Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

News Tuesday: Come out, come out, wherever you are

In last Tuesday’s blog, it was revealed that a US mag has been outing celebrities it considers to be living in the ‘glass closet’ i.e. stars who are gay and don’t hide it but haven’t actually announced the fact.
Now it seems the media has swapped the stick for the carrot and is trying to cajole closeted celebs to out themselves.

According to 247gay.com, New York graphic design shop Mr. Wonderful recently announced that it created, shot, edited and finished three breaking public service announcement for Out in TV & Film, a non-profit organisation that encourages gay and lesbians in the entertainment industry - from grips to A-List stars – to come out of the closet, and provides the support for them when they do.

US celebrities starring in the clips, including a US Big Brother contestant and an Emmy award winning writer, will talk about coming out and urging others to do the same.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

News Tuesday: Name and Shame?

An American gay magazine has decided to name Hollywood stars it claims are gay or lesbian in an attempt to crowbar them out of the closet.

The annual Out magazine's May edition features two models holding masks of actress Jodie Foster and American TV news anchor Anderson Cooper in front of their faces, with the headline "The Glass Closet: Why Stars Won’t Come Out And Play."

Village Voice columnist Michael Musto's 'outing' article comments: "Even at their most controlling, straight stars never seem to leave out the fact that they're straight in interviews. Whenever a subject tells me, 'I won't discuss who I'm dating' or 'I resent labels,' I generally know not so much that they're passionate about privacy but that they're gay gay, gay."

With a number of sites dedicated to outing stars popping up – and one particularly juvenile and venomous US-based website has garnered a considerable following – any closeted stars over here in the UK must be getting decidedly edgy. Though the resulting list might not be as glamorous as anything Hollywood throws up, the sad reality is that it could bring careers crashing.

But does forcing stars in ‘name and shame’ style exposés do much to raise the profile of gay and lesbian actors. Wouldn’t it be more useful to target the homophobia within the industry that keeps stars from coming out, even when, as with Foster, it’s an open secret already?