I came across a very interesting blog post the other day talking about how Hollywood actors who are out and proud become pigeonholed into supporting roles, more often than not gay ones. And that’s only if they still get roles at all. The blogger quoted Rupert Everett as saying from a 2009 interview:
“I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out….
“The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn’t work, and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. You’re going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure, they’ll cut you right off. And I’m sick of saying, ‘Yes, it’s probably my own fault.’ Because I’ve always tried to make it work, and when it stops working somewhere, I try to make it work somewhere else. But the fact of the matter is, and I don’t care who disagrees, it doesn’t work if you’re gay.”
I must admit that it’d take longer to sink in my head if an actor known to be gay takes on a straight romantic leading role in a movie, especially one that’s serious, but if they are any good at all, that will no longer be an issue soon enough. For me, personally, anyway. For the rest of world, which I can’t really speak for, I reckon it depends on how fervently they pay attention to the media and issues about gay rights. While it’s nigh impossible to avoid the former whilst living in modern civilization, even my own personal bubble gets saturated with it whether I like it or not, I don’t dwell on what I’m fed, not unless the information directly pertains to me or someone close to me on a personal level. As for the latter, I’m aware of it and take an interest whenever something noteworthy pops up but it’s mostly on a non-personal basis. Maybe that’s why I don’t have lasting issues with openly gay actors in straight roles.
I don’t blame the actors coming out being the issue of audience having a harder time accepting them in a non-straight role in movies (which I believe is one of the bigger reasons behind studios and producers being so hesitant in doing anything else but typecasting them into gay roles after). That’s well within their freedom and their right. But the problem begins when the media takes an interest. Things escalate from there. People are curious by nature and the media takes advantage of that by overfilling our cup with sensation.
So when someone famous comes out, no matter how quietly, oftentimes, we see a lot of media coverage reminding people time and again who’s who and who’s gay and that really hammers it into our heads. The media makes it so that the people will think of the person’s sexuality first and their professional capabilities second. From what I can tell, this happens only when a person is homosexual. For some reason that I won’t go too deeply into at this juncture, any sexuality that doesn’t exclusively restrict the person to the same gender is a non-issue. Gay rights activist groups don’t make it easier for these actors as they expect them to champion their cause which only brings their personal lives to the forefront.
While this isn’t so much of a career derailment for people in a lot of other professions, I feel that for actors to perfectly do their jobs and perform their craft, they should be allowed to maintain a certain distance from the audience. This can only be achieved with a certain amount of anonymity. While this doesn’t restrict them from interacting with the audience in a professional capacity as actors outside their roles, it does mean their personal lives should be kept to a minimum from the audience.
It’s as much for the audience as it is for the actors themselves, so as not to drive the audience into perceiving the actor as themselves playing a role rather than wholly the roles they take on. This becomes the case when an actor becomes a bigger celebrity than they are their actual profession. Some actors are able to see this very clearly and make the conscious decision to keep their personal lives out of the limelight. Some even take great pains to do it, and can get aggressive about it when they feel that the boundaries they have so painstakingly established are being threatened.
For gay actors, as much as an actor has the right and the freedom to hide or not hide their sexuality, it is information that is highly personal. If they choose to share it, it’s only because they feel the need to. Rarely do they want to keep talking about it because it does not define who they are as professionals. Unlike not wanting to talk about one’s family and personal relationships in public, though, the possibility is strong that not wanting to talk about one’s homosexuality, especially when it’s become apparent, instantly becomes a strike against the actor. They will likely be judged harshly and unfairly for being ashamed of who they are, despite that not being the case at all, and become subject to public scrutiny.
Little wonder, then, that so few decide to reveal themselves or even go to great lengths to hide the fact that they are gay. Even the most unarguably straight actors get tagged with being gay at some point by the media and the public for the weakest and most whimsical of reasons. This being the case of the media being the circus that they are and the public being misguided by them, they would only be all too eager to out the ones who really are gay and keep harping on that fact, without giving much thought to the consequence that, as an audience, the media is only ruining these gifted thespians for us as we are ruining them for ourselves.
As touched upon earlier, this also applies to actors who generally have too much information of their personal lives on public domain. Their personal baggage becomes the audiences’, unless, of course, we ourselves are able to completely divorce ourselves from it all and believe you me, that is a special ability in and of itself. Otherwise, with all this at the back of our minds, we will find ourselves hard-pressed to buy the character as a standalone entity. All we’ll be able to see is that actor in the role and perhaps we’ll be able to enjoy it as such, but we could have enjoyed it as so much more.
Spiels 