Welcome back to the 1980s

[cookiegirl]

Today has been a day filled with frustration, and disbelief that this is 2012 and we are still having to deal with this insanity.

This afternoon I read leonie_alastair's post alerting me to Bret Easton Ellis' Twitter tirade on why Matt Bomer is too gay to be cast in Fifty Shades of Grey. You can read his tweets on his Twitter page, or read the reports on the controversy at Huffington Post, The Hollywood Gossip or BuzzFocus (warnings for homophobia or references to homophobia on all the above).

Now, whilst I personally think Fifty Shades is an appallingly written book, I do think the film may turn out to be quite good in the right hands, and I think Matt would make an amazing Christian. Is that the point? No. The point is that no actor should be discriminated against based on their private life. If we allow actors' romantic lives to determine what roles they can and can't play, we are sentencing actors and actresses who are concerned about their careers to a lifetime in the closet.

There's also a serious double standard going on here. Nobody raises an eyebrow when a straight man is cast in a gay role. Nobody said that Heath Ledger was unrealistic in Brokeback Mountain because in real life he didn't really sleep with men. Sean Penn played a gay man in Milk, won an Oscar, and was praised for his daring, despite having had two high-profile marriages to women. And yet today Ellis stated that Matt playing Christian would be 'ludicrous', that the resulting press tour would be 'an embarrassing fiasco' and that what was needed was 'an intensely straight actor wanting absolutely to screw Ana Steele'. This makes so little sense that my mind boggles. How do we know any actor is 'intensely straight'? How do we know, even if the chosen actor is straight, that he will be attracted to the actress playing Ana, or that he will enjoy the BDSM lifestyle? We don't. We don't need to. That's why it's called acting. Christian, not the actor playing him, is the one that needs to want to 'screw Ana'.

I knew better than to hope that this opinion was limited to Ellis - I had already seen glimpses of it in Youtube comments - but I was pretty appalled to see that it was also relatively prevalent in the comments on the articles which report Ellis' tweets. People commenting they would be unable to believe him in the role because they know he's sleeping with a man, people commenting that he would be unable to construct any onscreen chemistry with a woman... it's enough to make me despair. 

Matt is an excellent actor who plays a convincing straight man on White Collar and has led millions of women to fall for Neal Caffrey. If he wants the role, he deserves the chance to be considered, just like any other actor. We should not be pigeonholing actors as only able to play gay or straight roles, any more than we should stop married actors from playing single roles. 

I realise that on Livejournal, I'm almost certainly preaching to the choir, but I felt the need to get this out anyway.

Comments

[ficwriterjet.livejournal.com]

Isn't that kind of like saying no one can play a murderer in a movie unless they've actually killed someone in real life? The whole point of acting is PRETENDING to be something you're not.

People are stupid. :(

[cookiegirl]

Exactly. It's insane! I don't recall anyone complaining that Robert Pattinson isn't really a sparkling vampire who hangs out in trees *eyeroll*

[jolinarjackson.livejournal.com]

This is ridiculous. Look at Heath Ledger and Sean Penn (as you said), Jake Gyllenhaal or Gale Harold - all playing gay/bisexual characters very convincingly. And then look at Neil Patrick Harris - just to name one example - who plays a straight guy and is gay in real life ... I think the very core of an actor's job ist to ACT - nothing from their real life should interfere there - religion, politics, sexuality ... all that doesn't matter when they portray someone else.

[cookiegirl]

Totally agreed (and in fact I intended to mention NPH and Barney and then got sidetracked by the RAGE!)

[noiproksa.livejournal.com]

OMG, the stupidity of some people! I don't even have words for this! (Didn't follow the links, though, I was angry enough just reading your summary of what was going on.) Obviously, this isn't about logic, like the comments above me pointed out. Kind of makes me think of the play "8", where the people arguing against gay marriage put their foot in their mouth and made a fool of themselves when they tried to explain logically why gay marriage was a "bad thing" - because there's simply no logic in gay bashing.
I just can't believe how intolerant some people can be and I need to stop thinking about this now because it makes me so angry and sad.

[cookiegirl]

Yep I would definitely recommend NOT reading the links if you don't want to get angrier! Sorry to make you sad *sends hugs*. I am still fuming over it today!

[jerusha]

*facepalm*

*deep breath*

Matt Bomer is, quite frankly, one of the most beautiful men ever. And from what I've seen, a really classy guy and a great actor. I really don't understand this double standard we apply to (mostly male) actors. You can be straight and play gay, but never the reverse. Why do we never question the ability of an actor to play a happily married person when they have openly stated that they'll never settle down? Or their ability to play a soldier when they've never been in combat? Or...all of those things.

[cookiegirl]

Agreed (especially about the beautiful and classy bit, lol!).

I just hope most casting directors are above this line of thinking and ignore public opinion!

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

This has got to be one of the most stupid and homophobic pieces of bullshit ever tweeted. And the support its getting is depressingly craptastic.

There are numerous gay and bi actors who play straight roles all the time, but you can see why so many of them stay closeted.

Yes, in my mother's time, she found Rock Hudson soooo unbelievable as Doris Day's love interest. My personal kid crush - George Takai gosh I never could have believed him as Zulu if I knew he was gay! Ditto Richard Chamberlain (yes, I am old).

When I watch TV or a movie all I'm interested in is whether the story and acting is good. Everything else - I NO CURR!

[cookiegirl]

This has got to be one of the most stupid and homophobic pieces of bullshit ever tweeted Absolutely. He had the nerve to say his tweets 'aren't about discrimination' but the fact that he tweeted them will by itself almost undoubtedly ensure that any actors who were contemplating coming out will think twice. And yet whilst the police are happily jumping all over anyone who makes a racist tweet, I'm sure they won't care about any of his pro-discrimination ramblings.

[iceshade.livejournal.com]

Yes, because ~clearly~ it's impossible for a gay man to convincingly play a straight man. I mean, no one *really* believes Barney Stinton is into girls because he's played by Neil Patrick Harris. /sarcasm

And obvs this person didn't see Magic Mike, because that required some serious Matt Bomer grinding up against the ladies and working it. me gusta Actually, now that I think about it, I think whenever my mom mentions 50SoG to me, I'm going to imagine Matt as Christian. Because yes.

[cookiegirl]

Exactly! I don't recall anyone laughing or raising eyebrows in the cinema when Matt's character in Magic Mike was straight and married and really into his wife's breasts (lol, interesting scene that was!!)

[chamilet]

Wow. Just wow. This makes me so sad.

This reminds me of Rupert Everett and how his career basically ended once he came out. And how Ellen's career took a ten-year nosedive when she came out. This kind of talk is SO harmful. Which I guess was his intent.

[cookiegirl]

Yeah, it's very depressing. As soon as I heard Matt had come out I was worried for his career, which is so sad because we should have moved way past that already >:( x

[passionrlsusall.livejournal.com]

Stupidity, I concur.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

There was some of this during the brief period when John Barrowman's name was being bandied about (mostly by Barrowman) for Captain America. I guess this is the next BIG STEP after getting major leading men to come out. Once someone is out, we need to get them into a hyper-sexually straight role. In other words, not just a rom-com with a lot of fade-outs, but something where the character is extremely and overtly sexual with a woman. This is something Barrowman's done in his
Desperate Housewives turn, but we really need a Tom Cruise/Leonardo DiCaprio level star in a sexsexsexsex and more sex kind of part.

[cookiegirl]

I agree, and I actually think that could be Matt in 50 Shades, just because whoever gets cast in that film is instantly going to be as high profile as you can get.

I'm actually trying to think of a gay actor in a lead role even in just a rom/com with fade outs and I can't (not a modern one anyway!). The closest I can think is NPH in HIMYM, and that's straight comedy and we barely even get to see him kiss anyone. (I also saw Ellis argue the other day that NPH was purposefully cast because he was gay and it was a sort of meta-joke with the audience, which I don't agree with but...anyway. We definitely need it to happen outside of comedy where that can be used as an excuse).

LOL @ 'mostly by Barrowman'! Bless him.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

My Barrowmania knows few bounds, but much as I was cheer-leading the idea at the time, there's about a million reasons why it wouldn't have worked, although absolutely none of them had anything to do with John's sexuality.

Of course there's probably tons of gay actors doing the Romantic Coms that we just don't know about, but as for being out, maybe that one that Rupert Everett did with Madonna? He played gay, but he had sex with her, right? (Never actually saw it myself.)

[cookiegirl]

The Next Best Thing? I think I've seen it, but I can't remember it. The wikipedia page has an extremely short summary which ends with 'It was a commercial and critical failure' lol! The picture of Rupert Everett is hot though!

But as for straight roles I can't think of any out men playing them. Although, I can't think of many out actors at all, come to think of it - probably due to the reasons in this post >:(

*sigh*