As Matt Bomer’s legns of fans — 89,391 had signed a petn askg for him to star “Fifty Shas of Grey” — are prottg the news that Irish actor Jamie Dornan will play Christian Grey, brgs up some tertg qutns about gay polics Hollywood.
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FIFTY SHAS OF HOMOPHOBIA: WHO CAR IF THE ACTOR WHO PLAYS CHRISTIAN GREY IS GAY?
Maybe I'm an ialist, but when I first heard that Bret Easton Ellis had taken to Twter to personally embargo openly gay actor Matt Bomer om beg st as Christian Grey Fifty Shas of Grey, the film adaptatn of E. After the uproar two years ago, when Newsweek wrer Ram Setooh (himself a gay man) claimed that Sean Hay was too "queeny" to play a straight man Promis, Promis, I didn't thk someone would so publicly "go there" aga. But this isn't for the reason you'd expect, and the actual reason disprov Setooh's (and Ellis') homophobic views on the subject: Dpe wi speculatn that Tom Cise is "hidg somethg, " dienc don't seem to re much whether or not Cise is a gay man; stead, they re that he's "crazy, " as the fervor over his relign and marriage have domated his late reer.
It's bee the public jt don't like him anymore, gay or straight. Neil Patrick Harris has ma a send reer out of beg a gay actor playg straight. Harris didn't e out as a gay man until 2006, two years later, and his revelatn only served to make the joke even cleverer, allowg Harold and Kumar wrers Jon Hurwz and Hayn Schlossenberg to go even further the next stallments.
By the third film they had Harris pretend to be gay orr to sleep wh a woman he's attracted to, but the joke works not jt bee the joke self funny, which is, but bee Harris is a great ic actor wh killer timg, which is why the Tony Awards won't get rid of him. In fact, many of them have ma reers out of playg versns of those same characters other rol -- pecially Will Art and Jason this do is hold queer actors Hollywood to an unfair and homophobic double standard, whether holdg them to unrealistic expectatns or askg (as Ellis has done) that they be "genuely to" the oppose sex, when we don't expect the same thg of straight actors gog gay.