Reactions to a homophobic attack in Cluj

Some old news appeared in the Romanian queer blogosphere: on April 24, around 5.00 AM, a well-known drag queen from Cluj, Petruta, was severely beaten in front of a club by 4 men. The attackers used fists and chains and police is still on their tracks. The whole incident was filmed by the cameras of a close-by shopping center. The bloggers are asking for any type of information regarding the case in order to help the police which is not doing anything so far. While Cluj is perceived as a gay-friendly city where many events took place and where Petruta even won a contest for the best drag queen in 2008, homophobic attacks are on the rise and the queer community feels threatened.

Robert G., who blogs at darkq.net, the so-called gay Romania blog, mocks Petruta as “an honest and God-fearing boy” and explains the event as a reaction to her outrageous flirting with straight men on the street. While most of the people ignored her that night, two men could not take the offence and hit her twice in the face, not using chains. Shaming Petruta and victim-blaming are argued by the fact that another drag queen and a gay man were not hurt in the incident even if they were present! Robert criticizes the overreaction of the queer community, which complains again that it is discriminated when there is no apparent reason for that.

Alexalexutu comments that he was also attacked by 3 men in the same place on another occasion and even if there were many people present no one intervened (it is a very central location in Cluj).

Zoli_k accuses Petruta and her behavior for the event (she was nasty and uncivilized) by comparing her to other famous drag queens (Kaballa, Fernanda) who were never beaten on the street. For him, the whole situation is a sort of “What Lola wants, Lola gets”. To this comment, Kaballa responds that she was heavily beaten also and defends Petruta.

Petruta made a touchy statement when more voices accused her of a promiscuous behavior:  "Brothers, I didn’t yell “cock” and I wasn’t extremely drunk. I am sorry if I embarrass the community but I didn’t complain and I didn’t ask for anyone’s help. I am sorry about this post and for all this fuss that is not helping me with anything. For those who are bothered by my presence, it is their own business; I do not eat or drink from their table. Anyway, I thank those who wrote well about me and I do not care about those who wrote bad things, I didn’t shame your community and I did nothing against you. I didn’t go out in the media or TV to tell what happened to me.”

The blogger who posted the first article on the issue responded: “No one is happy for what happened to you, it is just the opinion of the people. Take it as a learning experience and pay attention to how you behave in the future.”

Starting with this particular case, some questions have to be asked: are drag queens marginalized in the Romanian queer community? What type of solidarity can be constructed within and outside this community? How to react in obvious violent cases of homophobia, transphobia and misogyny?

Anti-Gypsyism in Romania

Thomas Hammarberg

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg visited Romania and encouraged authorities to come up with a set of comprehensive measures to tackle pervasive discrimination against Roma: “Without resolute action to stamp out anti-Gypsyism, it will not be possible to help many Romanian Roma out of social exclusion and marginalisation.”

There was a growing international attention on Roma lately and Romanians reacted to it, from politicians to media to daily debates. Hammarberg perceives this context as an opportunity to advance Roma inclusion in Romania: “The necessary legal and institutional frameworks are in place, but anti-Roma sentiment in political discourse and the media is still a major problem”.

If you take a look at any online newspaper that has an article on Roma issues and check the comments you will find the most blatant anti-Roma opinions that are never addressed by these newspapers. These opinions that can come up in any conversation on Roma in Romania represent a long history of anti-Gypsyism and have direct effects on the lives of Romanian Roma.

As this article observes: "Rather than discussing which term should be used to designate the Roma population, emphasis should be put on educating the general public about Roma history. The slavery they were subjected to in Romania for several centuries, their mass deportation and extermination during the second World War and their forced assimilation during the Communist period have put them in an inferior position, the consequences of which they are still suffering from today."

No wonder that Roma people are forced  to leave Romania and face difficult and dangerous conditions in Western Europe, as their only escape from discrimination. As long as they do not exist as citizens, they do not have any rights and they are the target of daily and institutionalized racism, no wonder that they try to use their   freedom of movement, which should be respected unconditionally because they are still part of the European Union.

Detouring the Twitter Revolution

The current situation in Moldova, the failed Twitter Revolution, still keeps the local front pages. While I was watching angrily and astonished the daily events on different news channels, I couldn’t miss the Romanian detouring of the twitter revolution in two similar directions:

1. An increased wave of right wing and nationalist discourses in connection to the events, evident also in president Basescu’s discourse in front of the parliament yesterday, used in this particular case, for gathering a few votes from old school Romanian nationalists. The reactivation of right wing arguments on Romanianness and territorial expansion based on the Moldavians’ revolt is just sick and disrespectful.
2. Another invalidation of any Marxist or leftist discourse in the region by connecting it to the communist oppressive regime in Moldova. Principles of Prague declaration are seen now as a common sense reaction to the horrible violence in communist Moldova. With these events any type of leftist critique becomes outrageous and should be erased from our talk only if we actually do not agree with the state oppression in Moldova, of course. I was reading on some Romanian blogs, the simple support for any Marxist argument or leftist syndicate is seen as inappropriate in the new conditions created by the Moldavian events.

I am still surprised about the cynicism of all these local conservatives, how they cancel any type of oppression or sufferings of real people, in their offensive struggle to validate their own discourse. I really get the feeling that these characters do not care about people, or they care in a melodramatic way as long as they can be used for personal petty political purposes. And while hundreds of Moldavians are in arrest, beaten and killed by police, they continue their old fashioned rhetoric.

do you hear what I'm saying?

Romanian writers in Romania: out

via aglomerarispontane

Alexandru Vakulovski is one of the most successful and daring contemporary writers from Romania. Even if he is writing and publishing mainly in Romanian, he studied, worked and lived there for more than 10 years, he is kicked out of the country for not being a citizen. He was waiting for his papers for last 4 years: the answer came, he had to leave the country and get back to Moldova in 2 weeks. Now he is already there and he is forbidden to enter Romania for the next 2 and a half years.

At the same time, some football player born in Germany with no connection to Romania except for the fact that his parents have Romanian origin receives his citizenship papers in 2 days. but the national football team needs him.

Sandu Vakulovski is my friend and I worked with him for two performances in Cluj. I know how hard it was for him to live in Romania as a Moldavian, being constantly harassed by authorities, being restricted to get out of the country because he was not sure that he can ever return. I feel guilty and ashamed that he had to go through all this and no one did anything to actually help him. I didn't do anyhting. Now we are all shocked and in a few days we will forget about it.

Sandu taking me a photo, he is already on the other side of the mirror

It really makes me angry and unproud of having a Romanian passport. Have to find a way to get rid of my citizenship: if I can't give it to Sandu, it doesn't worth shit for me now.

Hard working honest Romanians

In Romanian culture there is a strong myth about hard working Romanian immigrants doing their duty. It is usually emphasized as a racist reaction to another cultural myth, Romanian Roma thieves & killers present all over Europe.

And these two images are all over media with no critical reaction to their racist connotations. I found this article in Daily Mail about a Romanian doctor. A pretty telling image for the "hard working Romanians" in Western countries:

A doctor who described her Asian colleagues as ‘orang-utans’ has been suspended by the General Medical Council.

Dr Silvia Baciu, 43, made the comments after claiming she had been subjected to insulting and threatening treatment because she was a white European.

But the NHS Trust she worked for accused her of racism and the GMC yesterday criticised her ‘unacceptable racial behaviour’.

Dr Baciu, who is originally from Romania, worked as a Senior House Officer in anaesthetics at Basildon Hospital, Essex, from June 2004 to November 2005.

After she left the department, she reuested a meeting with the Trust to discuss alleged

discrimination at the hands of her colleagues. She prepared a 12-page document to support her claims.

The GMC heard that she had written: ‘It’s not my fault that in the heads of senior Asian colleagues, there’s no difference between an educated white woman and a donkey. It’s not my fault that I was born in Europe and not

in South-East Asia, like other trainees. It’s not my fault that I’m white.

‘I dare to suggest to you, mon cher, that ( some doctors) are exempt from known immigration laws.

‘The brainy Asian males of this department can’t place themselves before the law.’

Dr Baciu, who lives in Northampton, added in the document that she feared that European science

would ‘disappear’ because there were so many Asian doctors.

She added: ‘The orang-utan section of the department is ready for action and I assure you of their effectiveness.’

Later in the document, Dr Baciu claimed she had been threatened and harassed and found attitudes towards her ‘very hard to endure’.

The GMC was told that Dr Baciu had problems adjusting to working in the UK. Craig Ferguson, for the GMC, also said there were concerns over her communication skills and her ability to complete written assessments.

Dr Baciu said that the word ‘orang-utan’ did not refer to the doctors’ appearance, but their aggressive and threatening behaviour, both in public and private.

But Mr Ferguson said: ‘Any reference to members of an ethnic group who differ from the dominant group in the UK because of the colour of their skin is racist, and any suggestion to the contrary is unsustainable.

'That this could be considered as anything other than racist is a nonsense.’

Suspending Dr Baciu for six months Ralph Bergman, who chaired the hearing, said: ‘The period of suspension will enable you to reflect on your unacceptable conduct, to take steps to become more aware of the unacceptability of racial behaviour and to satisfy a future panel that you have gained the necessary degree of insight.’

Mr Bergman added that Dr Baciu’s decision not to give evidence herself was concerning. The GMC recommended that she attend a training course in diversity before her case is reviewed later this year.

social political theatre: Nocturne

Mona Chirila, my professor of stage directing from Cluj, started a project at the local puppet theatre Puck. It is an adult social-political theatre, with an emphasis on feminism and Balkan women for 2009 performances. Tonight they have a new premiere with a play by Visniec that she directed: "The woman like a battlefield". It might look like a small project but considering the limited representations of conscious political performances in Romania, it can bring only admiration for the simple fact that it exists. I hope that it lives long and that I can be more of an active help for it.

This is their fresh webpage, only in Romanian.

Forbidden Milk

I was about to write a post about Gus van Sant's movie. I thought it was kind of softish, but a good initiative of mainstreaming alternative heroes. A sort of low-fat Milk in a genre framework of melodrama. Nancy Goldstein wrote an article on it: highly informative for those who are not so familiar with Harvey Milk and the struggles in Castro district, supporting my suspicions on the cleaninng up of the story but keeping the movie close to the genre specific. And not to mention how Sean Penn could fit the sympathetic direction of a straightened movie about a gay politician. A good-old Holywood style movie for everyone to watch.

I didn't write this post only to see today while reading some Romanian news that a Romanian commission for classifying movies, part of National Centre of Cinematography (CNC) rated Milk with R (or forbidden under 18 in Romania). Andreea Tanase, Cristina Corciovescu, Tudorel Butoi, Oana Stroe and Vladimir Marin, the members of the commission, took this decision because there are some images with a hanged man, fellatio and, most of all, it's propaganda for a specific sexual orientation. I would love to see how they forbid all movies that fit the framework of propaganda for specific sexual orientations, all those lovely romantic comedies and so on (but of course the only sexual orientations that are forbidden are the non-heterosexual one) . We should not forget that we are talking of a state institution here that shows right-in-your-face homophobia with an obscene nonchalance.

The only reaction came from the movie distributor, RoImage: they contested the decision. Fucking great. Goodnight, Romania! I hope I'll never see your ugly face again! The only place where Milk is forbidden for kids under 18.

Extremely scarry! Romanian values

European Values Survey from 2008 came out with some interesting data concerning Romanian values:

86% of Romanians think that religion is very important, this time more than Polish people. These values are higher outside Europe only in Iraq, Morocco, Indonesia or Rwanda. The religious element goes hand in hand with a wild capitalist individualist framework, last European values for voluntary work. A sort of metaphysical determinism fits the framework with a focus on a higher entity that decides, there are no social viable connections, each for its own, God can help me first, then the others, but it’s not my business anyway. A sociologist comments it in this article (only in Romanian), as a sort of social autism: a majority sociological syndrome designed for survival.

6% of the 1.488 interviewees consider politics important, while 74% consider it unimportant at all. These numbers go hand in hand with the 73% of desires for a strong leader, one that is not concerned with elections or the Parliament. “Only” 20% are convinced that a military regime means a better life for them. All these numbers are higher than any other European country can give.

16% Romanians trust people, much lower than in other European countries

75% are against abortion

63% are against divorce

91% think that homosexuality is not right

Family is seen as highly important by most of the interviewees in contrast to friendship. Actually, only in the Netherlands friends are more important than family but Romanians have one of the worst opinions on friendship in Europe and that makes me think… Why shouldn't we start changing thinks from here? Support Friendship! Subvert Romanian patriarchy, make a friend today!

Sergiu Nicolaescu vs Edward D Wood jr.

First of all, who the fuck is S.Nicolaescu? Considered the worst or the best Romanian director of all times, he begin his career as an engineer so much in love with cheap American gangster movies that he started to make them. You can still observe in his old movies from 1960s and 1970s the good-old-engineer eye for perfect imitation. He loved moral stories and also big Hollywood epics. He found his way to support his projects by the Communist Party in charge, of course with some compromises, which are better seen in his later nationalist movies, following the political lines of the dominant discourse. This is enough for introduction, I am sure there is a lot of stuff on Sergiu online, if you want to get into his plastic universe. What I want to write more about is his last movie, from 2008, The Survivor. He manages to resurrect one of his dear characters from the 1970s, a leftist police officer that fights the interwar gangsters. Now the setting is changed, the police officer escapes the communist hell from the 1970s and ends up in Prague where he plays Russian roulette for survival. All the good-old characters are there, a wonderful occasion for our ragged hero to remember: Sergiu brings in all the possible clichés of an afternoon action American movie to support some local bias, anti-Semitism (the evil Jew that hunts his memories, the Jew that has no consciousness when he destroys lives, it’s all for the money, get it, right?), racism (the musicians are toys in the hand of the evil Jew, they are “the sentimental gypsies”, the one “good” and faithful Roma is a small thief, a motif for friendly plain racist jokes with no motivation in the script, just for Sergiu’s own racist pleasure I guess), sexism (women have no lines, they are undressed and killed, insisting on cock-teasing details) and direct assholism. Sergiu’s success at the box office is given by a nostalgia for state socialist symbols that lead the way for some contemporary bigotism. One last thing to mention: the script for The Survivor won the money from the Romanian state institution for cinema when the script for 4,3,2 by Mungiu was only on the 4^th place.

Nicolaescu and Wood share same hysterical obsession for their self representation in their movies: it is all about them, their current age when the movie is made, their bodily portrait, their small obsessions and fetishes. Ed Wood became a cult hero in the eyes of contemporary yuppies as something extreme: “he is the worst”, a source for humor, without paying attention at his extreme subversion of Hollywood cinematography, narrations and characters. By comparing the worst Romanian director to the worst director of all times, there are some significant differences to point out: while Edward D. Wood jr. brings forth nonlinear scripts that sound crazy, his Angora fetish, his homosocial buddies and personal drags, Sergiu comes with a strong reiteration of the most conservative version of the status quo with all its deadly elements. They are both sincere and they both talk about themselves with ridiculous cinematic poetics: that marks the whole distinction.

But more about Eddie in future posts, his book Hollywood Rat Race is on my very short list to be read.

Camping in Bucharest

Selling carpets in Bucharest, around 1925

Camp has to do with posing. Maybe it is about the French origin of the word, maybe it is about the theatrical element of posing for an old photo or for a painting. Camp bodies express excess, dolce far niente, non-productivity, they escape the capitalist logic of production, of efficiency, of giving all you got, of dying on stage. It is always about something more, something in excess, something that goes beyond the expectations. I remember the perfect example: Odin actors were studying not photos but paintings to increase the theatricality of their movement on stage, to go beyond the every-day-life energy, to dilate their bodies. The reason was that there is an inherent excess there, the painted models have to stay for a long time in one position that cannot be efficient in a daily situation. A Camp situation. The same situation with our two characters from above: posing for a nice photo, they are acting excessive and they produce a nonchalant theatricality. A beautiful example of Camp. Bucharest style.

Jingle Bells / Shotgun shells / Granny's on the run...

1956 Grandpa shows grandma how to shoot a gun

To quote an old movie from the 50's, I guess when you're looking down the barrel of a shotgun, everything else looks out of focus.

UPDATE: Yes! They are my "real" grandparents! 1956 is the year when my father was born, their first son.

Free Vakulovski!

My Friend Sandu Vakulovski got censored in Cluj for a tough criticism on online masturbation of hegemonic masculinity. Read the whole censored chapter, Futu-ţi morţii mă-tii, from his online novel Mănăştur Mon Amour here. (only in Romanian)

just a sample:


E atâta tristeţe în viaţa ta, aşa că o nouă zi nu poate începe altfel decât cu o nouă labă, cu care îţi întăreşti bătăturile şi bubele de pe pula ta robinet de pişat. Laba e un ritual pentru tine, nu e ceea ce pare, când copiii te văd pe stradă cu pantalonii pătaţi şi se cacă pe ei de râs, de râs de tine, că eşti un labagiu incurabil.

Te plimbi cu punga prin oraş şi nu ştii pe unde să-ţi mai verşi tristeţea de clujean futut, nebăgată în seamă de absolut nimeni, poate din când în când de câţiva huligani care râd de tine, doar râd, nici măcar nu te scuipă în gură, eşti atât de mic şi insignifiant, fix ca un căcat de câine de care toată lumea se fereşte, până când gunoierii ies dimineaţa la acţiune, îl strâng cu scârbă şi îl aruncă.

Din când în când mai încerci să socializezi, cu vânzătoarele de la chioşcuri, când îţi iei pufuleţi, dar eşti rapid pus la respect, ţi se trântesc pufuleţii în faţă şi eşti rugat să te cari în pizda mă-tii, căci mai sunt oameni în rând care nu au chef să piardă timpul cu un futut ca tine.

Te întorci acasă şi tristeţea ta metafizică începe să se transforme în furie. Că eşti un neînţeles, nimeni nu te ascultă, nu te vrea, nu te iubeşte. Aşa că mai fuţi. Mai fuţi o labă. Ca să te descarci, ca să te împlineşti. Dar tristeţea şi furia îţi sunt stopate doar parţial, simţi că mai poţi, că ăsta nu e ultimul tău cuvânt, aşa că mai bagi o labă.

Ţi se trezeşte o poftă de informare şi de cultură, aşa că deschizi compu’. Intri pe situri cu fete şi băieţi cu curul gol. Ar merge şi unele şi alţii, dacă te-ar băga în seamă, dar cum nu, chiar nu, chiar deloc, dar absolut deloc, niciodată, nicicum... mai tragi o labă.

Ţi se trezeşte spiritul civic. Intri pe Clujeanul, să te informezi, să vezi cine şi ce a mai zis, ce a comentat altul, cu cine s-a futut cineva, ce evenimente se organizează în următoarea perioadă şi cine cât de la cine a mai furat. Eşti foarte nervos şi furios. Tragi o labă. Cu alta te cruceşti.

Te enervează aştia foarte tare. Citeşti şi mori de nervi. Eşti sigur că tu eşti mai tare, mai cult, mai deştept şi mai frimos ca ăia care scriu, dar... tu n-ai noroc. Pe tine nimeni nu te bagă în seamă, cu tine nu vorbeşte nimeni, pe tine nici mama ta nu te iubeşte. Eşti trist şi neînţeles. Îţi aminteşti că ai învăţat la şcoală că şi Eminescu era trist şi neînţeles. Asta îţi dă speranţe. Te gândeşti că poate şi tu vei fi ca el, măcar după moarte. Şi bagi o labă.

Nicu and his dwarf

I took this photo a couple of years ago. We were in first year of directing school playing some object games and Nicu came with this weird garden dwarf. Pretty cool.

/wrists : the emo danger

I had enough. Every day I read or hear negative news about emos, these kids between 11 and 17, always crying, always sad, extreme posers and suicidal. Everyone agrees that they are completely ridiculous, dangerous for themselves and others and they need some good therapy.
Young girls accused of being emo deny it with a lot of anger. Same situation with the bands. At some point you wonder if there is such a thing as emo. But what is behind this entire mainstream story that I apparently cannot escape?
In Eastern Europe reactions to this subculture take a classical expression: another dangerous Western import that destroys our children. Jokes on emos’ expense got here in poor translations from English, other local jokes are adapted and all of them create a new category to make fun of. But in relation to them, another-dangerous-alienating-element-that-we-should-beware comes in discussion: internet and its destructions, how massively it influenced emo subculture.
Parents are affected also by this media interest in emos, they are scared that their child can become emo and kill themselves. Clinical discourse intervenes here: from the first signals that parents or teachers are dealing with an emo, they should send the sick person to a therapist.
In 2008 in Mexico reactions against emos started to get organized. Various anti-emo groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro, and Tijuana as an opened reaction to their queerness. This aspect is highly emphasized by their critics everywhere, they are directly accused of being queer or gay, in relation to their display of emotions and tenderness together with their fashion statement where differences between emo girls and boys are missing. Queerness is often associated with the theatricality of their display, a hysterical symptom of grabbing attention.
In Russia, a law is about to be voted by Duma to ban emo websites and emo fashion at schools or state buildings, based on the assumption that emo is a dangerous teen trend promoting anti-social behaviour and suicide.
In Romania, Timisoara Police created a collective to prevent events where emo kids are involved. They go in schools to talk to parents about emos. On the other hand, Romanian Orthodox Church reacted also on several times on the emo danger, considered framed by a bigger move away from traditional values and morality. Priests spoke freely about the involved manipulation, corruption and destruction of contemporary Western subject. Romanian newspapers signal that in every school there are at lest 2-3 kids that are emo, especially fifth and sixth grade and are complaining about lack of statistics regarding emo kids.
Emos are attacked on music and fashion grounds as lacking authenticity and being lame copies of Goths, punks or Japanese manga characters. Attention-grabbing effect, posing and histrionic behaviour are generating a whole subculture bashing. Journalists share a charming optimism: soon enough this fashion will die like all the others. Soon enough they hope. What can I say, things haven’t changed much: it was the same reaction towards women in the nineteenth century, as soon as they became visible, having a voice, hysteria came into place to put into mental institutions the most active ones. These teenagers have a voice now, quite a strong one, and with similar tactics are put down exactly like hysterical women a while ago. Besides the hysterical elements of emo culture that I mentioned here and are constantly under attack, there is one more “dangerous” in its subversiveness: their struggle against sexual difference. Many of the jokes are making fun of boys’ lack of masculinity and their queerness. I wonder how a 12 years old can act more masculine…but the main issue here is the heard voice of this generation that has clearly something to say. The response to teenagers’ demand for agency is a typical one: institutionalizing and silencing.