Playing Gay is Not Okay, But Not Playing Straight is Worse

“In short, the truthful lesbian is far less troubling than someone who challenges bi-gender semiotics and whose objects of desire are unknown” (Sloop, p. 85).

Gossip undeniably shapes celebrity culture and has become a powerful industry in itself. Blogger Perez Hilton was considered a major celebrity cameo when he appeared on The Voice earlier this season to cheer on one of his friends. Perhaps nothing sets the gossip community abuzz more quickly than celebrities’ love lives. It is common to give celebrity couples cutesy nicknames before they have officially come out as a couple. As any celebrity who has ever played gay or any actor who has appeared on Broadway can attest, gossip sites love to speculate about celebrities’ sexual orientations; however, nothing seems to frustrate gossip sites more than a sexually ambiguous performer.

Sadly, even in 2012, it is hard for actors to play gay characters without immediately being questioned about their sexuality. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were both questioned about their heterosexuality while starring in Brokeback Mountain, and while Ledger was absolved after having a baby with his female costar, Gyllehaal’s true sexuality is still debated fairly regularly. That said, actors who play coy about their sexual orientation are widely criticized.

As John Sloop notes in his book, Disciplining Gender: Rhetorics of Sex Identity in Contemporary U.S. Culture, “Although ours is no doubt a heteronormative culture, it is also a culture that insists on a clear delimitation between male and female as separate genders, on heterosexual and homosexual as distinctly separate spheres of desire. It is a culture, then, in which knowing where to place someone in the matrix of gender and desire is valued over confusion” (pp. 84-85).  Sean Hayes, who played the flamboyant Jack on Will and Grace, was criticized for years for refusing to comment on his sexual orientation. When he finally came out in 2010, Hayes criticized gay media publications such as The Advocate for pressuring him to come out. Even this year, White Collar star Matthew Bomer was criticized for not publicly addressing his sexuality (i.e. confirming the long-standing rumors that he is gay). He officially came out of the closet last month.

While Hayes and Bomer have both confirmed their sexuality, stars like Jodie Foster and Queen Latifah, both reported lesbians, continue to aggravate the media. Both stars refuse to comment on their love lives, and when either speaks about her personal life, the internet lights up. In fact, Googling either celebrity alongside the word “sexuality” brings up several different blogs claiming to confirm that she has “finally” opened up about her sexual orientation or is showing off her girlfriend.

It is unfortunate that in 2012, the media does not afford sexually ambiguous performers more privacy. Even more unfortunately, these performers do not directly threaten heterosexuality. They do not lead outwardly homosexual lives, but they do not lead outwardly heterosexual lives. Why not allow the Jodie Fosters, Oprahs, Sean Hayes, and Taylor Lautners of the world to challenge sexuality binaries? Does it really affect our lives and our relationships, or is it, as one Newsweek columnist wrote in 2010, “the big, pink elephant in the room?”

P.S. I agree with Scarlett’s post. J Watching Boys Don’t Cry made my confusion worse.

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

As a rule our society is stuck on knowing everything. We are not comfortable being in the dark about anything even if it does not directly affect us.  Currently, America is obsessed with the idea of same-sex marriages, a concept that honestly does not affect all Americans, but only those in the process of trying to attain a marriage license. It is situations like this that make non-heteronormative relationship dangerous. I argue in this post that a sense of unknowing and ignorance is ultimately what caused Private Barry Winchell's death. His murderers were not knowledgeable about his relationship with Calpernia Addams. Specifically that Winchell was not gay and that Addams was a woman simply awaiting a surgery that would complete her womanhood.

Chapter 5 of John Sloop’s book illustrates the life and death of Private Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell. Calvin Glover, a soldier, beat Winchell to death. Fellow soldier Justin Fisher, Winchell’s roommate, pushed Glover to this attack. Glover and Fisher assumed Winchell was gay and decided there was no room in the Army for a gay man. These assumptions were made after it was discovered that Winchell was dating Calpernia Addams, a former navy medic and pre-opt male-to-female transgendered woman. The murder was considered a hate crime and compared to the story of Brandon Teena.

Within this chapter Sloop analyzes several aspects of the story surrounding Private Winchell. Sloop compares the Winchell story to the Brandon Teena story in how both individuals were made to be gay or lesbian so the public and media could better understand and accept their stories. Sloop states, “having encouraged Addams to refer to herself as a gay man in order to simplify public perception of the killing as a hate crime” (pg 124). This is similar to how the Boys Don’t Cry film portrayed Brandon as a lesbian in the end, so the audience would better handle his story; soften the blow so to speak. It seems that we are too concerned with the public’s understanding and feelings about one’s lifestyle, so in order to make them comfortable we alter the authenticity of their life.

Barry Winchell never "came out" as gay because he was not gay. Growing up Winchell only dated women as his own mother explains. When he met Calpernia she was a woman by all standards. On page 131, Addams admitted that she felt she was a woman. Addams was even described as a female in reports with examples such as, “country girl”, “Nashville preacher’s daughter”, etc. With this is mind, although Addams was born a man when she met Winchell she was a woman, which furthers the point that Winchell was not gay. He was not attracted to a man, but to a beautiful woman. His roommate and killer figured that because Addams was born a man and Winchell was a man than the two were living as a gay couple. I understand that the idea of sexuality and sex are fluid and hard to understand for most, but if Glover and Fisher would have just taken the time to try and understand the situation maybe they would have reacted differently. 

With all this being said it seems that society is stuck on labels and classifying people. As cliché as it sounds, society only sees black and white, when we all know there are gray areas of life. As far as society is concerned, you are either homosexual or straight, male or female, man or woman and no in between. I guess the saying "Knowledge is power" is more than appropriate in this case.