Noticed for the first time yesterday, on Alex Wagner Tonight on MSNBC, 6/28, in “‘Republicans in robes’: Supreme Court critics see politics behind action on [the Grabpussy] immunity case”, on-line here: commenter Mark Joseph Stern (a senior writer covering courts and the law for Slate Magazine), in his pleasantly gay persona — an engaging fem (vs. butch) presentation of himself — while, with deep seriousness and evident passion, picking apart the Supreme Court’s behavior in the immunity case.
What came to my consciousness for the first time was the gayness of his persona, a collection of his specific variants of fem characteristics, including his particular gay voice and his particular gay eye gestures (eye widening, some flirtation with eye roll and slant-eye). Wonderful that he doesn’t edit out these behaviors, even if many people take them to be indicators of a superficial mentality (just like a dumb broad”, they think to themselves).
I had somehow not attended to any of this the day before, 6/27, when MJS was again on Alex Wagner Tonight, in “‘A seismic shift’: Supreme Court Chevron ruling radically alters U.S. government with power grab”, on-line here; or in his earlier appearances on her show, explaining the intricacies of various US courts to the MSNBC audience. But now I’m a fan, of his brand of a fem persona, combined with visible playfulness and enjoyment in his own performance, and of his elegant explanations of complex legal and political matters, in which his expertise is combined with visible, urgent, commitment to a system of moral values.
I see lot of this in my gay world: pleasantly gay and deeply serious, in tandem. In a while I’ll pull up, from my earlier postings, another example of this pairing, with all the details wildly different from MJS’s case.
But first, more about MJS.
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