Poison In the Pudding

Last Tuesday was Club Night at the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and I attended the performance as the guest of a close friend who is a member of one of the female social organizations on campus. Club Night, a long-standing Pudding tradition, is open only to members of Harvard's social organizations, many of which are gender-exclusive final clubs.

I have problems with the Pudding show's exclusion of female cast members and I have objections to the socially elitist, gender-exclusive final clubs. But I also knew that the show would be rowdy. So I decided to put aside my concerns for what I hoped would be a fun, relaxed evening of entertainment. What I did not know was that the event would devolve into a tasteless and blatantly offensive display of heterosexism and homophobia.

Several minutes into the performance, a person sitting three rows behind me yelled "fag" as a performer in a flamboyant peacock costume came on stage. My friend pressed my leg with her hand, knowing the anger that was welling up inside me. Other heckling eventually drowned out the offending comment. I sat there hoping that nothing more of that nature would be said. Instead, a barrage of homophobic remarks started spewing forth from those seated behind me, and to my total dismay, these comments met with applause and laughter from the audience.

What was so disappointing was that, when I looked around the auditorium, I saw so many familiar faces: classmates, acquaintances and even many close friends all laughing along with these jokes. The girl from my art history class burst into loud laughter. The guy who sat next to me on the shuttle to New York started clapping every time he heard the word "fag." I even saw a friend from high school scream, "Take it up the ass."

I am sure that some people in the audience felt uncomfortable with the remarks, but no one had the courage to say anything or do anything that might register that discomfort. I felt completely isolated: As far as I knew, I could easily have been the only gay--or, more appropriately, the only un-closeted--audience member that night. And, except for the squeeze from my friend next to me, I felt no support.

After several of the girls sitting around me decided that the shouting was more than they could handle, a group of us got up to leave. As I left the theater, a friend of mine stopped me. He looked me straight in the face and said, "You should have known there would be homophobic humor, and you shouldn't have come." I simply turned to him and said "I didn't know, but since you did, then it is you who should not have come."

There are two important lessons to be learned from Club Night at the Hasty Pudding. First, and most obvious, is that it has long been the time to terminate the legacy of patriarchy and heterosexism embodied and perpetuated by final clubs on this campus. We must force members to take responsibility for their participation in organizations that promote intolerance and perpetuate an out-dated and unacceptable social order. And it is time for non-members on this campus to stop taking part in this system. In particular, the Hasty Pudding should end the vulgar and socially unacceptable tradition of Club Night. Enough is enough.

The second and more profound lesson is about the danger of silence in the face of intolerance. The responsibility to stand up and fight against intolerance in our community should not always fall on the victims of bigotry. Every student who sees bigotry and injustice has an obligation to fight against it. When we hear a gay joke--or a black joke, a Jewish joke or a joke about people in wheelchairs--we have an obligation to address that comment and express out outrage. When we shirk that responsibility, we support an environment in which bigotry is deemed socially acceptable. We make nights like Club Night at the Pudding possible.

As I sat in the Hasty Pudding theater last night, my anger at the comments being hurled past me and at the silence of the people around me, battled against a startling resurgence of the shame and fear that I often felt when in the closet. Part of me wanted nothing more than to be straight, to have the option to just laugh or sit silently by, knowing that the bigotry filling the room was not directed at me. Part of me hoped desperately that none of the people spewing these comments knew that I was gay.

Fortunately, my days in the closet are long since over, and my anger and pride quickly overwhelmed any resurgence of shame and fear. But those are feelings no Harvard student--no person, for that matter--should have to deal with simply because of his or her sexual orientation. It is the final club members, the Pudding, the audience, everyone involved with Club Night at the Pudding or other campus events and organizations that breed bigotry who should feel ashamed. And any of us who sit by and allow this bigotry to go unchecked should feel the shame too.

David B. Orr '01 is a social studies concentrator in Cabot House.