TOPICS: Out magazine cover story identifies Anderson Cooper and Jodie Foster as gay entertainment and media power people. Gay market. Jodie Foster. Gay marketing. CNN. Anderson Cooper. Gay celebrities. Lesbian and gay PR. US gay and lesbian community. Gay rights. Gay acceptance, gay tolerance. Lesbian and gay civil rights. New York. New York magazine. CNN. Anderson Cooper. Gay entertainment and media identities. Jodie Foster. You are at the Out Now Gay Market News -- Gay Marketing 101 gay market updates site. |||| To reach our main site on lesbian and gay market research, gay advertising and gay marketing strategies, visit OutNowConsulting.com. To contact us, send us an email.
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AUGUST 2007 UPDATE: Gay Market News has posted several 'Is Anderson Cooper Gay?' gay market news updates you may want to read after you finish here.
Yesterday Gay Market News included a report on Out Magazine outing Jodie Foster and Anderson Cooper of CNN.
That story has been rebounding across the internet space and responses range from indifferent lack of surprise to outrage that a magazine would do that to people who choose to keep their sexuality a private matter.
Comments to the Michael Musto feature article included:
"I don't think the issue at hand is about gay people... it's about the ethics and morals in journalism. This just seems like a low to me." That contrasts markedly with:
"Great article. Thanks for running it. Although I’ve never been one for outing people, more and more, I've come to believe that in order to enjoy the ability to live as a gay person in today’s society and enjoy the basic freedoms that we have come to enjoy (not being arrested for being gay, for one) there is (and always has been) a certain price that someone is paying for it by being out and confronting prejudices, changing minds, breaking stereotypes…. "
To hopefully add more light and less heat to this already hot topic, here is an extract of the original gay media report in Out magazine called The Power 50 - The Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America.
The Glass ClosetWe all know which stars are inside the glass closet, so why won't they come out? - Michael Musto
"Bravo, Jodie Foster!" That cry has long sounded among easily charmed gay celebrity watchers from Hollywood to Gotham. After all, Jodie is one of the original out-but-not-really-out queens of “at least.” You know: She’s never come out publicly, but at least she’s never tried to claim she’s straight either. She’s talked incessantly about her kids, but at least she hasn’t named the father and tried to make it sound like he was any kind of love interest. She won her greatest acclaim for a movie protested by gay activists—The Silence of the Lambs—and reportedly refused to do a short film based on the lesbian classic Rubyfruit Jungle, but at least she isn’t afraid to play tough women, single moms, and parts originally written for men (even if that might be what she mostly gets offered).
And though her ’92 Oscar speech for Lambs seemed to confirm her tenacious belief in the semicloset (“I’d like to thank all the people in this industry who have respected my choices and who have not been afraid of the power and the dignity that entitles me to”), at least she’s never threatened lawsuits when press people drag her out of it!
By all reports, Jodie lives an out life—within serious limits—while cagily avoiding any on-the-record revelations, a delicate dance that’s difficult to pull off—but not nearly so much so as double-bolting the door and living a total lie. Jodie, it turns out, is one of the foremost residents of a glass closet—that complex but popular contraption that allows public figures to avoid the career repercussions of any personal disclosure while living their lives with a certain degree of integrity. Such a device enables the public to see right in while not allowing them to actually open the latch unless the celebrity eventually decides to do so herself.
In the ’70s performers like Paul Lynde and post-Liza Peter Allen similarly went as far as seemed possible, hinting around at their sexuality and even making appearances at various gay spots. But they could be certain the squeamish media wouldn’t push things any further by addressing that, so they remained flamboyantly, ambiguously glassed off. And today, the press still gives a free pass to people like Good Morning America weather anchor Sam Champion and CNN presence Anderson Cooper, helping to keep their glass doors shut so they can lead gay social lives while carefully skirting the issue. The media has a field day with all kinds of oddballs, but the earnest TV-news presences—whom everyone has a crush on—get “protected,” even though Cooper has been seen in gay bars in New York and Champion sightings have long been reported from Fire Island to the Roxy.
The glass closet seems to make a perfect fit for a lot of celebs today, when gay is inching toward becoming more OK in the entertainment world. In an increasingly gay-tolerant environment, these stars can enjoy actual relationships, they don’t have to constantly dredge up opposite-sex dates (other than their mothers), and after a day of pretending for the cameras they can go back to almost being themselves.
But at the same time, the stars aren’t willing to make the jump to being officially labeled queer and all that it represents in the business.
In his memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, Rupert Everett describes losing jobs in About a Boy and Basic Instinct 2 specifically because he’s openly gay. (And no, in the latter case, he probably didn’t dodge a bullet. A quality art-house director was set to helm it at that point.)
What’s more, Everett deserved an Oscar nomination for My Best Friend’s Wedding, but the Academy generally frowns on out gays playing gays—it’s not really acting, after all. Though Sir Ian McKellen broke the curse in 1999 with a Best Actor nomination for Gods and Monsters, actual trophies have been reserved for “courageous” straights playing gay, like William Hurt, Tom Hanks, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (as if it takes courage to accept career-defining roles most actors would die for). Alas, whenever another X-Men movie rolls around, no one says, “Wow, Sir Ian was so brave to play straight! What a stretch!”
Surprisingly enough, the concept of being semi-sort-of-out has even infiltrated the ranks of the Republicans. Pioneer outing journalist Michelangelo Signorile feels that “in the Republican Party now, the glass closet is OK. It’s like ‘just don’t talk about it or announce it.’ It’s progress, but it also still makes being gay something you really shouldn’t talk about.” But things got extra sticky when people started asking questions about then Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman’s sexuality. At first, Mehlman refused to answer any questions, which only fueled the discussion, until he flatly told a New York Daily News reporter, “I’m not gay.”
A popular argument in favor of celebs not going on the record with their gayness is that these people deserve privacy, after all. “It’s nobody’s business but theirs,” onlookers counter—usually while devouring a trashy tabloid.
It’s true that stars are free to put up whatever walls they want in order to maintain boundaries with the public. But 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.
But if played right, there are benefits to the high-wire act. As Signorile disdainfully puts it, “Anderson Cooper has finessed it where straight women who have a crush on him think he’s straight and gay men actually think he’s out. [The glass closeters] are able to play different niche audiences to whatever sexual orientation those people want, and they believe it!”
Once again, bravo! (said with rolling eyes). When halfheartedness is used as a career move, there’s little to cheer about, especially when truthin’ could be the road to real relief. As newfound lesbian Cynthia Nixon told New York magazine after coming out, “If someone is chasing you, stop running. And then they’ll stop chasing you.” So come on, people, just say the words.
Or just mouth them. At least.
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