Last week, Kristin Chenoweth spectacularly took to task Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh for his editorial about how openly gay actors aren't convincing when they play straight (and before that, how openly gay actors aren't even helpful when they play gay). Today, Setoodeh has emerged to explain himself. "Over the weekend, I became the subject of a lot of vicious attacks," he wrote. "I received e-mails that said I will be fired, anonymous phone calls on my cell phone and a creepy letter at my home." So what's his defense?
The short version: "I was just being more honest than the New York Times, guys! And they said it first!"
The long version:
When Sean Hayes, from Will & Grace, made his Broadway debut in Promises, Promises playing a heterosexual man, the New York Times theater review included these lines: "his emotions often seem pale to the point of colorlessness ... his relationship with [his costar Kristin] Chenoweth feels more like that of a younger brother than a would-be lover and protector." This, to me, is code: it's a way to say that Hayes's sexual orientation is getting in the way of his acting without saying the word gay.
Instead of hiding behind double entendre and leaving the obvious unstated, I wrote an essay in the May 10 issue of NEWSWEEK called "Straight Jacket" examining why, as a society, it's often hard for us to accept an openly gay actor playing a straight character. You can disagree with me if you like, but when was the last time you saw a movie starring a gay actor? The point of my essay was not to disparage my own community, but to examine an issue that is being swept under the rug. [...]
What all this scrutiny seemed to miss was my essay's point: if an actor of the stature of George Clooney came out of the closet today, would we still accept him as a heterosexual leading man?
Well, we know Setoodeh wouldn't. The journalist also went on MSNBC today to defend himself and muddle up his argument even more by arguing (as he did in his original piece) that we don't see gay actors play complex, real people in bastions of human versimiltude like The Proposal. This dude has a hard-on for The Proposal, I am telling you:
"A lot more actors are coming out of the closet, and that's great," says Setoodeh. "A lot more people are tolerant of the gay community, and that's great -- as a member of the gay community, that's great. But, it's still not progress."
I think, technically speaking, it kind of is?
Out Of Focus [Newsweek]