Category Archives: Commentary

‘Harry Potter’ Star: Hollywood Gay Casting ‘Ridiculous’

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“If you are a romantic lead, there is a perception — I don’t know if it is true or not — that you will no longer be cast as straight people,” [Jason Isaacs] told the Telegraph. “Even when casting gay roles, there is a tendency to cast straight people, so they are lauded for their transformation. It’s ridiculous. The notion that a gay actor can’t seem like they are in love with a woman on screen is so patently absurd I can’t believe it still exists.”

via Jason Isaacs, ‘Harry Potter’ Star: Hollywood Gay Casting ‘Ridiculous’.

I couldn’t agree more. Of course, I looked at the photo and went, “Who in the hell is Jason Isaacs in Harry Potter?” That’s because Jason Isaacs is this guy:

jason-isaacs-la-premiere-of-bully-01He’s Lucius Malfoy!

I know, right?

Astonishing what a little slap and a blonde wig’ll do for ya!

The Straight Years — A New Website and a Look Back at How it Used to Be

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Got this tweet this past weekend from LogoTV —

syp

Of course, I had to check it out.

The premise is people who are out now showing old pictures of themselves when they were pretending to be straight — or simply hadn’t figured out how to come out of the closet.

Back when I was a pre-teen/teenager, there were three people on television that I knew were gay: Paul Lynde on The Hollywood Squares, Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game, and Billy Crystal’s character, Jodie Dallas, on Soap. And that was it! At least that was it in my little insulated corner of the planet. No one talked about gay and straight. Were these my role models? No, thanks. That’s not it. I’m not like ANY of these men. (Although, I LOVED Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly — they were the epitome of hilarious to me in the 70s — I did not connect the dots.)

CNR

Charles Nelson Reilly made the 70s a little bit funnier on Match Game. A gifted actor, teacher and director, the Tony-winning Reilly filmed his autobiographical stage show, The Life of Reilly, shortly before his death. |Image: nndb.com

Paul-Lynde

TV’s center square, Paul Lynde, was bitchy and campy and threw out one double entendre after another on The Hollywood Squares for years. Also known for stage and TV work, including memorable turns as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Lynde died of a heart attack in 1982 at age 55. |Image: crewmagazine.

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Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas in Soap. Allegedly gay throughout the series’ 1977-81 run, Jodie had several relationships with women. Granted the show was an over-the-top spoof on soap operas, but commercial director Jodie was nobody’s idea of a role model.

Things weren’t that much better in the 80s, when Steven Carrington on Dynasty was television’s gay standard bearer. Carrington — played by Al Corley and then recast with Jack Coleman — like Jodie Dallas before him, had far more romantic entanglements with women than any gay man I’ve ever met. Then again, “conversion therapy” and attempts to go straight were seen as serious back then, as ridiculous as it sounds now. There was no touching, no actual affection shown between two men on TV then; not in those days when, after his 1985 death, the world was shocked to learn that Rock Hudson was gay.

Looking back on those “straight years,” I think that simply because they were there and we could have a conversation about them, Jodie Dallas and Steven Carrington began to pave the way for networks like HERE and LOGO and superstars like Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell and Zachary Quinto and George Takei and Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick Harris and shows like Glee and The New Normal and Will & Grace and Brothers & Sisters and The L Word and Queer as Folk on cable and the networks and Husbands and The Outs and Eastsiders and Submissions Only and Hunting Season online and iconic couples like Kevin and Scotty,  Luke and Noah,  Lindsey and Melanie,  Will and Sonny and, hell, Jack and Doug on Dawson’s friggin’ Creek just to scratch the very tip of the iceberg.

I finally figured it all out in my mid-20s and came out publicly after attending the 1993 gay march on Washington. Being surrounded by the largest crowd I’ve ever seen on the National Mall, I decided that I wasn’t alone. I had back up in case coming out was a terrible idea.

It wasn’t. It NEVER is. I just wish my “straight years” hadn’t lasted quite so long. Maybe they wouldn’t have if I could have seen more of myself on television, in the movies or in literature back then.

corner3_18_510_6-11122012-20002170A

The Corner Bar was a 1972 summer replacement series on ABC that is credited with the first recurring gay character on American television. Played by Vincent Schiavelli, “Peter Panama” was reviled by gay activists at the time for playing up all of the worst gay stereotypes. Schiavelli, far right, is pictured with cast members Gabriel Dell, J.J. Barry, Shimen Ruskin, Bill Fiore and Joe Keyes. |Image via sticomsonline.com, watermarked argentaimages.

“Hey, Y’all!” – What’s Left Behind When Your Butter Empire Crumbles

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Oh, Paula Deen ….

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Paula Deen Facebook Meme.

What is wrong with people? Are we all just hell-bent on destroying ourselves? Maybe. And the latest high profile personage to hit the self-destruct button is Butter Queen Paula Deen, the multimillionaire face of Food Network’s home cookin’ empire.

Deen has been all over the news for the last week or so since a lawsuit brought by a former employee in 2011 came to light and Paula’s deposition has been made public. And whaddaya know: ole Paula comes off as racist as all get out. Actually, if you read the whole thing — find it online; it’s kinda unbelievable — the person who comes off the worst is not Paula, it’s her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers.

Deen’s first mistake was not firing his mongrel ass a long time ago. The second mistake (hand in hand with the first) is this ill-formed belief that family always comes first and everything else second — even when it’s family that’s going to bring you down. And third, and perhaps most importantly, Paula needs to get her ass up out of Georgia and get a perspective on the situation that’s not tinged with inbred Deep South racism.

You can talk a good game until you’re blue in the face about not being a racist, but when you’re a white woman referring to a group of African-Americans as “them” or cavalierly saying to someone in a public forum that people can’t see you standing by a black background because of the tone of your skin … that’s racist. Paula Deen may not think she’s a racist, but guess what? She is. And she needs to get some perspective on it.

Look, I know a little bit about this. I’m from the Deep South. What saved me is that I left. My grandfather, who I loved to death, used language that would curl your toes, but he was the least racist person I have ever known. He used that language because he was born in the Deep South in 1906 and everyone — black and white — of his era used language that we would never use today. Heck, listen to recordings of some of the greatest leaders of the Civil Rights era: they routinely used adjectives that no one would use today.

But here’s the thing: Paula Deen is not living in 1953 or 1963 — or even pushing the envelope of acceptability — 1973. She’s living in 2013. And no amount of butter or grits or cream can cover those actions up.

If Deen was smart, she should fire her PR team, fire her brother, implement proper workplace protocols against discrimination and stand in the public square and tell everyone that the “best dishes” she serves, she serves to everyone, always, without a hint of racism or sexism. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll forgive her.

Great Advice Flowchart

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I kinda love this…..

how-to-find-great-advice-for-just-about-anything-infographic_519693501e5c5.pngH/T mediaBistro/All Twitter via Clarity

 

Bret Easton Ellis and the Magical Gay Elves

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The rush to embrace and console every gay man who comes out is infantilizing and condescending—but it’s a script written and promoted by GLAAD and reinforced by a sanctimonious establishment of gay men that rewards those who play by the rules—and punishes those who don’t. Novelist Bret Easton Ellis on why he refuses to take his bitch-slapping lying down.

via In the Reign of the Gay Magical Elves | Out Magazine.

Oh, Bret Easton Ellis, you insane, snarky old bastard. I actually agree with you on a lot of this, but as one gay man to another, can I also inform you that there is an enormous swath of the American public that needs to be nudged along a little softly. At least right now. Yes, it makes my eyes roll sometimes, too, but dial back the rhetoric just a bit — just a bit — and let’s let the rest of the country catch up.

And for the record, I vehemently disagree with you about Matt Bomer. He’s an actor. It shouldn’t matter that he’s gay playing straight any more than a straight actor playing gay. Get over yourself just a touch.

Boehner Accidentally Explains Why His Deficit Position Is Phony

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Boehner Accidentally Explains Why His Deficit Position Is Phony – Bloomberg.

Yesterday, in an interview with Bloomberg Television, House Speaker John Boehner warned that the U.S. government must balance its budget. After all, he said:

“We have spent more than what we have brought into this government for 55 of the last 60 years. There’s no business in America that could survive like this. No household in America that could do this. And this government can’t do this.”

It’s hard to think of better evidence for the sustainability of budget deficits than the fact that we have run them for 55 of the last 60 years. 

This is a brilliant piece by Josh Barro on Bloomberg. His best example is the use of Wal-Mart and its extravagant debt and why the company can continue to grow its debt while growing its bottom line.

It’s the same argument that Warren Buffett has repeatedly used when talking about the national debt: debt analysis is a ratio. The ratio of debt to income was enormously out-of-kilter during World War II. It’s not that way now. In spite of the fact that the Federal debt is larger than it’s ever been, so is the “earning power” of the government.

Save this link and shove it under the nose of the next person who bitches about how large the deficit is and how we’re killing our grandchildren’s futures.

Why Rachel Maddow Is Right To Be Outraged

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Why Rachel Maddow Is Right To Be Outraged.

Excellent piece by Saeed Jones on BuzzFeed. If you’re not familiar, the great Maddow went over the top on the air (and rightly so) criticizing Politifact for refusing to actually say that Martina Navratilova was correct — even after they checked the facts and found out she was correct — and called her response “half true.”

No one does righteous indignation as good as Maddow. This is probably because it is the province of the uber-smart and witty, which absolutely describes Maddow to a tee.

But Jones is no slouch, it seems, in that department. Here’s how he sums up:

And I have this unfortunate habit of needing to write essays when I’m angry. I sit at my computer, grating my teeth, hearing Zora Neale Hurston say over and over again, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Supposedly objective dismissal of inconvenient facts as “half truths” or dramatics is more than galling; it’s oppressive. The questions, “Why does this matter?” and, “Why are you so angry?” are conjoined twins, both hissing that we don’t even have a right to our own outrage.