This week, The New Yorker's lead story is a lumbering, 12,800-word rehash of gay Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's suicide and his roommate's upcoming trial for invasion of privacy. The magazine too rarely covers gay topics, and this, their one take on gay teen suicide, doesn't include any of the major issues facing most gay teen suicides. It's like reporting on Africa by touring the Seychelles. People are drawn to this case because it exploits fears of internet exposure and because it's just plain sad. Yet it has nothing to say about actual bullying, unresponsive or complicit school officials, family rejection, extreme isolation, religious bigotry, or antigay politicking, or about unlikely pockets of support. Many people will read the piece and come away thinking it's a heartbreaking tale of a lonely college kid who made a terrible choice on a bad night... but what are angry gays complaining about? (Clementi was not outed by the hidden webcam and a total of maybe seven people saw images for a few seconds of him and another guy with their shirts off and their jeans on. His text messages after discovering the spying are full of lols and hahahaha and that all in all his roomie was "pretty decent," though hours later he did request a roommate change.) If you can get past sentences like "His sexual self—born on the Internet, in the shadow of pornography—seems to have been largely divorced from his social self," read the whole essay here.
Readers who are not sufficiently depressed by the main story can dwell on the scene of closeted Anderson Cooper at Rutgers a year later to host a tv special called "Bullying: It Stops Here," where a CNN manager talked to the student audience prior to taping to "coach them on how to express shock or grief while watching the panel."
A great writer exploring this subject could produce another In Cold Blood. The place to do it is Tennessee, whose legislature is still deliberating their "Don't Say Gay" bill. The state offers plenty of grotesque hatred like Rep. Floyd of Chattanooga standing by his statements that he would "stomp a mudhole" in any man [trans] who tried to use the women's dressing room while his wife or daughter was there. But, less publicized, even rural Tennesseans have shown a tremendous outpouring of gay support. Two recent suicides there were Phillip Parker, 14, whose parents repeatedly complained to his school, and Jacob Rogers, whose friends say he was abused "every day in every class." As I wrote last week, Rogers asked for an Easy Bake Oven when he was six and shot himself at eighteen.
I'm thoroughly depressed. The Clementi sadness is sort of like the white noise of a fan always in the background which tends to get louder and louder as another teen is hurt or killed or that more bigots try to pass the kinds of bills that Tennessee is trying to pass.
Though today there was a brightness: did you read about the Knoxville restaurant Bistro at the Bijou. It's not a major win, but it's enough for today.
Posted by: J.P. | January 30, 2012 at 03:00 PM
Wow. I love your site, but completely disagree with your take on the New Yorker piece.
I agree that it didn't cover any of the issues that tie Clementi's death to the rest of the gay teen suicides, but I don't see that as a negative; it's outside of the scope of the article and the issues the writer wanted to cover. Clementi left a note for his family, but that hasn't been released to the public, and it seems (at least from the information included in the article) that it is the only documentary evidence of his state of mind before jumping. His family and his roommate are the only ones that have any idea about what specifically might have been going through his head at that time, and any discussion about any turmoil about his sexuality would have been conjecture and irresposible conjecture besides.
Furthermore, I think the article is really perceptive about the ways that new modes of communication between teens (including sites like formspring, which is incredibly popular with connected tweens and teens but is almost never reported on by the media) is changing the way that they interact. It's also remarkably clear eyed in not shying away from the race and class issues that may have soured Ravi's and Clementi's interactions, while also having the perspective to acknowledge that biased language in Clementi's and Ravi's chat transcripts.
In other words, I really appreciate the tight focus on the two men, their families and their friends, and I'm glad that it's not a generic rehash of larger scale attitudes that have been covered before.
Posted by: Matteilar.wordpress.com | January 30, 2012 at 07:53 PM
Matteilar, thanks for your comment, which in fact is my favorite kind -- a thoughtful differing view. I agree that the article was smart to include class issues. A swifter writer could have accomplished everything in half as many words, I felt, which is why I called it lumbering. My main problem with it remains that new readers coming for the first time to an exhaustive piece related to a national epidemic will leave not having encountered any of its primary aspects. But I'm glad Thebes readers have your enthusiasm to balance my concern.
Posted by: Stephen | January 31, 2012 at 02:19 PM
I heartily disagree as well. This was an impeccibly researched and well-written article. It's aim was to thoroughly investigate this case, not to produce a screed on bullying or any of the other subjects you find lacking in coverage. It was objective in its research and reporting which is what is needed in a story such as this. The sad fact of this case is that Clemente had major psychological problems which, granted, were exasperated by his roommate. He needed help and enlisted the internet to navigate his private hell. Unfortunately it also proved his undoing. What I came away feeling more aghast at was his mother's rejection of him just days before going off to college. easily as bad, in fact, that what occured afterwards.
Posted by: Edward | February 09, 2012 at 09:26 AM