This Navy Scandal Is Overrated, If You Ask Me

In case you haven't caught up with the latest tempest in a teapot, a Navy Captain with the improbably delicious name of Owen Honors has been fired because of a series of videos he produced for the on-board amusement of sailors during his stint as executive office of the USS Enterprise in 2006 and 2007. Now, before anyone gets worked up over the breathless newspaper descriptions of the material in question (raunchy, explicit, controversial), they should take a look at the 12:09 video embedded in this Salon article (before it is blocked by someone):

http://www.salon.com/life/gender/?story=/mwt/feature/2011/01/04/navy_scandal

OK, yes, there is definitely politically incorrect humor there, but nothing worse than you would see on a cable comedy show, and a lot less than you would get on the average episode of South Park. The tone of the video from where I sit is light-hearted, cheeky, and po-mo; frequently, on Captain Honors' part, self-deprecating and good-sportish; certainly not vicious -- this isn't another Abu Ghraib, folks. I laughed out loud at several bits. Is this particular video homophobic? Probably, but then so is Jimmy Kimmels's infamous "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" (which I also laughed at, a bit uneasily) Does the video enforce straight male in-group norms, as anthropologist Lionel Tiger discusses in the Salon article? Undoubtedly. But the video is rather sophisticated and well-made for an amateur piece -- I liked the scene with the doubled Captain Honors -- and one could easily argue that what it is "saying" about gender and sexual orientation is not all that simple, and that it is hard to know whether the complexities are intentional or not. If we can credit that Jimmy Kimmel's intentions are ironic, why not Captain Honors'? There is always a lot of sexual tension aboard a Navy ship, and the video both reflects that and, in its clumsy, no doubt inappropriate way, tries to defuse it. I think it would be nice to keep a sense of proportion here; I don't believe this is a hanging offense, or worth ruining a Naval officer's career over. Slap him on the wrist and be done with it. Otherwise we're just sacrificing Captain Honors to the media's need for continuous scandal. If the facts are no worse than what we now know, I would sign a petition on his behalf.

Honesty does compel me to admit that Captain Honors is pretty hot, especially in his bathrobe, and you are welcome to read my defense of him in that light. Life is complicated, and none of our motives are quite pure.