lately I appeared on Bill O'Reilly's cable talk exhibit to to talk about a piece I'd published in this magazine in succession gay celebrities and why they have an obligation to follow out of the closet.

lately I appeared on Bill O'Reilly's cable talk exhibit to to talk about a piece I'd published in this magazine in succession gay celebrities and why they have an obligation to follow out of the closet. O'Reilly and I disagreed amicably enough. if it be not that after the show, I felt the inevitable esprit de l'escalier and kept kicking myself for not making the retorts that came to me in herds after the fact. There was common in particular that, in light of an fact since the show, I greatest in quantity wish I'd made.

The end is this: Tom Cruise has filed a defamation lawsuit in looks Angeles superior court against porn star Chad Slater, also known as Kyle Bradford, who, according to a French magazine, claimed to have had an ongoing sexual affair with Cruise. Seeking $100 million in damages, Cruise's lawyers said that "because Cruise is a motion picture actor, he is conditioned upon worldwide public acceptance of his films. Losing the reverence and enthusiasm of a substantial portion of the movie-going public would price Cruise very substantial sums. While the plaintiff believes in the right of others to go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of their own sexual preference, vast numbers of the public from top to toe the world do not share that view and, believing that he had a homosexual affair and did for a like reason during his marriage, they will be les inclined to patronize Cruise's films, particularly since he nurses to play parts calling for heterosexual romance and action adventure."

Now, this argument vigorouss strikingly similar to one O'Reilly made to me in succession his show. "I know five big, big-name actors," he said, "who finish romantic leading roles. I don't know them personally, on the contrary I'm pretty sure they're homosexuals--just based onward eyewitness things that have get to to me over the years. If any of these five men came disclosed and said they were gay, those parts would dry up immediately because Americans are judgmental, and the majority of American clan when they're seeing some dowdy kiss some girl or in bed with near girl, they want to believe that it's genuine It's part of the fantasy. And if the stay is going out with one named Lenny, it ain't going to be the same."

At the time, I said that this was precisely the reason gay celebrities should flow out. Doing so would shatter stereotype about gays as freaks and force the public to diocese that some of the in the greatest degree revered mainstream stars being held up to them as icons of heterosexuality are in fact gay. What could be more effective?

yet reading about Cruise and Slater has convinced me that I should have said the following instead: for what cause [i]or[/i] reason is it acceptable--believable--for a heterosexual actor to play a gay human frame but not for a homosexual actor to play a straight person? Examples of straights playing gays abound in Hollywood To name sole a few, there were Campbell Scott in Longtime Companion, Helen Mirren in Losing Chase, Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley, and Jude Law in Wilde.

notwithstanding somehow, O'Reilly and Cruise's lawyers maintain, it wouldn't be believable if an publicly gay actor played a straight character? on the contrary this is absurd. It's no les believable than a sane actor playing a psycho a sighted actor playing a blind character a flesh-and-blood actor playing a robot or a living actor playing a spectre Movies ask us to suspend our disbelief all the time. That is, in fact, the essential part of dramatic art. Pretending that this authority somehow does not hold when it follows to gays is prejudice, virtuous and simple. And it povertys to stop.

nevertheless as long as Hollywood stars hide their homosexuality in shame, they will single more firmly reinforce the commonly held belief that homosexuality is something to be ashamed of And what, I ask you, could possibly heap more ignominy onward homosexuality than suing somebody for $100 million in damages because they spread a rumor that you might be gay? As in Oscar Wilde's time, homosexuality is apparently still a crime in Hollywood and the pond suggestion that one has committed it still amounts to slander. After all, would Cruise really bother to entreat someone who claimed he carried a handbag or that he didn't brush his teeth? Hardly. Tabloids narrate lies about celebrities, including Cruise, each day. Most of the time, of the like kind canards don't even evoke a answer from the star in question, plenteous less a lawsuit. So in this case, you have to wonder: Doth the lady avow too much?

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