Found via Big Hollywood, E Online spots self-described “liberal Christian” actress-singer Kristin Chenoweth in comically high dudgeon mode over a recent Newsweek article:
The wee Emmy winner penned an angry comment (one of many, actually) on the weekly’s website Friday, up in arms over an article titled “Straight Jacket,” which argued that gay male actors, such as Glee‘s Jonathan Groff, have a hard time pulling off heterosexual romantic leads.
Chenoweth, who’s currently starring opposite Tony-nominated Sean Hayes on Broadway in the romantic-comedy musical Promises, Promises, and has guest-starred on Glee, called Ramin Setoodeh’s article—which called Hayes’ real-life homosexuality the “big pink elephant in the room”— “horrendously homophobic.”
Advertisement“From where I stand, on stage, with Hayes, every night—I’ve observed nothing ‘wooden’ or ‘weird’ in his performance, nor have I noticed the seemingly unwieldy presence of a ‘pink elephant’ in the Broadway Theater,” Chenoweth wrote on Newsweek.com.
“I’d normally keep silent on such matters and write such small-minded viewpoints off as perhaps a blip in common sense. But the offense I take to this article, and your decision to publish it, is not really even related to my profession or my work with Hayes or Jonathan Groff (also singled out in the article as too ‘queeny’ to play ‘straight.’)
“This article offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian,” she continued. “For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile. Setoodeh even goes so far as to justify his knee-jerk homophobic reaction to gay actors by accepting and endorsing that ‘as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school.’ Really? We want to maintain and proliferate the same kind of bullying that makes children cry and in some recent cases have even taken their own lives? That’s so sad, Newsweek!”
She goes on (read her comments in their entirety at here) to defend Hayes and Groff’s acting work, also name-checking How I Met Your Mother womanizer Neil Patrick Harris and Sex and the City‘s Cynthia Nixon as examples of gay actors who play straight quite convincingly.
“No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams,” Chenoweth wrote. “I am told on good authority that Mr. Setoodeh is a gay man himself and I would hope, as the author of this article, he would at least understand that. I encourage Newsweek to embrace stories which promote acceptance, love, unity and singing and dancing for all!”
Good luck with that.
As Newsweek moved from center to hard left over the previous decade, it embraced the splintering world of identity politics with a passion, to the point where it ran this cover during their death spiral last year:
Is Newsweek “Horrendously Homophobic?” Very likely not. But hey, live by identity politics, die by it as well. This is the leftwing milieu in which the magazine’s editors and its publisher, the Washington Post, consciously chose to operate in, and now it’s time to pay the price. Or as the left’s bargain-basement Sun Tzu wannabe once said:
Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
And much more so than the traditional church, neither can the newer and infinitely more paradoxical alternative religion of the left.
I enjoy seeing Newsweek writhe on this petard of its own choosing. Take a potential audience of 100 percent and then pitch your product to only 20 percent. The left wing market is already dense with other publications like Time and Nation. (Why is it called mainstream media, by the way?) If there is sense in Newsweek’s choice, it evades me. But, like I say, I’m enjoying the spectacle.
“gay male actors, such as Glee’s Jonathan Groff, have a hard time pulling off heterosexual romantic leads.”
I was just talking to Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy about this.
Not to mention Clark Gable, Randolph Scott, Broderick Crawford, Elijah Wood, Leonardo DiCaprio, and others too numerous to mention.
How about Gabby Hayes?
Or, maybe they just are not very good at acting? Keanu Reeves is, reputedly, straight, yet, his romantic efforts on-screen are truly laughable. And, regarding Ms Chenoweth’s opinions on which gay man carries off the straight role best, such opinions are oft rendered in one’s self-interest. Were it not her personal thespian ‘cow’ being gored, perhaps her objectivity would be less open to question.
I have sometimes thought about how difficult it may be for gay actors cast in a heterosexual romantic lead, using what I am sure would be my poor and hapless efforts were I cast in a gay role as a measure. Those abile to routinely turn in convincing performances in such roles is testament to their skill and professionalism.
I have not read the Newsweek article, but suspect it is along the “why must gay actors always be cast as straight?” line of questioning. The answer there lies in simple economics.
Newsweek is structurally incapable of homophobia–they are on the left and are exempt from moral condemnation.
Remember Niles pretending he was straight in Frasier? Poor Daphne!
No wait, this whole kerfuffle is about a gay man — on Broadway??!
“How about Gabby Hayes?”
No, I’ve seen pictures of him in a tux at a nightclub with his wife. (Seriously. He was actually a rather cultured fellow who had to go around all the time in his crazy old coot beard, because he worked so steadily.)
Now, Will Geer, that’s another story!
Seriously? I’m honestly confused as to why this is such a big deal. The Newsweek story just seems to feed into the creepy obsession with people’s sex lives. http://bit.ly/b04B4O