claimed the lives of many who would occupy such spaces today.
Pall adds that he was fortunate to have references from older and experienced gay men in his development as an individual and, therefore, he has sought to encourage acquaintances and others, through his media reach, to take their place, whenever there is a chance , in prominent positions, where you can “help people”. In his opinion, anyone cannot go through life just by appealing to sensuality, which he admits he has already done, to earn money, fame and success. It is possible and necessary to position yourself to do much more.
“I had a gay agent, very early in my career, who sat with me and said: ‘Barrett, you have two options. You can perpetuate everything we’ve done so far and have a public life as a heterosexual and be gay in your private life or you can come out of the closet, have a boyfriend, work at a gay bar and have some success’. And it is this profound and internalized homophobia that people in a position of power have not yet managed to change in the industry that themselves run that has been thrown on the new generations after them and that is why we see our ‘food pyramid’ being occupied by gay men muscular and with healed bodies, which does not help them or any of us”, he says.
Pall says that the time has come when the gay community needs in-depth conversations about drugs, drinks, sex, toxic masculinity, internalized homophobia. “We are surviving and not being successful.” To that end, he intends to “lead by example” and encourage debates wherever he can.
“I understand that the generation before us had to survive so that someone like me could sit here to have this conversation, and we need to be grateful to them, but we need to understand that, even if the elders had all the knowledge to have this conversation, because we are so ageist, we would probably not even look at them or listen to them. […] We get angry when young people reach prominent places through opportunities granted from the struggle of the older generations, while those who currently rule the industry (and are gay) still sit in their internalized homophobia, shame and trauma”.
Addressing the public relations of gay individuals and the relationship with social media, Pall asks: “I did a clean up on who I was following. We follow people we barely know, from a party. Or because we hope to have sex with them one day. Why do we follow the people we follow?”
Within the main causes of the imbalance experienced by the current generations of gay men, the model lists ageism, racism, classicism, which builds insecurity and produces in the young generations the shame of their own bodies, prejudice against the bodies of others and as many individual and interpersonal relationships traumas. “We are in the middle of so much shame because of the heteronormativity that plagues us. […] We are all dealing with a type of deep toxic masculinity, internalized homophobia and shame, embedded in us – for generations – and that do us no good”.
Pall ends the video with an alert message and a request for awareness among members of the community, remembering that we still live in a pandemic period: “Stop going to parties and stay at home”.
Watch the video (in English):
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