Alan Cumming's Take On "Newsweek" Disaster

Alan Cumming's Take On "Newsweek" Disaster
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
May 14 2010
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Alan cumming 1 In a recent issue of "Newsweek" , there appeared an article called "Straight Jacket" by Ramin Seetodeh about how openly gay actors can not play straight roles. Quite honestly, it was the most homophobic pieces of rubbish I have read in quite some time. No matter how "Newsweek", or for that matter its defenders in the "Washington Post" and "Hollywood Reporter", attempt to clean up this mess, the article is pure and simple homophobic and outrageous.

One of the world's greatest actors, who happens to be out, Alan Cumming blogged on this issue with a column called "The Hate of Gays" His thoughts are well worth reading in full but here are a few excerpts.

"Ramin Seetodeh wrote yet another article for Newsweek about the furore that his original article engendered, claiming he had only meant to open a debate about how there are no out, gay A-list movie stars. Here, I have to say I agree and disagree with him. I agree there are not, I disagree that anyone other than he could have discerned that that was the intention of his original article. He also told of the affects his original article had on his life: personal attacks, nasty emails, yadda yadda. Welcome to the warped world of celebrity, Ramin.

Since then...are you all still with me?...Seetodeh has gone on Joy Behar's TV show and bumbled his way though a defence of his comments and.....yawn... probably even as I write this, thousands of missives are flying across the blogosphere about this whole palaver. Today The Washington Post weighed in, as did The Hollywood Reporter , citing why Newsweek need not apologise for its comments. Blah, blah, blah, right?

Here's what I, Alan Cumming - out queer person, actor, purveyor of characters both straight, gay and those whose sexuality is not defined, currenly typing this with acrylic nails and sore toes from being shoved into high heels from playing a TRANSVESTITE ( see photograph) has to say about it all......

There are millions of gay people all over the world who convincingly portray straight people every single day. Some of them are even actors. There are loads of gay people in the world who are effeminate. There are loads of straight people in the world who are effeminate. What is wrong with being effeminate? Does Ramin Seetodeh, and indeed society in general, have a problem with people who are too masculine? (Actually, probably yes, if they happen to be female). Calling someone out for being effeminate is a way of being negative about them for being gay without actually having to fess up to actual full-blown homophobia because our society has a tacit understanding that effeminacy is just a euphemism for faggot. Again, what is wrong with effeminacy? Do we have articles written in Newsweek about men (or women) who display particularly jockish behaviour or exhibit high levels of testosterone?

Ramin Seetodeh has written a similar article, and, oh yes, another similar article, and again, a similar article, all for Newsweek. One of these articles involves the murder of a 15 year old child, Larry King, who Seetodeh describes thus: a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon. Sentences like that made me sick to my stomach. Compared to this one, his weirdy rant about gay actors is quite cute."

Alan Cumming says later in the piece:

"But sadly he is not alone. His article has ignited a conversation that I think highlights the fact that self-hating gays operate at the highest level of the entertainment industry: casting directors, producers, directors, agents, managers, publicists, who are themselves gay willingly engage in the oppression of their fellow gay actors. An actor who is publicly out is not heralded as a role model or celebrated amongst this dark little band of unhappy people but derided and mocked, and their exclusion from projects in which they might play straight is borne, often, by this band of their self-hating brothers and sisters."