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| Thursday January 26th, 2012 |
by Kevin HealeyIn the music section of yesterday's Village Voice, Andy Beta doled out advance praise for tonight's performance of Antony & The Johnsons at Radio City Music Hall. A transgendered artist/musician with an otherworldly voice, Antony Hegarty has risen to international prominence from the New York City underground art scene. His work joins themes of femininity, spirituality and the natural environment. Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, "Swanlights" is the culmination of years of work and will feature a 60-piece orchestra and elaborate lighting design. But even as Hegarty's work receives enthusiastic reviews, its relegation to the music and entertainment sections of mainstream papers and trade magazines highlights problems in journalistic coverage of the religiously unaffiliated—a.k.a. the "nones."
Tellingly, the most high-profile transgender news story of recent days was driven by a campaign to boycott the Girl Scouts after a Colorado troop accepted a 7-year-old transgender boy named Bobby Montoya. In a YouTube video that quickly went viral, a teen Scout named Taylor urges others not to sell cookies until the organization could guarantee "a true, all-girl experience" and a "safe environment"—presumably by excluding boys like Bobby. Taylor's video was the latest effort from Honest Girl Scouts, a group advocating a return to "traditional" values. While the video sparked a backlash as LGBTQ supporters vowed to increase their orders for Thin Mints, conservative response was also palpable. At one Christian school in Louisiana, three troops disbanded in protest. And as GLAAD suggests, mainstream coverage has perpetuated conservative prejudices. Appearing on CNN, Dr. Alduan Tartt suggested that Bobby's mother was "damaging" her son by indulging his desire to join the Girl Scouts, though such comments contradict the American Psychological Association's position on transgender issues. CNN's decision to interview Tartt—a Christian motivational speaker of Joel Osteen ilk—suggests that in mainstream coverage religious ideology may trump professionalism.
It is precisely such "traditional" religious values that Antony has sought to overcome in his work. Raised Catholic, he now rejects what he deems the "masculine" and "patriarchal" bias of traditional religion and has sought inspiration from "a feminine spiritual system." A concern for the natural environment is an essential part of his vision. For Antony, transgender and environmental issues are inseparable. "I see them as parallel issues… the subjugation of women is critical to understanding the subjugation and destruction of the ecology," he told the Village Voice. While songs like "Rapture" and "My Lord, My Love" reflect his Christian background, others like "Another World" articulate his environmental concerns.
As a successful, religiously unaffiliated public figure with a mature spiritual vision, Antony is a consummate "none." In fact, the percentage of "nones" who believe that "stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost" is higher than that of evangelicals, mainline Protestants or Catholics. The unaffiliated tend to be younger as well. If journalists wish to understand the future of American spirituality, then adequate coverage of the unaffiliated is essential. But several factors make such coverage difficult. Covering a disorganized set of unaffiliated groups requires the type of sustained reporting that makes issues like poverty difficult to address in mainstream news. And while there are notable figures like Antony, by definition there are no elites who claim to speak for the whole. This problem is compounded by the fact that, while roughly 16 percent of Americans are "nones," they have no representation in Congress. Political debates reflect traditional religious affiliations, marginalizing alternatives. If the unaffiliated seek transcendence outside the church or synagogue—e.g. in the theater or music hall—coverage is handled by reporters whose expertise is in music and entertainment, not religion.
Given these constraints, it is not surprising that "People can more easily imagine the collapse of the world than they can imagine stepping away from capitalism or patriarchy," as Antony suggests. Improved coverage is a small part of the process of re-imagining. Reflecting on his success, Antony tells the Village Voice that seeing his band's name on the marquee at Radio City Music Hall reminds him of the legacy of Stonewall and inspires in him a "future dream." A more equitable, sustainable media environment might ensure that a boy like Bobby Montoya might share in that dream—namely the recognition that, as Antony says defiantly, "I am as American as it gets."
Kevin Healey currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship through the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Kevin's research on media and religion appears in Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and Symbolic Interaction. His co-edited volume on the "prophetic" critique of popular media is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2012.
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