As a junkie for hard-hitting, earth-shattering news, I was floored yesterday.
There are drama queens who think they are floored, and then there was me: F-L-O-O-R-E-D. “Floo” and “red.” Julie came home to find me a quivering ball of twisted manflesh, unable to lift a hand from the office carpet. For lack of a better modifier, I was f–king floored.
What had me in such a gravity-conscience predicament? Clay Aiken and Lindsay Lohan came out of the closet. On the same day.
No, not with each other. Straight people don’t live in closets. Aside from the occasional pantry-dweller, us breeders live in rooms.
Fortunately, yesterday’s news was enough to raise one nagging question, which in turn got me off the floor and back to the keyboard: why is there still a closet in Hollywood?
When was the last time an actor was punished for being gay? The 1950s? Ever since Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell and Lance Bass came out, they restarted their careers. Rosie would easily be “that fat chick” from “that baseball movie about chicks” if she hadn’t announced her love of all things beginning with V-A-G-I-N. (It’s “vagina.” She loves all things vaginal.)
Every artist or musician to come out of the closet (but not into a men’s room) has been applauded as a hero. It hasn’t discouraged their straight fans from continuing their crushes (at least mine for K.D. Lang), so what’s the problem?
I mean, it could get you typecast. Should Tom Cruise come out of the closet, he would always play gay fighter pilots in movies eerily similar to Top Gun: Bottom Holster, Control Stick Hero, Sweaty Cockpit and Locker Room: The Movie.
Still, that’s a career! Christopher Walken has played the same ambiguously gay Italian guy for 30 years now. So, that makes fear of typecasting a fairly weak argument.
It can’t be out of concern for family:
Lohan’s Parents
(in unison)
Hey, Lindsay! How was rehab this time, dear? We chipped in together and bought this eight ball for you, you know, in celebration. We know you just quit coke again, but, at least you’re not gay, right?
Lohan
…
Lohan’s Parents
Right?
That leaves only one possible reason for still having a closet: not actually being gay.
That’s not to say Mr. Aiken and Ms. Lohan aren’t really gay, but there is a real threat of turning out to be not as gay as you thought. Once you go gay in Hollywood, you’re a hero, and heroes don’t change their minds. In fact, everyone I can think of, artist-wise, who ungayed themselves pretty much tanked:
- Little Richard (became a minister and renounced his bisexuality)
- Prince (was born again and renounced sex in general, as well as being awesome)
- Anne Heche (dumped the nicest lesbian in the freakin’ daytime television world)
Still, it seems a little ridiculous since we still assume that most of those artsy types are gay anyway. It’s like being left handed.
And that’s where I’ll stop this week’s TifS: just shy of homophobia.
You know, if The Bloodhound Gang was still relevant, I would have gone with the caption “You’re Gay for Boobies.” But that’s just me not getting over late 90’s/early ??’s rock.
Rick is right, I did come home to find him a quivering ball of twisted manflesh. Though to clarify, it is untrue that he could not lift a hand from the office carpet – if you consider twitching and violent muscle spasms “lifting a hand.”
I…I just might print this out and hang it on my makeshift office wall.
seriously, guy. i crying happyness here.
also, i’d be a lesbian for Portia de Rossi. in a bloody heartbeat.