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I hate gay people.

Let me correct that: I hate Gay People. You know, the type who don’t look before they leap into outrage, shock, and righteous indignity at some pariah before proceeding to feast their egos on the crucifixion of the Homophobe du Jour.

For those of you who aren’t following the latest installment of Pop Culture Egos at War, here’s the Skinny Minnie. Newsweek writer Ramin Setoodeh wrote a piece about how gay actors do not play convincing straight characters. Promptly, the creators of Glee, Kristin Chenoweth, and every freakin’ writer at Entertainment Weekly freaked the hell out and threw every piece of mud they could muster. All in the name of tolerance.

The piece itself raises some interesting points. I haven’t seen Promises, Promises and would probably rather jump off the Empire State Building while singing “Defying Gravity” than watch Glee*, but I can definitely understand how Sean Hayes playing straight may be a stretch and how Jonathan Groff’s heterosexual passability may not have the same power under the cold, harsh light of television cameras than it has in the large open theater. There are indeed performances of gay-playing-straight(such as Farley Granger trying to pass in Strangers on a Train) which seem awkward.

*[EDIT: I did watch an episode after writing this entry. Dear God, it was worse than I ever could have thought. And actually quite disturbing in its pandering to its gay audience.]



Furthermore, we cannot deny that actors’ personal lives sometimes do inevitably enter our minds when watching a movie. I thought Rock Hudson was mostly very strong in All That Heaven Allows, but must admit I snickered when Jane Wyman asks if he likes girls or something along those lines. Another Sirk film, Imitation of Life, plays off a scandal in which the star Lana Turner had just been involved. Peter Bogdonavich’s maligned masterpiece They All Laughed seeks to destroy the lines between actor and character and uses current events from the actors' lives to inform the story. Even Entertainment Weekly, the Gaston (or at least the Lefou) of this angry mob, has made jokes about why Ellen’s 90s film, Mr. Wrong, is indeed so wrong.

The natural response is that acting is all about pretending to be someone you are not. True. Straight actors can play gay characters, gay actors can play straight characters, modern actors can play British accented members of the Roman Empire, skinny actors can put on fat suits, old actors can be creepily deaged via CGI, actors in the thirties can play high school students, and Robert Downey Jr. can play himself were he to own robot armor. Though, in a short (yay word limit!) piece I wrote for the Tufts Daily, I began to investigate the general anxiety one can have around play-acting if one thinks too hard. The locus of this anxiety, of course, is blackface. Without rehashing my complete argument, I will say that the only time we freeze and say “NO!” is when crossing racial lines. Like Green Lantern Corps Members, our illogical weakness is a color. Even if the portrayal were realistic, there would be (hell, there was with RDJ in Tropic Thunder) controversy over the choice.

Both now and then I made the argument not to a definite end, but just as food for thought. Maybe the Newsweek writer should have framed his as that as well, though I feel the backlash would be similar. I evoke it now to show that there are limits to how comfortable we feel pretending. So, while unpleasant and certainly unpopular, the point of the article is at least worth considering. It may not be inclusive of every gay actor, but some certainly should not try to play straight. Such attempts are as awkward as when a gorgeous female tries to pass for average or ugly in a movie or an American simply cannot do a proper English accent to save his life. Yes, both of these are also conventions of Hollywood, but I never said I supported them either. I agree that if one goes, they all should go, and please make them all go away. Would you buy Carey Mulligan playing King Lear in a non-modern-twist adaptation? Of course not. Sometimes who you are does impede your option of roles.

To be fair, the options of roles for a queeny gay man or a butch lesbian are scant. Maybe the creators of Glee and Kristin Chenoweth should attack bigger problems such as that instead of using this opportunity to grab attention for themselves and their show. Instead of using this issue to bring about a real difference, they tell the fans (many of them gay theater people) exactly what they want to hear (“Homophobia is bad!” “You can play any role you want!”) to continue garnering support and iTunes sales. But what about the fact that most gay actors have to play straight roles since there are significantly more straight roles out there? Why not demand more gay roles? Or would that anger the real powers-that-be too much? It's much easier to pick on a journalist who is probably making about 30 grand a year.

Or is the larger issue that a gay actor is a “gay actor” while a straight actor is just an “actor?” Gay is still the weird in society. A show with all gay characters (or even three out of over ten characters like Brothers & Sisters) is a gay show, but no one would ever complain that Friendsis a straight show (or a white show, since this issue is also present in race). Instead of trying to ignore that and hush it all under the rug, should this issue be confronted (which seemed the point of the Newsweek article)?

Or should we all just be like Neil Patrick Harris?

In a way, Neil Patrick Harris is the worst thing to ever happen to the gay community.* He’s a modern-day castrati. Don't believe me? Let’s all pause for a minute and try to picture Neil Patrick Harris sucking a cock.

[*Well, after Prop 8, the Holocaust, electroshock therapy and get-straight camps, Iran's death penalty, Leviticus, that annoying line in 300 where Leonidas dismisses the Athenians as “boy-lovers” when the macho Spartans were actually more into pederasty, the Victorian Age, etc.]

I can’t do it either. And I can think of a lot of people sucking cocks. Cary Grant. Ryan Reynolds. Woody from Toy Story 1-3. But I can’t imagine Neil Patrick Harris doing it. Anal sex? Uh-uh. Heck, I tried to google him kissing a man to at least put that image into my head and the most I could find was a chaste peck on his “boyfriend’s” cheek (if you ask me, that’s whatever you call a gay beard…goatee perhaps?). Why can I not match NPH with his sexuality? Because Neil Patrick Harris is the gay you can bring home to Mama, if Mama is a housewife living in a red state. He sings, he dances, but he won’t do nasty things like cum in or on a guy or shove his tongue down some man’s throat.



His continued insistence on (or perhaps requirement to) playing straight characters is a problem. In a need for acceptance and a career, he has forsaken his sexuality even after coming out. He will sing for you and dance for you, but you needn’t ever worry about seeing him locking lips with his boy-toy. He will perform with scantily clad girls in the introduction to the Oscars and it’s oh-so-charming because we needn’t worry about him humping them or even worse running into the audience to straddle Matt Damon or Peter Saarsgard. His gayness extends no further than his superior musical abilities; it has none of that nasty need for sexual gratification or intimacy. People can laugh at his antics on How I Met Your Mother and vote to deny gay people to right to marry and feel nothing wrong about it, because it’s not like Neil Patrick Harris is one of those types anyway.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on ol' Neily. Like I said, he had to enter this Faustian contract so that he can continue to play straight Barney on HIMYM. If anything, he illustrates more than anyone the point of the Newsweek article. Even when out, Harris is on a constant dash back into the closet so that he can have a career. He’s as closeted as an out gay man can be. And you can't truly hate the closetee; he's just a symptom of the problem.

And, even if offensive, the Newsweek article was pointing to a problem. It may not have been phrased the right way and an argument or two may have been a slight bit off, but instead of using it to propel us to true thought, the Gleeks and their gods have ducked, covered, thrown their fingers into their ears while singing "Lalala" in perfect pitch, and then gone about business as usual. After all, it's so much easier to label someone a homophobe in chorus than to delve into some dark and disturbing realities, isn't it? Of course, what can I expect from musical people?

Sorry for the lack of entries lately. It’s been a perfect storm of nice weather keeping me outside, new job keep me busy, and general comfort in life keeping me unstressed (which means I don’t have to get out my stress via blogging). Anyway, I’m about 75% done with an entry on Kick-Ass, but this matter takes precedent. Oh, as for the title, it's a poem by Richard Lovelace from the 17th century about how he digs fat chicks. You'll see why I used it.

People magazine named Gabourey Sidibe one of the Most Beautiful People of 2010.

What.
The.
Fuck.

Now, let me preface this statement (and this very preface, while necessary, sadly plays into a point I will later make) that I do believe that Sidibe is talented and did an excellent job in Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. But talent does not equal beauty. In fact, people seem all too willing to acknowledge the opposite. Elisha Cuthbert and Meghan Fox may get movie and television roles, but no one is ever going to proclaim that they deserve Oscar nominatiosn. Well, no one aside from the very ironic and some hormone-addled boys. But, paradoxically, if a woman is talented, suddenly she’s beautiful as well.

No, that is not the case. This situation reminds me a lot of the term “athletic intelligence.” If someone can play basketball well, they are “athletically intelligent.” No, they are athletic. The term is as ridiculous as “mathlete,” except one is universally recognized as ludicrous, while the other is taught is education courses. While albeit selective (and not just to one group, since Gabby is more of a mathlete than an athletically intelligent girl), there’s a growing trend in our culture that if someone is very good at one thing, they must be very good at everything. Someone who is athletic also is as intelligent in their own way as the valedictorian. The best actress nominee is a page away from Miley Cyrus. My dog Vito is adorable and charismatic. That being said, he sucks at long division. My ability to do close readings of Renaissance Drama has not aided me in learning to drive stick shift.

Furthermore, there is something almost disturbing in the idea that anyone who is successful is also beautiful. Instead of "depowering" beauty to make it an available, accessible commodity to whomever has enough clout, we are elevating it to a status that makes it tantamount to success. If you are successful/smart/talented etc., then you are beautiful. Therefore, whoever we do not consider beautiful is clearly none of those other things. The so-called "inner beauty" is only reflected in some form of outer beauty.

But, of course, inner beauty is not beauty. It’s a fallacious term for character. In fact, it is downright synaesthesia. A personality cannot be any more beautiful than it can be salty, aromatic, or fluffy. Is a compelling personality better than beauty? Yes. But it’s not beauty. Just as a fine bottle of wine is not a McDonald’s hamburger. And don’t try to say “It’s a different type of beauty.” Because if you wouldn’t A) bed that person or B) all things being equal, trade looks with that person*, then I have a hard time believing you. Furthermore, even Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire implicitly acknowledges how ugly Sidibe is. Actually, such unfortunate looks make her daydreams of being a beautiful starlet even sadder and more pathetic. Were Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire a complete Cinderella-tale with a beautiful girl in rags, the revelry would be more prophetic or even haughty. No, they needed a repugnant face. And they got one.

[*What I mean is, I wouldn’t swap looks with Meryl Streep (even though she is beautiful), because she’s a 55-year-old woman. Were I a woman of 55, I would very likely love to look like Meryl Streep.]

But, of course, there is the cult of Gabby Sidibe. The cult, as one of my friends has pointed out, is similar to the one of Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle is a great singer. Of course, had the voice been put into a 35-year-old who was reasonably attractive (or at least average looking), she might’ve been voted as having talent, but no one would've cared. People rally around her because, well, who ever would have thought that an ugly fat old woman had any talent? In fact, the very support is insulting.

The situation is similar with Gabby. Because she’s so fat and hideous but somehow has managed to break into Hollywood, everyone is falling over themselves praising her and to speak ill against her is akin to declaring God is dead in the middle of 1690s Salem. Hence, my preface. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly essentially has a weekly job of tearing apart the latest SNL episode. While, granted, the show is not in its heyday, he attacks each one as vehemently as if it were an aberration in an otherwise immaculate season. Except while Sidibe hosted last week. Then, he praised the show like it was the star-jock/mathlete and he was a pubescent girl who just thought it was the bee’s knees. Or, actually, more like Gabby was the bee’s knees. In actuality, the show was as uneven and awkward as ever. He praised “Crazy Lady Yelling From Window” as refreshing. In actuality, the sketch was a half-funny idea that went on far too long and had the requisite SNL failing of having a character who points out the obvious disconnect between what one character is saying and reality. Furthermore, when posters disagreed, he immediately fired back, which I’ve never seen an Entertainment Weekly recapper do before, and I go on that site far too much.

In short, Gabby is every Hollywood reporter’s token friend. I would say she’s the token dark-black friend, but I think that’s just the delicious chocolately glaze on the very fattening doughnut of guilt appeasement. She’s not even the token fat friend. She’s the token morbidly obese and just plain unattractive friend with a side of ethnic. As long as they apotheosize her on a semi-regular basis and let her play with the pretty kids and share in their prizes, they can feel good about spending the rest of their time focusing on the Kate Gosselins and Best/Worst Dressed and everyone else who is getting by on their looks. Because they’re not shallow or callow or cruel. They support Gabourey Sidibe. They daren’t meet any misstep with the slightest bit of chastisement. They’ll even call her “beautiful.” That deserves a merit badge.

EDIT:

Upon getting some reactions from people on this piece (many in personal conversation), I am even more certain that our culture privileges physical attractiveness over almost any other trait. I can call a woman an incompetent painter or accuse her of having an atrocious voice without much abhorrence or argument from my readers. I hardly doubt anyone would rise to defend a mockery of Fran Drescher's voice. To say to a roomful of women, "Very few, if any of you, are beautiful" is unthinkable. Yet to say to them, "Very few, if any of you, are great cellists," would almost certainly be met with agreement.

But what makes one beautiful? I retort, what makes one a great cellist? We only value certain attributes of cellists as great, but they are as intrinsically linked or unlinked to greatness as a certain skin complexion or body type is linked to beauty. The merits of aesthetic production and which sounds are pleasing/unpleasing are just as relative and mercurial to the whims of time and society as physical attractiveness, yet people would not bring those up as often. If my drawings are overly two-dimension, no one is going to bring up how that used to be the standard in the medieval ages. But people will bring up the waxing and waning of corpulence in physical attractiveness over time. I can proclaim Inglourious Basterds to be the best film of the past decade, and people will calmly agree or disagree and point out the flaws of the film or attributes of another. I doubt many, if any, would retort that the rules of cinematic appreciation are so malleable that why should we even try to denote films as great or not.

Beauty is not an attribute; it's a right in our culture. To deny someone of beauty is to deny them of an aspect of their humanity. We're not all beautiful. Nor are we all great writers. Let's take this trait down from the complete evaluation of a person's character (and our thoughts on a person) and bring it back to what it is supposed to be: a trait. I can write an entry on whether or not Gabourey Sidibe is beautiful or not so. Similarly, I can bash Maggie Gyllenhall's acting from here to eternity. Sure, Maggie got a paragraph and Gabourey technically got an entry. But there's only about a paragraph or two actually talking about her unattractiveness. The rest is expanding on the larger ramifications. Were Maggie Gyllenhall's nomination was anything beyond spillover Jeff Bridges Love, it too may've gotten the exact same treatment.

As some of you may know, Sony is currently considering rereleasing classics in 3-D. Granted, I do not know what exactly they mean by “classics.” This article mentions Spider-Man and Casino Royale alongside
Taxi Driver, but as someone who tutors high schoolers, I do know that there are people who consider anything pre-Juno “old.” How far back would this go? Would we see the depth to which Hans Gruber plummets as never before? Would Norma Desmond seem to pop out of the screen as she gets ready for her extreme close-up? Will we finally get to behold D.W. Griffith’s racist vision truly realized as the KKK dramatically races to save the day in three dimensions of Reconstructionist Southern Glory?

I’m going to place my money on not going any further back than Star Wars, which I always have drawn as the unofficial line between “old movies” and “new movies.” Of course, I would not be surprised if they do not even tackle anything from before this century. Well, Lucas might…anything for a few bucks after all.

The instinctive reaction is to decry “O times! O morales!” in classical Latin accent and wait for the next few harbingers of the apocalypse to arrive. But then, I have to ask, is this really all that bad?

Let’s assume that you absolutely hate 3-D. Your mother was mutilated in a freak mayhap involving a 3-D camera and your invalid cousin went blind after taking the glasses outside post-“Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” and looking directly at the sun (further proving how evil EPCOT indeed is). Thankfully, no matter what the studio bosses do to adulterate your favorite film…it still remains unadulterated in other forms! There are still DVDs, Blu-Rays, revival theaters, etc. While film executives have a grotesque dearth of scruples, they aren’t going to annihilate any pre-3-D forms of classics. Hell, even Lucas released the original trilogy on DVD, with Han shooting first and everything!

Granted, I too am someone who gets annoyed at things that really do not affect me (*cough* the Oscars *cough*). So I’ll do you one better: I’m going to extol the benefits of this new money-making scheme!

Benefit #1: Who wants to watch John McTiernan go all bad-ass on a tiny screen?

“Yippee-Kay-Yay Motherfucker” roughly translates to “I am one hardcore badass and you should really only indulge in my asskickery on a big yippee-kay-yay-motherfucking screen!” I admit, I did originally see Die Hard via Netflix Instant, but I would love to see it on a theater with surround sound and an enthusiastic audience. This past fall, I had the enjoyment of watching the first two Toy Storys again on the big screen. Why? Because they were rereleased in 3-D! Did the 3-D really matter all that much or enhance the experience? No. But was it still much more preferable to renting it on DVD and staying in my living room? Does Bo Peep want to get into Woody’s pants? This proliferation of rereleased classics really signifies of resurgence of the revival theater…right in the comfort of your own over-priced, local cinema!

Benefit #2: Hey kids! Movies from the last century!

Like I said earlier, I make a semi-living tutoring high schoolers. Most are brilliant little young adults whose cultural awareness is on the verge of blossoming into a beautiful flower of refinement. Others, however, have provided such gems as, “I’m planning to get around to watching some old movies. One of my friends lent me Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” When reminded that that film is indeed from 2004 and upon asking him if he watches actually old films, he rejoined with The Usual Suspects.

But this 3-D phenomenon provides a bit of hope to banish such ignorance. They may never go out of their way to rent an “old” flick like Aliens or a complete archaic vestige of a by-gone era such as Spartacus, but what if they were playing at a local theater in 3-D? They may go out of sheer boredom, curiosity, or just because Legion or what-have-you has sold out. Once you overcome your abhorrence at the concept of 3-Difying Kubrick, you might see that this money-making scheme is not completely devoid of merit.

Yeah, I know it’s a silly idea; Legion would never sell out.

Benefit #3: Quentin Tarantino will make you love 3-D.

If there is one director who can take any ridiculous gimmick or trick and make it into an aspect of a cinematic masterpiece, it’s Tarantino. I was thinking of movies that studios might rerelease in 3-D and when Kill Bill came up in the great rolodex of my mind, I could not help but giggle with the rush of fanboyish pleasure over such a possibility. Like one of those optical illusions that simultaneously proffer a comely maiden and a hideous crone, good ol’ Quentin delivers cinema that is both pure and utter trash, but that becomes great cinema because of that very fact. I now want nothing more than to watch the shot of adrenaline scene from Pulp Fiction while wearing a honkingly large pair of 3-D glasses.

On a similar note, we may finally get a wide-release of Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder in 3-D. For those of you who do not know, Hitch actually intended for this movie to be in 3-D and filmed it with that in mind (there are often objects between the camera and the action, to give you an extra sense of dimension...and voyeurism!). Of course, by the time he finished it and was ready to release it, the 3-D movie had begun its half-century-long dormancy. For 50 years we have been forced to watch the film in 2-D, which may be as great of a shame as watching it in black and white. Yes, I love black and white, but when something is filmed in stunning Technicolor, DAMMIT I want Technicolor!



So fear not, dear reader. The end is not nigh. The gods must more thoroughly drive us mad before they destroy us.

In fact, to those of you still bemoaning the approaching ubiquitous nature of 3-D movies, I offer you this little puzzle to calm your addled minds

The current point of 3-D is to try to boost ticket sales due to the evils of downloading cars and the like. They want to make going to the movies an experience that cannot be duplicated at home. Of course, what are theaters going to do once sales for Avatar-esque DVDs start to flounder as people realize that the experience can’t be duplicated at home and all they bought was a movie with an audaciously predictable plot (yes, the plot is predictable to the point of audacity). Granted, the people buying Avatar on DVD might take some time to catch on to this fact, but even my dog has figured out through trial and error that when he poops outside, he gets more treats than when he poops inside. This trend of 3-D, if movies become more and more geared around the 3-D technology, might ultimately defeat itself.