Peter Shalit writes to GLAAD about his dad

[kweerwolf]

Gene Shalit may not have liked Brokeback Mountain, but he loves his gay son and is not homophobic—so says Shalit's son Peter in an emotional letter to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation dated Monday.

"It is precisely because my dad is not homophobic that he felt free to criticize the movie as he saw it," wrote Peter Shalit, an openly gay physician and author who lives in Seattle and is a longtime supporter of GLAAD.

Shalit said he felt GLAAD's press release about the NBC Today show review, broadcast on Thursday, was a "mischaracterization" of his father. The GLAAD release urged viewers to write to NBC to complain about Gene Shalit's characterization of the Jake Gyllenhaal character in Brokeback Mountain as a "sexual predator."

By suggesting Gene Shalit was homophobic, GLAAD had "defamed a good man, by falsely accusing him of a repellent form of bigotry," Peter Shalit wrote to the group's entertainment media director, Damon Romine, and president, Neil Guiliano.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid24216.asp

[ronnykmarshall]

1. Good for his son.

But Gene is still a fucking prick.

[otohara]

2. But It's True - He Would Not Have Characterized

Leo DeCaprio as a sexual predator and Kate Winslet the victim in Titanic.

[mzteris]

3. Yeah - methinks

Gene still has some issues to deal with here.

[joeybee12]

4. Why did he use the term "sexual predator"??? Gene needs to state

AT LEAST that he used the wrong term very, very inappropriately, and Peter needs to let his father know this.

[mitchtv]

5. Whatever Peter says

Gene's choice of language is entirely inappropriate, and an insult to real victims.