For those of you who may not have heard about this yet, one of Newsweek's staff writers wrote an article titled "Straight Jacket: Heterosexual actors play gay all the time. Why doesn't it ever work in reverse?" (Click HERE for the full article) In it, he basically says that openly gay actors shouldn't be considered for straight, leading men rolls, with the start of his argument discussing Sean Hayes' (best known as Jack from Will & Grace) roll in the Broadway play Promises, Promises. I don't really know much about the show, but apparently his character is an advertising exec who is in love with his female co-worker, played by Kristin Chenoweth. He also briefly touches on Glee's newest heartthrob, Jonathan Groff, among others, who plays Lea Michelle's love interest, Jesse St. James (who, incidentally, also played her love interest in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening).
Here's where the problem lies, in my opinion. Why can't they? Straight actors have been winning awards and accolades for playing gay characters for years. Why should it be so hard to believe the opposite?Isn't the point of acting that the actor completely disregards their own persona to become a particular character? I'm not a theater person, but I think that's a pretty good layman's definition of acting. If you're arguing that since the public knows this particular individual to be an out, proud gay man, then there's no way he can be believable, shouldn't the argument extend to actors who are known not to be the same nationality of characters they're portraying? There are tons of television and movie actors who use false accents or even play an ethnicity other than their own, but you don't hear much in the way of backlash against that.
The writer of the article has been in major hot water over the past two days and a big part of his defense, of the Sean Hayes comments specifically, is that, in his opinion, the New York Times agreed with him, without saying so specifically. I guess that all depends on how deeply you want to read into the comments of the newspaper's critic. Click HERE for the full NYT review.
I completely believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinions about things, to each their own or whatnot, and I'm really not usually one to get up on my soapbox to discuss these kinds of things, but as I mentioned before, for whatever reason this really hit a nerve with me.
OK. Rant over. I know when I'm watching Glee tonight I won't be thinking about Jonathan Groff's sexuality, but rather how much I wish Jesse St. James was singing directly to me!
Until next time... xo
Title quote: Nathan Lane and Robin Williams, "The Birdcage"
