The state of the gay in Hollywood

This is the kind of article we get at least once a year, but good. Some excerpts with irreverent (not to say irrelevant) commentary...

According to Donna Deitch, who wrote and directed the groundbreaking lesbian romance Desert Hearts in the mid-1980s, playing a gay character is now seen on a par with playing an autistic character, or a schizophrenic, or someone with horrible physical deformities. "That's where the acclaim is," she said. "Actors want to play disadvantaged people, whatever the disadvantage is...

Two steps forward, one step back.

But playing gay and admitting to being gay are two completely different things. When it comes to the latter, Hollywood still adheres to the mentality that American audiences look to their on-screen idols as outlets for their own romantic fantasies and thus need to think of them as strictly heterosexual. The mentality is not necessarily wrong - homophobia is certainly widespread in the American heartland, as evidenced by the slew of recent state ballot initiatives condemning gay marriage. But it does suggest a certain failure of the imagination. Actors, after all, are professionals who make audiences believe they are something they are not.

That failure of the imagination (appropriately enough), goes both ways. I've always resented the assumption made by some Hollywood creative teams that straight audiences cannot be entertained and moved by, or identify with, a good storyline about characters different than themselves.

Indeed (he said, climbing on a high horse), one of the things that arts and entertainment is for, I think both for creators and audience, is to "see how the other half lives." To put it another way, how many of us are likely to see (or be) dancing penguins or British superspies in our day-to-day lives?

Hasn't stopped audiences taking Happy Feet and James Bond to their hearts, has it?

If a straight actor like [Tom] Hanks can play a gay character convincingly, why shouldn't a gay actor play straight?

This seems to be another one of those minority opinions I often hold, but I think that's a pretty big "if."

There are exceptions to the rule. A openly gay character actor such as Sir Ian McKellen can work unhindered partly because of the prestige that comes of being a British stage veteran and partly because he is not expected to play heterosexual romantic leads. An actress like Ellen DeGeneres - who famously came out on her own sitcom in the late 1990s - doesn't suffer unduly because she is a comedian first and an actor only second, and because, once again, she doesn't play parts that call for her to knock the sexual socks off her male audience members.

Ah yes, Ellen DeGeneres. I still remember back in her "pre-open" days when she made the aptly-titled attempt at a "straight" romantic comedy, Mr. Wrong. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ellen DeGeneres being gay was not news. So when billboards went up around town featuring her in a wedding gown standing next to Bill Pullman...well, it almost caused a couple of accidents.