welcome to unvaccinated america’s temper tantrum.
Hot vax summer is done, Delta is here and unvaccinated Americans have no one to blame but themselves.
Queering the Burbs is a weekly-ish distillation of pop culture, politics and queerness. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing (it’s free!), liking or sharing this piece.
Last weekend was a special treat many months in the making for my husband and I. To celebrate his birthday weekend, we hopped in the car and drove the 135 miles to one of our favorite small towns — Davenport, Iowa — to see one of our favorite bands — the mysterious queer country crooner Orville Peck.
The weekend marked both our first hotel stay and first indoor concert in almost two years. And it truly cannot be emphasized enough how much we both missed that full experience of a night out — getting a little too tipsy on cocktails at the hotel bar, staying out a little later than you’d planned, chomping on chips to satisfy those late-night vacation snack urges. There’s no Zoom in the world that can match the giddying excitement of the lights coming down and a band taking the stage. Nor the carefree and simple pleasures of sleeping in a bed you don’t have to make, and marathoning Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on a TV you don’t own.
But I’m afraid our brief return to the Before Times was fleeting (R.I.P. Fleets). As you’ve surely heard by now, new data from the CDC has shown that vaccinated people who contract a (very rare) breakthrough infection of the Delta variant of Covid can spread the virus. As a result, the CDC has now changed its mask guidance and is now calling for a return to indoor masking in public places. At the same time, the seven-day average of new Covid cases has already surpassed last summer’s peak, while hospitals in highly vaccine-resistant states like Louisiana and Florida are being pummeled anew by the pandemic.
What makes this so incredibly upsetting is that this all could have been avoided. The vaccines for Covid work exceptionally well — yes, even against the Delta variant — and they have been freely available for many months now. But even as the CDC now labels this a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” it appears that the approximately 100 million eligible Americans who have yet to get the vaccine refuse to accept blame for the Delta variant’s surge. Instead, according to a newly published Ipsos poll, the most common culprits named by unvaccinated Americans include “foreigners traveling to the U.S,” Americans traveling internationally, the “mainstream media” and (of course) Joe Biden.
Unvaccinated Americans’ apparent inability to take responsibility for their inaction on Covid is incredibly upsetting but not surprising. If you’re eligible for the vaccine and intentionally unvaccinated (and don’t have a medical reason to do so), this old phrase that someone else wrote a few years back seems to apply: I simply don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.
I also don’t know how else to explain to you, an adult human, that actions have consequences. The concert in Iowa, hosted at the just-reopened Raccoon Motel, required that all guests provide proof of vaccination before being admitted to the show. When the venue announced this policy a day before the show (reportedly at the artist’s request), I felt incredibly grateful to see the venue taking such a responsible step to protect the health of its guests and the talent. While many commenters expressed similar sentiments on the venue’s Facebook page, many others sure didn’t see it that way. Various individuals requesting refunds called the policy “communism,” equated the policy with Nazism and claimed they were being discriminated against.
As more and more artists, venues, employers, cities and states follow the lead of the likes of indie pop act Japanese Breakfast or Chicago nightlife institution The Metro in requiring that individuals show proof of vaccination in order to enter their venue or catch their concert, I’m sure we will continue to hear the cry of discrimination from this crowd. (Not to mention the fact that major employers like Tyson Foods are also moving to require that their employees get vaccinated. Airlines, it’s your move now.)
But aren’t these people (many, though not all) the same sort of folks who say that private businesses should be able to deny wedding cakes to same-sex couples? That the marketplace should decide?
In the face of a global pandemic and incredibly real public health threat, artists and venues that were abruptly forced out of business for reasons completely out of their control are making decisions to protect themselves and their industry and attempt to avoid being shut down yet again. Give them grace as they make these decisions. Beyond that, it is simply the responsible thing to do in order to protect the communities in which these businesses are based and where attendees of these events live (here’s looking at you, Lollapalooza).
So how is that discrimination? If you don’t like it, don’t support these businesses. Better yet, get yourself vaccinated. But don’t waste your time harassing small businesses and independent artists who are trying their best to keep you and your community safe, while also surviving as a business themselves. Pull yourself up by those bootstraps and move it along, folks.
***
BRING ON THE LINKS (what I’m reading, watching, listening to and thinking about this week):
Needing a break from the live horror movie that was Hulu’s Lollapalooza live stream the other day, I switched over to Music Box: Woodstock 99 - Peace, Love and Rage on HBO Max. The new documentary highlights the slow-burning disaster that was the music festival — which touted a nearly all-male lineup headlined by the likes of Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Korn and (inexplicably) Alanis Morissette among a grand total of three (yes, three) female acts — and argues, effectively, that this event was a warning of the toxic masculinity that came to flourish in the years ahead. It’s absolutely horrific, and absolutely worth a watch.
I haven’t been watching too much of the Olympics in Tokyo — as you may have guessed, based on my figure skating obsession I’m more of a Winter Olympics viewer — but I love the fact that Olympic all-around gymnastics champion Suni Lee celebrated her win with a pizza dinner (while keeping her gold medal on).
Bravo’s Family Karma just ended its second season on air, and I’m going to need everyone reading this to write their senators requesting that a third season start production immediately. This show is so full of heart that when cast member Amrit Kapai announced last week that his family’s beloved matriarch had just passed away, I cried like I knew her myself. In an incredibly touching scene earlier in the season, Kapai came out to his grandmother and sought her blessing ahead of his upcoming wedding to boyfriend Nicholas. The scene that followed is one of the most touching things I’ve ever seen on television. Below, Kapai describes the scene. R.I.P., Nani.
On July 27, 2021, Emma Roberts said “thank you gays and everyone else” for making this Instagram video of the actress vibing to a Lana Del Rey song go viral. I love American history.
Hallmark Channel queen Candace Cameron Bure just issued an apology to her fans after being accused of dancing seductively with the Bible to, again, a Lana Del Rey song. This controversy is a level of absurd I just can’t quite unpack but I’m going to be thinking about it for a long time.
Speaking of apologies, rapper DaBaby just attempted to issue one for the anti-gay remarks that caused him to lose at least six music festival gigs, but the apology is not enough. Author George M. Johnson explains why in Them and this one sentence alone puts it quite bluntly: “DaBaby’s comments weren’t just toxic — they were dangerous.”
Speaking of homophobia, Matt Damon just said he recently stopped using the word “f*****” when referring to gay men after his daughter wrote him a “long, beautiful treatise.” (Why he said this, we’ll never know…) Now, introducing Meg Stalter as Matt Damon’s daughter:
.jpg){kind=link}
Britney Spears accidentally locked herself in her own bathroom, and can’t stop posting topless photos of herself to Instagram. There is never a dull moment in the quest to #FreeBritney.
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher just revealed (again, why????) that they only bathed their kids as infants when they saw visible dirt on them. Child me who hated bath time would love this, but adult me? I’m sorry but I want nothing to do with stinky babies. So many unforced errors among the wealthy white Hollywood elite this week.
An animated series based on the viral Twitter account @ChicagoPartyAunt is coming to Netflix next month, and will feature voice talent like Lauren Ash (Superstore), Ike Barinholtz (The Mindy Project) and RuPaul. I’m ready.
Listen, maybe this may be rude but I’m typically not really here for songs sung by straight men. (Sorry, straight men.) But the opener for Orville Peck might have converted me. Christian Lee Hutson is a frequent Phoebe Bridgers collaborator and he pens a similar style of depressing and catchy, confessional folk songs. Here’s “Northsiders.”