Ask the Flying Monkey: The Great Gay Pride In-Your-Face-Sex Debate!

This week: Is Martha Plimpton a gay icon? Are there any movies or shows that no gay person should watch? Is gay pride the “face” of the gay community?

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or country!

Q: Is Martha Plimpton a gay icon? I know you’re high on her new show, Raising Hope. – Eddy, Albuquerque, NM

Martha Plimpton

A: Martha Plimpton may not be well-known enough to be a full-fledged gay icon, but I think she’s definitely well on her way to icon-hood.

Why? I’d like to be able to say that it’s solely about her Cher-like career longevity and impressive talent, which has recently resulted in three consecutive Tony Award nominations, not to mention stunning TV character work on shows like Fringe and, yes, Raising Hope.

But let’s face facts: Plimpton’s gay icon-ette status also has something to do with the drama surrounding her years as a wise-beyond-her-years child actress, especially her love affair with River Phoenix, and her friendships with Keanu Reeves and the rest of the Phoenix clan.

Plimpton with River Phoenix

Then, of course, there’s her role as Stef in the camp classic, The Goonies. That’s even her in the infamous, incredibly-cheesy deleted “giant octopus” scene.

Incidentally, when we told Plimpton she had a big gay fan-base and asked her if she had any idea why, she told us, “That’s very nice! I don’t know what it could be. I hate to say that gay men have better taste than straight men, although it’s certainly true in the case of most of my friends. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a compliment, that’s for sure.

Raising Hope debuts tomorrow night on Fox.

Q: I've been a fan of gay-themed movies, books, and TV shows for about 15 years - of course I also like other non-gay stuff, too. Recently I've been asking myself: Are there any (mainstream) TV shows/movies that you "shouldn't" watch if you consider yourself a gay ally? There have been various mentions on AfterElton.com of controversial episodes of (for example) Family Guy. So what's the verdict? -- Gravity81, Germany

A: I can see two reasons why a GLBT person wouldn’t support a movie, book, or TV show: first, the work itself is homophobic. But who’s to say if something is homophobic? AfterElton.com? There’s rarely ever a complete agreement here on anything even among the staff members, much less among our readers.

And TV shows are made up of changing staffs of hundreds of people, working over many years: even if a show does do an episode that’s outright homophobic, is it fair to hold the entire show accountable?

Generally gay-supportive Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane
and a scene from the shockingly insensitve "Quagmire's Dad" episode.

Sure, there are isolated instances where most of us can agree the work is homophobic – the shows of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, certain rap artists, the comedian Gallagher, a lot of the work of the Wayans Brothers. But these examples are few and far between.

The second reason to boycott something is because the artist or artists involved is personally an anti-gay bigot even if their work is not, but this also strikes me as pretty problematic. It’s possible in the case of someone like author Orson Scott Card, who has taken a very public (and viciously anti-gay) stand on the subject of same-sex marriage.

But some people, for example, have said, “Don’t support anything Twilight-related, because Stephenie Meyer is Mormon, and the Mormon Church is anti-gay.”

Problem is, some Mormons are pro-gay – Marie Osmond anyone? – and since Meyer hasn’t specifically spoken out against gay rights, that strikes me as a pretty thin reed to hang a boycott on, one that spills over into outright anti-Mormon bigotry.

If you’re saying we should boycott Meyer, are you also willing to boycott the work of every practicing member of the Catholic Church? They’re at least as homophobic as the Mormon one.

Of the many reasons to avoid Twilight films, author Stephenie Meyer's
Mormon background is probably not one of them.

The point is, it’s hard to know what’s really inside someone else’s heart. As a general rule, I say: judge artists by their work, not their (supposed) political beliefs.

Bottom line? Educate yourself, sure, and vote with your dollars if your conscience tells you to. But ultimately, we all have to decide these things for ourselves.

Next Page! The great gay pride in-your-face-sex debate!