'Homo' de Caza - UPDATE

Barney speaks frankly

I got in touch with a contact at GLAAD about Tamra Barney's hate speech airing on Bravo's "Real Housewives of Orange County" earlier this week and this is what he had to say: 

We (GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team) actually reached out to Bravo on Wednesday after the episode aired to advocate against use of the defamatory word. A spokesperson for Bravo confirmed that the defamatory slur has been bleeped from future broadcasts of the episode. Let me know if you have any other questions. 

While I definitely think there are two valid ways at looking at this -- air what she said and let the world see what a pig she is, or keep it off the airwaves w-- I happen to think that more people would listen to her and think "Oh, this 'rich, sophisticated' lady on TV says homo, so it's OK'" than realize how wrong it is of her to speak like that (she has TWO LITTLE DAUGHTERS, for crying out loud!, and we know how her son turned out). (Maybe I'm not giving the general public enough credit on that, but I say err on the side of stupidity.) So kudos to GLAAD for its efforts. No matter how many "positive" portrayals Bravo has given us, I still don't think that gives them a free pass to air hate speech like that. CBS and A&E took FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the actions of their stars, Don Imus and Dog the Bounty Hunter, respectively, when they got out of line. What gives Bravo the right to just point at Tamra and say, "SHE said it, not us"? 

As it would happen, later yesterday I got this disturbing note from Matt Rettenmund about another one of Bravo's "positive" GLBT portrayals: 

I linked your Bravo tirade, then went home and caught an old (?) ep of The Millionaire Matchmaker or whatever and the matchmaker herself said, "You don't want a bisexual woman as the mother of your children. They can cheat on you with another woman and leave you." It was even WORSE than the example you're giving because at least in the Real Housewives, you're encouraged to hate them. The Matchmaker is the voice of reason and the show's heroine. I mean ... a bisexual is more likely to cheat and a heterosexual is what immune to that??? "Bi"-zarre. 

Then I asked him, what are the "positive" portrayals of GLBT people on Bravo, anyway? Christian Siriano? To which I was informed: 

Christian, who just went on video saying Rihanna must've DONE SOMETHING to cause that beating because "I've worked with her and she's a diva." 

Good lord. At least you can say the stars of Bravo television are equal opportunity offenders.