Happy Birthday Jake!

Whatever with the past has gone, the best is always yet to come.

- Lucy Larcom

True Blue

December 11, 2009

Something our dear, closeted Toothy Tile most certainly does not share with his also-in-the-closet brethren like Lloyd Boy-Toyed, Crotch Uh-Lastic and Jackie Bouffant is a virtual cornucopia of straight buds.

I don't mean the pretend kind, but the ones you never see Toothy photographed with. Yeah, you heard me right: These are heterosexual bros with whom Toothy loves to shoot the shit, have a few brews, talk about the broads, all that 100-percent-cotton American man stuff Toothy just can't seem to let go from his, like, totally gay life.

OK, it's cool, I have tons (maybe a few) gay friends who are completely into the SUVs/watching sports/unshowered thing, maybe it's not so completely weird that Toothy's wired that way a little, too?

But what's wacko is when these boy-buds o' Toothy's start, shockingly...

...coming to the put-upon pooftah's defense! At parties! At bars! At ball games! At beach barbecues! It's getting friggin' hi-larious!

And no, these dudes who actually do know Toothy rather well are not defending Mr. Tile's very publicized fauxmance and whether or not it's legitimate, hardly.

Nope, instead, they're busy saying, as of late, that Toothy and his man are doin' just fine, thank you, and further more, "They're the real thing." These het amigos like to tell this to anybody who starts talking crap about their good friend.

Backstabbing gossip gets these hetero friends of Toothy's so very riled up, they've lately been stating how "in love" Mr. and Mr. Toothy Tile happen to be right now. So there!

Wow. With friends like that, who needs gossip columns? But ain't it nice to now how truly true-blue Toothy is?

I knew it all along, didn't you?

I mean, come on, I would never have given a hateful scum-schmuck such press. Toothy's cool. Just currently a bit lost.

And It Ain't: James Marsden, Kellan Lutz, Javier Bardem

Source: Ted Casablanca's Blind Vice, Straight Dude Buds Stand Up Tall for Toothy Tile

Fauxmance is Over!

November 29, 2009

Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal have split, a source close to the actress tells PEOPLE. No further details were given.

Source: People magazine, Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal Split

Gay Edition

November 19, 2009

Dear Ted:
I was just looking through People's Sexiest Man issue. How many of the drool-worthy guys pictured in that issue are something other than hetero? Adam Lambert is one, so two or three? Four? More than five? Or would it be easier and less litigious for me to ask you which ones are straight as an arrow?
—Sebastiadams

Dear Yummy Edition:
People's (Out) Gayest Men Alive just wouldn't really sell, now would it?

Source: Ted Casablanca's The Awful Truth
Screencaps from Access Hollywood Jake Gyllenhaal On 'Brothers' & Working With Tobey Maguire video

In or Out?

KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO'S THERE? THE CLOSET. YOU'RE STILL AROUND? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!

There's been a great deal of discussion on the site [After Elton] over the past couple of weeks about gay celebrities, the closet and what constitutes being "out." And even though we've discussed the issue numerous times before, it seems like it is once again time to revisit the topic. And it's a subject that is as tricky as ever and that can have real consequences for the celebrities involved.

Perez kicked the latest round of debate off when he posted an item about White Collar's Matthew Bomer. Without citing a source or saying how he knew, Perez simply claimed Matt was an out gay man. If true, we were certainly interested in writing about Matt and his show, but as we aren't a gossip site, I wasn't going to simply repeat Perez's claims — for lots of reasons.

But I did call up Matthew's publicist and request an interview if, in fact, Perez's information was correct. Through his publicist, Matthew passed on doing the interview and the publicist told me they don't comment on their client's personal lives. And that post set off a heated discussion about outing, the closet and all the other related issues.

The issue of the closet is something we deal with at AfterElton.com a lot and we are constantly evaluating how we cover celebrities that may or may not be gay. First and foremost, we do not out people. It's our firm belief that despite the undeniably greater gay acceptance in society today, coming out still has serious ramifications for many people and is a decision to be made only by the individual in question (excluding closeted politician's, but that's another conversation for another site).

That being said, we also don't believe there is anything wrong with treating everyone the same and the questions asked of a straight celebrity are perfectly fine to ask of a gay celebrity when appropriate. Are you married? Single? What was your childhood like? How does being straight influence the way you play a gay character? Does your husband get jealous when you kiss another man? And so forth.

Here are some general observations and thoughts about where we stand today.

1) For our readers: Just because "everyone" in West Hollywood or New York "knows" Celebrity X is gay because you've seen him around town with another guy does not make it true or mean that the person is out publicly. First of all, New York and Los Angeles are not the entire world and secondly, being seen out in public with another man is not being out in any practical way.

2) For gay celebrities: Just because your family and friends know you are gay does not make you publicly out.

3) For representatives of gay celebrities: If your client is gay and your response is "no comment" because "we don't ever comment on our client's personal lives" all I have to say is "Poppycock." I may understand why you are hiding the info, but I'm not an idiot and neither are our readers. If your client discusses raising funds for Alzheimer's because their dad had it or working to fight testicular cancer because they have it or anything else not specifically about a particular role, then they do discuss their private lives.

4) There are legal issues involved. Like it or not, claiming a person is gay still has legal ramifications and you can be sued for defamation in almost half of the states in the U.S. Yes, the celebrity has to prove you are wrong, but the fact of the matter is not every celebrity rumored to be gay is gay, and I'm not about to risk my job on Perez Hilton's say so.

BTW, publicists? Please don't tell me information "off the record" and then hint you don't care what I say as long as it's without any attribution at all. Again, that could end with your client suing me and I don't traffic in gossip. Thanks, but no thanks.

5) Dear fellow journalists, please don't treat gay celebrities differently than straight ones. If you regularly ask straight actors about their spouses, children and how they personally relate to playing an ad executive from the 1950s, a starship captain or a serial killer, but avoid similar questions with those you suspect to be gay, you aren't doing your job. And given how quick you usually are to ask officially out actors about the same things you do straight ones, you know I'm right.

I can honestly say that after the success of Neil Patrick Harris has had after coming out publicly (apparently everyone in New York knew he was gay all along) I really thought things would be different and more actors would follow the Luke Macfarlane model and simply acknowledge the fact of their sexuality and move on. But I can tell you from personal experience that we still aren't there no matter how much I'd like us to be.

Which isn't to say I don't understand and appreciate the issues gay celebrities face. But the only reason things ever get better is because some people have the courage to care enough to make things better for all of us.

Source: Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (November 06, 2009), After Elton

One Gay at a Time

Page Six today has a not-very-thinly-veiled item about Anderson Cooper going on a very gay vacation with his very gay boyfriend who owns a very gay bar. Enough: Anderson Cooper is very gay. It's time he said it.

Anderson Cooper's see-through closet is such a joke that it doesn't make sense to call him in the closet anymore. If he won't say it, we will: Anderson Cooper is officially out. There's no difference between him and Neil Patrick Harris. They both play it straight at their day jobs and then openly go about town with their boyfriends and do TV interviews about how much they love Kathy Griffin and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

It's not like Cooper's in a club all of his own, either. He is part of an increasingly large crowd of notables who won't come out but have given up trying to hide that they are gay. Queen Latifah denied that she was going to marry her girlfriend, a girlfriend who she tries to pass off as her "trainer." Kevin Spacey got busted lying about being mugged in a London cruising park. Ricky Martin has stopped even trying to fight the gay rumors. Jodie Foster has never said she's a lesbian out loud, but she basically came out when she thanked her partner in an acceptance speech.

These gay-not-gay celebrities are different from the Hugh Jackmans, John Travoltas, Tom Cruises, and Kenny Chesneys, who are all constantly plagued with gay rumors that they strenuously try to deny or deflect. If they're gay, they're doing it in secret. Cooper and his set of cohorts live openly gay lives — and that's a good thing — but they refuse to acknowledge what the public already knows.

In Anderson Cooper's specific case, we sort of understand why he won't open his mouth and let the rainbows fly. All the guy has ever wanted to do was be an old-fashioned newsman and unfortunately him coming out would make him a part of the story. Every time he tried to cover something having to do with gay civil rights (or Madonna or Fire Island) plenty of people would claim that his reporting was biased because of his sexual orientation. It's not fair: Katie Couric doesn't have to worry when she covers pay inequality for women, and neither does Harry Smith when discussing new medicine that will eradicate baldness.

Coming out would open Cooper up to irrational accusations from those waiting to pounce on the "liberal media" just as quickly as A.C. pounces on his muscle man in an Indian hotel room. That sucks, but it's the way it currently is. How does it get changed? Well, by having some major national news figures come out and show that they can still get blown over in a hurricane or report live from a war zone without breaking into a anti-Prop 8 rant.

That's right, Anderson, it's going to take you to change it. Rachel Maddow has paved the way, but all the baby gays out there need you to man up and be our Jackie Robinson. The first step is the easiest, you just have to say what everyone already knows.

Source: Gawker, Anderson Cooper Is a Giant Homosexual and Everyone Knows It

Hollywood's Coming Out Guru

An LA Weekly profile of Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman asks a provocative question: is the time ripe for an A-list male actor to come out of the closet? Bragman thinks the answer is yes.

Patrick Range McDonald writes that Bragman, openly gay himself, has helped numerous celebrities and pro athletes with the "tricky and, for decades, risky terrain" of coming out. He currently works with Chaz Bono, whose gender transition from female to male was recently reported on TMZ. He's brought out actor Mitchell Anderson and NBA player John Amaechi. But now, he says, it's time for someone really big. McDonald writes,

"The publicist hasn't brought out an A-list, gay male actor - yet. But Bragman says that day is coming, and after the first superstar decides to reveal himself, a fundamental shift in American acceptance of gay leading men may not be far behind. He's currently working with a famous musician who's still closeted from the public, but who will come out next year. And the manager of one major movie star approached Bragman a year ago and asked about his client's possibly going public, but the actor still refuses to pull the trigger.

"I felt a little frustrated with that superstar," Bragman says in reflection, "because it had to be 'handled.'"

Bragman's frustration aside, Hollywood remains "a surprisingly conservative entity." Stars mobilized for a "No on Prop. 8" campaign, but McDonald says "the big studios and their mostly male chiefs - and the scores of socially liberal men and women who play key roles as casting directors and agents - have together created a kind of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which places enormous pressure on gay, male actors to remain in the closet." Bragman is confident this can change — he even says, "coming out can be used as a marketing tool." And McDonald cites some hopeful statistics — 89% of Americans now believe that gay people should have equal job opportunities, and 72% say they would not change their opinion of an athlete if they found out he was gay.

Still, gay actors face some challenges. Foremost is the fear that, as McDonald writes, "audiences would be uncomfortable seeing a known gay actor like Cheyenne Jackson kissing or fondling Kate Winslet, and box-office earnings would nose-dive." Neil Patrick Harris is famously both out and doing well, but he says that for years, "I wasn't thought of in a sexual way, which is easy when you have big ears and are called Doogie all the time." If someone who was a sex symbol and a "superstar" to boot chose to come out, the response might be different. And the process would be even more complicated if said superstar also had a high-profile heterosexual cover relationship, as it's safe to assume at least a few do.

Then again, the fiction that no one — or almost no one — in Hollywood is gay can't last forever. It's already been much remarked-upon that while straight actors can "play gay" (like Sean Penn in Milk), only a very few gay actors are permitted to "play straight." Given that the entire film industry is based on audiences agreeing to believe for a few hours that someone very famous is actually someone else, this seems obviously ludicrous. And perhaps it's true that if one "superstar" — one with enough clout to get movies made regardless of sexual orientation — actually came out, everyone would have to confront the ridiculousness of Hollywood's straight-washing. Still, when the movie industry can campaign against Prop. 8 one day and enforce a "don't ask, don't tell" policy the next, it's no surprise that no one's clamoring to be the first.

Sources: Jezebel, When Will A "Superstar" Come Out Of The Closet?
Mediabistro, LA Weekly Discusses Hollywood's Closet
LA Weekly, The Secret Lives Of Queer Leading Men