Am I Blue?

I think that the conflict in "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville is mainly person vs society issue.The main character/narrator, Vincent(or Vince), is trying to figure out whether he is gay or not. He is constantly bullied and tormented for being a homosexual. The story goes into the issues of gaybashing and how people don't realize how many gay people there are in the world. One small theme in the story is revealing how full of gay people the world really is. Its a fictitious story and so they accomplish this feat by turning every gay person "coast to coast" blue.

I think that Bruce Coville has a great imagination and really uses it throughout the piece- everyone who is gay is blue and there are different shades of blue. Some people (like Vince) are only slightly blue while others are "as blue as a summer sky". I think that using this imaginative idea really helps the reader grasp the concept of the story without feeling that the moral is forced on to them. I think the story helps people realize that the society hating gays is wrong because its just who they are.

In the story Vince meets his fairy godfather, Melvin for the first time. Melvin is a man who was killed by gaybashers and when in heaven decided to become a fairy godfather. Vince is skeptical when he first meets Melvin but when he realizes that he really is magic he starts to listen to what he has to say.With Melvin's help he ends up wishing for the third of "The Great Gay Fantasies". The third fantasy is that every gay person in the country would turn blue for a day. The point of this would be so that all of the gay people who were "In hiding" could finally come out. and it would also force "all the straights in the world stop imagining that they didn't know any gay people." in other words everyone would realize that normal people could be gay. I think its great that people are writing about this because it is a real world issue even though some people do not want to acknowledge it. I don't personally know any homophobes but I know that they're out there.

On that subject a detail in the story was that a "Hypocritical" congressman who "Happened to be a notorious republican homophobe" was gay. As was Vince's main bully- Butch Carrigan- who repeatedly beat up Vince for being gay. I think its sad that people would do that but its probably out of fear- that its wrong and that they don't understand why they feel that way. But maybe if the people who didn't like gays realized that they can be normal people too than maybe they wouldn't hate them as much. I think if a person who hated gays because they thought that being gay was wrong or too different realized that their best friend of ten years has been secretly gay the whole time maybe he or she would realize that normal people can be gay, and also people that you could be friends with for ten years.

Vince doesn't completely know whether or not he himself is gay but he is beat up and called "Faggot, Fruit, and Fairy" anyway. This gives him a personal knowledge of  how terrible gaybashing is. I think that gaybashing is just terrible and serious and that people have no reason to do it. I think that if you have a problem with someone it has to be a real issue that you have with them not just that they're gay or lesbian or not. I know lots of gay and lesbian couples and I think that they are all amazing, interesting people who have just as much personality as everyone else. They're normal respectable people and i just wish that everyone would understand that.

I really liked this story, it was full of creativity, imagination, and truth. The world is full of amazing, normal, great, gay people and if it takes turning everyone who is gay blue for people to accept it than I hope someday something like that will happen. Bring on "Blueday".