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Ask the Flying Monkey! (November 09, 2009)Q: I have to admit, being a Heroes fan, that I have a celebrity crush on Milo Ventimiglia. I was doing some digging and discovered that he played a gay teen in a collection of short films called Boys Life 2. However, just because an actor plays a character doesn't mean that the actor is supportive of said character. As such, I was wondering as to whether or not Milo has ever spoken openly about gay issues? Is he a friend or foe to the gay community? – Teddy, State College, PA A: Another softball question! Maybe I won’t commit suicide after all. Ventimiglia, who also played gay in the 2005 movie Cursed, is definitely a friend, at least if you believe him in his 2008 interview with The Advocate.
Milo Ventimiglia As for me, I still haven’t quite forgiven the actor for the incredibly stereotypical gay character in one episode of the 2007 web series he directed, It’s a Mall World:
Let’s do this again next week, shall we? A Note from the Monkey: Last week, I wrote that The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons was straight. In the comments following that column, a person posted pictures of Jim attending a ceremony and on a red carpet with the same man they believed was his boyfriend. We asked Jim’s publicist if the actor was, in fact, straight and, if not, would he do an interview with us. The publicist said, “We don’t comment on our client’s private lives,” and Jim declined to do an interview at this time. Have a question about gay male entertainment? Send it to aftereltonflyingmonkey@yahoo.com! (Please include your city and state and/or country.) Submitted by on Mon, 2009-11-09 01:15. |
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News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media
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Holy Shiz ...
Hahaha
Poor Brent...but at least your week can only go uphill from here ;)
Maybe we need a scoreboard somewhere on the site.
Three columns. Our Team/The Other Team/Not Telling -- and you can just add a name to the appropriate column and we can all stop asking who is/isn't/has to be and just check the damn scoreboard. ;)
A little known fact...
Wow
I hadn't heard anything about Hemingway being gay or bisexual. Very interesting. I know he can be polarizing, but I'm a fan.
That Glenn Beck video from the Onion is so funny. I've been thinking about that and laughing all week.I've been loving their videos lately. The one about Joe Biden seneezing is fantastic as well.
I honestly think that all of these "no comment" responses are worth it for those few nonchalant confirmations, like Paulo Szot. How cool was that?
Maybe you can help me, Monkey
Wow, thanks!
Don't be Stupid
He kissed another dude and was a confirmed bachelor! There's your proof right there!
Also, I think he used to hang out with some dude who always wore a rainbow coat.
AS A GOOSE!
Check out my new fantasy website: TheTorchOnline.com. It's like AfterElton.com for fantasy geeks! And I Twitter
your super powers work in mysterious ways
So, I'm trying to follow this conversation...
Snicks: Can you find out?
Brent: AS A GOOSE!
I'm not going to ask how you find things out as a goose, but I suppose that a monkey who can fly is capable of many things. It does not matter how you work your magic - only that you do. Thanks for a great column. Hope you feel better next week!
Actually
Yes, I know...
Jesus
hahaha, this made me laugh.
Honestly, he could have been, Jesus was kind of revolutionary so he very well could have been gay, altough personally I think he was in love with Mary Magdalene.
and as a Christian, I really couldn't care what orientation he was, Jesus was an awesome dude and that's all that matters.
You too can be saved by the blog! www.savedbytheblog14.blogspot.com
I may be straight, but I'm not narrow.
I have no clue with the obsession with
Brent, I'm Just Glad....
Mixed-up Monkey
And yet he doesn't think politicians who are hired to represent their constituents, not necessarily pursue their personal views and biases deserve a private life. Wait, except for Bill "even presidents have private lives" Clinton, giver of DOMA and DADT.
So many contradictions going on inside it's no wonder Brent contemplates suicide.
Oh, yeah, that's not funny either. Plenty of us do contemplate suicide.
Finally, regarding "But how do you know I’m just saying that even though I’ve personally heard evidence to the contrary, but don’t have enough to make an official “statement”?" I think you meant to slip "NOT" in there between "I'm" and "just," Flying Monkey. Freudian slip? What did you know and when did you know it?
Bomer and Hemingway
Aha, here's a nice little coincidence for you: Matt Bomer played Ernest Hemingway in the play Villa America at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2007...and the play had a scene where Hemingway gets on his knees to, um, measure F. Scott Fitzgerald's unit.
I've been reading many of the comments across the web in the wake of Matt Bomer's outing and the one thing that I do find interesting is the double standard the media seems to have with this. As someone pointed out, if these were pics of Bomer kissing a female years ago, the mainstream press would be all over it, finding the ex-girlfriend and trotting her out on Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood -- but because he was kissing a guy, they stayed silent. As far as I know, only one website (Queerty) bothered to track down the guy, who confirmed that they were once a couple but he hasn't seen him in years.
I find this incredibly frustrating and hypocritical (and, thus, I disagree with your thesis--shocking, but true). Not all of your thesis: even in the ex-girlfriend scenario, I don't think the media SHOULD dig into an individual's personal life...UNLESS their public persona is at odds with their personal life. And one could argue that since Bomer has never advertised his personal life, never claimed to be straight, those photos weren't necessarily at odds with his public persona--since he didn't have one! But, the argument that straight celebrities have a right to a personal, private life, while "advertising" their heterosexuality around the world for all to see (whenever Brad and Angelina hold hands and kiss in public, they are outing themselves as straight), makes the Matt Bomer situation more complicated, and even more complicated because it comes with socio-political baggage: we live in a world where our rights are taken away by voters in California and Maine, where we are denied basic human rights by our government, where we are beaten and killed by bigots from Wyoming to the UK, and where we are sentenced to hanging in Iran and hunted down and murdered by religious fanatics in Iraq. To hide behind a "no comment," and thus imply that being gay is a nasty, shameful little secret is, to me, far more shameful.
Bomer (and all other closeted celebrities) have the chance to make a difference, to make a change in the industry he has chosen to work in and affect a positive impact on society--even if his coming out makes one young boy in Louisiana decide NOT to kill himself, he'd be making a world of difference.
As for Hemingway, well, I don't know about that, but the issue of "outing" is just as controversial for famous dead people as it is for famous live people! Dare to suggest that some famous historical personage was into the homo sex and people have a conniption. Even when the evidence is pretty compelling or confirmed! I once read a biography of Lord Kitchener that actually included an entire chapter attempting to refute the theory that he was gay, despite offering no factual evidence to the contrary; to counter the fact that Kitchener never married, that he spent his life and his home with several different men, that he condemned Gen. MacDonald not for having sex with men but for getting caught (MacDonald committed suicide), the only evidence supplied was that...Kitchener was too moral a person to engage in such "perverted" behavior! Sigh...it's never-ending.
So Matt Bomer is evil
because he caused some gay kid in in Louisiana (is this a particularly high gay teen suicide state?) to kill himself? Come on do you really buy into the gay idol crap? Can you name anyone who committed suicide because they lacked Matt Bomer as a gay star? There is absolutely no evidence that kids kill themselves because they have no specific gay role models.
Quite personally I am with the Flying Monkey on the topic of being burned out over "outing" and a I couldn't get up the energy of seeing that film either.
I Guess I Feel....
Role models
If that poor child in Louisiana is at the point of killing himself, it will have nothing to do with whether or not Bomer has done his 'outing' interview with The Advocate. Instead, it'll be because of the role models he has closer to hand - family, friends, people he knows. It's the immediate community that will save this child - not Hollywood.
I find it increasingly frustrating that if a gay man has any public aspect to his life, he has to be a role model. I drink, smoke, swear, have had anonymous sex with men whose names I never bothered to find out and rarely cross the road at the designated place. If any parent held me up as a gay role model for their offspring I'd refer them to Children's Services as a matter of immediate concern.
In the greater scheme of things, what's most important is that Bomer raises his own children as well as he can. That's a difficult enough job at the best of times, so why should he - or anyone else - be expected to raise other people's children as well?
We are ALL role models
I must firmly and strongly disagree that celebrities are supposedly not role models. Of course they are. We ALL are, it’s our responsibility and duty to our fellow humans, regardless of whether we’re gay or straight, black or white, male or female.
I work with teenagers (I’m a high school teacher) and I know that just as I am a role model, just as their parents are role models, so are the celebrities they admire. They look to Beyonce and Justin Timberlake and so many others on how to dress, talk, behave, etc. You may not like it, but that’s the way it is.
No, Bomer isn’t evil (of course, isoron would bait me, but I’ll bite). But a non-committal “no comment” doesn’t help. And so gay youth are denied another role model, and bigots are reinforced with their impression that being gay is so shameful that it can’t be discussed. I simply oppose that position, I’m not saying Bomer is evil, but his actions certainly haven't helped.
And this canard that celebrities’ personal lives are private only gets trotted out when we’re dealing with gay celebrities, and I’m genuinely surprised that some people don’t see the hypocrisy. Look, Meryl Streep is a pretty private celebrity, but we DO know that she’s married and has children, because she’s spoken about them and they have accompanied her to premieres and awards functions; additionally, even if she didn’t speak about them, the fact that she got married and had children is part of the public record—marriages and births are recorded by the government, so this information is readily available.
The only difference is that because gay men can’t get married (or don’t choose to), it isn’t “public” record, but the issue still stands. Somebody in this thread mentioned Paolo Szot, who simply said yes when asked the question. That’s all it takes, no big cover story in People. Just say “Yes” and move on. Sometimes the most minimalist comment can have the greatest, most positive impact.
Are you out to your kids?
This is an important question for me to ask. If you say you are, I'll have an entirely different response than I would if you say you're not.
Sorry about this, but I need to know.
that is a fair question for him while I agree with him on Bomer
I am out
I really don't think...
...pictures of Matt Bomer or any othe star kissing a girl from 9 years ago would make news as long as he wasn't married or a priest at the time. It's not really fair to say the media would be all over it, tracking the girl down, etc. if a picture of him kissing a girl from a party 9 years ago...just kissing, like the one with him and the guy...surfaced. The media is paying more attention to it (though appropriately, I think the really good outlets aren't biting) than they would if it was a girl, not less.
Wasn't....
He's not gay
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heh, heh...
That really cracked me up.
"I swear to God the man is straight... seriously! Why won't you believe me!?"
It does seem like a huge waste of beefcake. A gay man would appreciate that body a lot more than a woman. C'est la vie.
Bret you really should look at "Outrage" all the way through
Forget "outing" (which I know upsets you) it has TONS to say about politics, the media and hypocrital behavior.
“We don’t comment on our client’s private lives,” and Jim declined to do an interview at this time.
IOW, IMO -- GAY!
The notion of a straight Jim Parsons is untenable, IMO. Especially after he called The Big Bang Theory "the little black dress of sitcom."
Nah
You can't take things like that and infer his sexuality from it. One of my mates mates is as camp as Christmas and very quick witted but is not gay at all, You could not even say he was in denial if you knew him and the ladys...!
Plus no one ever thinks I am gay. Gaydar is too flawed to be trusted all the time.
EDIT
EDIT
Double post FTL :-(
The Hemmingway
Mention triggered something in me to remember about a news item on the exhumation of Federico García Lorca (Hemmingway and Spain...)
I have no clue if AA mentioned this at the time 20th of Oct but I do not remember seeing anything about it so I will just post it here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8314989.stm
I definitely agree with the concept of not outing celebrities
Agreed about the picture
That is something I also took issue with after I finished reading. I'm all for not outing anyone (famous or not) who's isnt going out of their way to cause hate or malice to us as a community and I am a little tired of the storm surrounding Mr. Bomer. Yet after I saw the word "supposedly" in the line about the photograph and also later on down mentioning that it might not even be real to begin with, that's a bit too much. As it happens...there were two photos shown and taken at the same time, one of them hugging each other and smiling directly at the camera, and the other one kissing. Between the two pictures the camera is still in place in the same room and they're wearing the same clothes and hairstyles, skin tone is matching, ect. The photo of them kissing is real.
Now of course it doesn't come with a bubble caption floating above of his head saying "hey look at me I'm gay!", but to act as if the photo doesn't exist or is fake, especially to us here on this site, is almost like taking a slap at our intelligence. I completely agree with the other part our Monkey said about not being able to use the photo as conclusive proof as far as media publication goes, but don't try to pull the curtain down over us and act as if it never existed or wasn't real to begin with. Yes to say he's publicly out until he's made an official acknowledgment would be lying, but to act like the photo was a fabrication is also lying. The Monkey could have done well enough just saying that there was a private photo of Mr. Bomer kissing another man BUT that it does not mean he consented to have it released and has yet to say anything on the matter of his sexual orientation. That would have covered enough ground on both sides and we would have got the picture (literally.)
As for myself I have resolved to just wait and see if he wants to say anything publicly in the future, as that is all up to him. I mean in reality he's not even a major star yet, this is more-less his breakout part, and had this whole speculation thing not happened I wouldn't even know who he is.
You've made my head hurt
And for the record, you are not making me any less confused/frustrated by this whole topic! ;-)Check out my new fantasy website: TheTorchOnline.com. It's like AfterElton.com for fantasy geeks! And I Twitter
This may make Monkey's head explode, but...
"Scene from a play"?
Yikes. Talk about making one's head explode! Occam's Razor might have something to say about that. If you saw the pics, they were candid, clearly in someone's living room, and it was very deep and involved kissing. If they were fake, or out of context, clearly Bomer's publicist would've made those claims, but they really wouldn't have passed the laugh test.
Anyway, Bomer's lack of denial about the whole thing makes me think he'll be coming out in a year or two, assuming his show is successful enough, making all this moot.
Monkey's cranial explosions
Brent you did not say
Can someone please explain...
with politicians
When extreme socially conservative politicians are activiely trying to restrict your right to privacy, then they give up the right to that same privacy. If they're trying to pass laws about what we do in our bedrooms, then we have the right to ask what's going on in their bedrooms. Or, if they're trying to claim moral superiority based on what they say is happening in their bed, we have the right to know what's happening in their bed.
Every other human being has a right to privacy.
Hmmm, I see them as REALLY different
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What about...
...political campaign workers, as Mike Rogers did in 2004? At first, I thought it was silly, but when he talked about how many of his targets were people who worked to put out ads that played to homophobia, I can see how the information is relevant. (Especially since it can play to the battle for conservative purity among the GOP.)
Check your own hypocrisy?
Politicians are *hired* to represent a constituency and not pursue policy based upon their personal bias or circumstances.
You don't support those marriage commissions who won't marry gays for personal reasons, do you? You want them to do the job they're hired for.
You are dismissive of the DOMA/DADT giver Clinton's impeachment as a partisan witch hunt despite his willful misconduct of lying under oath in court proceedings which ultimately got him disbarred. People don't get disbarred for nothing.
If you can defend Mr. "even presidents have private lives" you can at least extend courtesy of privacy to queer politicians of all stripes and fight on policy, not personal ground.
Um, what hypocrisy?
But for the record, I do think the issue of "hypocrisy" is relevant. I don't see how Clinton's private actions make his public actions hypocritical. But I do see how the actions of a closeted gay person enacting legislation that invades the privacy of other gay people (and many of these folks, including Larry Craig, are on record as supporting sodomy laws). Frankly, it's honestly hard for me to imagine anything MORE hypocritical.
Mostly, though, I'd say: they declared war on us. Literally -- they either want us in prison or registered as sex offenders, or they support and appoint judges like Scalia who do. You'll forgive me if I'm reluctant to go to the mat to defend that person's right to privacy -- which, incidentally, most of them don't even believe exists.
;
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that is beyond absurd
First, Clinton wasn't disbarred he was suspended by a judge which he could have appealed but chose not to. Second, politicans are not hired to be weather vanes. They are supposed to lead and yes, actually believe the stuff they are spouting. If you repeatedly say, as Coburn does, that gays are such unfit citizens they should be arrested for sodomy, then you surely can't turn around and hire them to run you office without being a total hypocrite.
Plus take a look at Craig of Idaho. Here is a man who cast the deciding vote allowing my school district the legal right to fire me for simply being gay, forget about any bathroom shenanagins, but he should get to keep his job? Give me a break.
It's quite simple Rem...
Politicians have the power to directly affect our lives, our civil rights, our freedom through the laws and policies they vote for. Celebrities don't. So if you're backing a bill that would ban same-sex marriage, all the while you're giving blowjobs in some public toilet, the public has every right to know just how big a hypocrite you are.
As for the celebrity? Personally I don't understand why every other homosexual on the face of the planet has to speculate whether a handsome actor is/isn't Gay... Tom Select is as butch a heterosexual as they come, but it didn't stop me from slobbering on the television when the openning credits ran for Magnum P.I. So Bomer is a cute puppy, some of us would like to eat him up with a spoon, but does that give us just cause for all this pissing and moaning? Oh, hell no.
Frankly, my opinion is - shut up alreeady! Why does it make any difference whether this pretty child is homosexual or not. If and when he chooses to share his private, personal life with the rest of the world then we'll all know. And we'll have every right to decide, at that time, whether or not we really care. But I cannot say the same for an elected representative. No. To quote Thomas Jefferson: "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while Congress is in session..." Now do you understand the difference, dear? Take it from Mommie Dammit, someone who's been on the battlefront for the past 3 decades - if your butt is in a public office, where you can affect my life and livelihood at the stroke of a pen, then all the gloves come off. You'd just as well paint a giant bull'seye on your butt.
If, however, you're making a living in front of the camera and have nothing to do with the legistlative or jurisprudence processes, then you can expect the same respect for your privacy from me as I expect from you.
Mommie Dammit
"I go to the axe - It does not come to me."
- Frank Herbert; The Heretics of Dune
Cause
How will outing them stop
How will outing them stop the hypocrisy?
Cause
What vote will they lose
What vote will they lose that they did not already have?