'50 Shas of Grey' gay flap |

Contents:

• '50 SHAS OF GREY' GAY FLAP
• FIFTY SHAS OF HOMOPHOBIA: WHO CAR IF THE ACTOR WHO PLAYS CHRISTIAN GREY IS GAY?
• MR PK – FIFTY SHAS OF GREY BUT GAY
• FIFTY SHAS’ MARCIA GAY HARN OPENS UP ‘SEXUAL UNLEASHG’ IN FANDOM AND WHY BEG IN THE THICK OF IT WAS ‘FASCATG’

'50 SHAS OF GREY' GAY FLAP

Matt Bomer isn't right for Christian Grey bee he is openly gay. Can an openly gay actor nvcgly portray a straight character on screen? In 2010, Newsweek wrer Ram Setooh igned a furor when he explaed that he uldn't appreciate Sean Hay' performance the play Promis, Promis, primarily bee "'s weird seeg [the openly gay] Hay play straight.

" In 2009, Rupert Everett was so trated by Hollywood's abily to see anythg past his own sexualy that he urged young gay actors to stay the closet if they wanted to enjoy any real mastream succs. "It means that we've moved beyond stereotyp and that gay is hot…" I uldn't image a more misguid terpretatn of that feedback.

Another explanatn: women are not threatened by the ia of gay men. Apparently, that male illn is plited when the man portrayg that hero is gay.

FIFTY SHAS OF HOMOPHOBIA: WHO CAR IF THE ACTOR WHO PLAYS CHRISTIAN GREY IS GAY?

" Unrstandg Ellis' reactn is important to appreciatg the hypocrisy when the on-screen sexual orientatn scenar is reversed: Was Tom Hanks ls believable playg a gay man Philalphia bee the dience uldn't rolve the role wh his real-life marriage to Ra Wilson? Perhaps the reason they were accepted proment gay rol and generoly honored for dog so is bee, ep down, there's homophobic ridue that exists even the most enlightened du's psyche that is reassured by the realy that those actors are "jt pretendg" to be 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.

MR PK – FIFTY SHAS OF GREY BUT GAY

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. This don't leave queer actors a lot of optns other than playg one of the handful of queer characters that pop up movi every year -- rol they'll have to fight straight actors was the exact reason that Rupert Everett (who gaed mastream regnn for playg Julia Roberts' gay BFF My Bt Friend's Weddg) told The Guardian 2009 that g out killed his reer.

Acrdg to Everett, "A gay man n only do drag.

FIFTY SHAS’ MARCIA GAY HARN OPENS UP ‘SEXUAL UNLEASHG’ IN FANDOM AND WHY BEG IN THE THICK OF IT WAS ‘FASCATG’

In his article on the homophobia implic this systemic double standard, Jeff Labrecque of Entertament Weekly wr of such dtry "realpolik":Perhaps the reason they were accepted proment gay rol and generoly honored for dog so is bee, ep down, there's homophobic ridue that exists even the most enlightened du's psyche that is reassured by the realy that those actors are "jt pretendg" to be gay.

Labrecque is right that part of the problem has to do wh the straight male moviegoer, whose tast tend to domate what entertaments grace the multiplex, but the gay buck don't stop here.