when gay celebrities attack, tonight at 11!

[rm]

So Lindsay Lohan is dating a woman and Clay Aiken acknowledges he's gay and most people just seem to be making snarky comments about how obvious all that was before the announcements. And how boring.

And I wish I could agree. Because while neither are celebrities I care about and both pieces of news are things I find unremarkable, it matters tremendously that in the face of long-term and very loud speculation (especially in Aiken's case) the people involved felt they couldn't or shouldn't say anything.

That sucks. It sucks whether it's self-hatred or career preservation, advice from friends or concern over issues of family. And so while no one is surprised that Aiken's gay, it does matter a lot that he's come out. Just as it matters a lot that Lohan has acknowledged her relationship.

Because these are desperately normal celebrities that desperately normal people, who might be the sorts of people who believe they don't even know any gay people, adore. And I don't care who you are or how much the world's been talking about it -- coming out is always scary, especially if you have to do it in People or on CNN.

So dial down the snark a bit, folks. You may not like their creative work or think much of their public personas, but they're doing the work of living life under circumstances more fucked up than any of us can imagine. I was older than both of them when I came out to my parents. So aside from being richer and thinner, today I've got to acknowledge, obvious or no, a couple of celebs being just a bit braver than me too.

Give the kids a break for a day. They deserve it.

Comments

[mizg.livejournal.com]

What I really liked was Aiken's reason for coming out:
"I cannot raise a child to lie or hide things."

Of course we all knew it. But what's important is that he came out, on his own, without being forced, and answered a question he didn't have to answer (he's entitled to his privacy), because he wanted to raise his child to be honest and true to himself. And nobody can argue with that. Well, nobody with a brain cell.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Also! Famous gay celebrities with kids is good for the discussion.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if the sensationalism depends on the celebrity. Take Jodie Foster, for instance. She's never officially come out to the general public AFAIK. She has 2 sons. Like Aiken, it's a universal given that she's gay and the given has been around for a long time. Nobody makes a big deal about it.

So...let's say she went the Aiken route and announced it to People (which I realize she'd never do, but stay with me here).

Would the sensationalism be the same?

I think not, and I'm not entirely sure why.

[rm.livejournal.com]

She's also never denied it. Aiken did. Aiken is more famous than her, flaunts a background that is considered to be anti-gay by many, and, as per usual male homosexuality freaks people out more than female homosexuality, because OMG, you put your cock where?

I think half of America still thinks lesbians just make out and knit or something. We really need to get on a campaign about how brilliantly filthy our sex is too.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

True about never denying it. Also she's never been as celebrity-hungry as Aiken or any other starlet (gay or straight) coming down the pike. Let's face it -- you'd never see her splashed across the pages of any gossip rag.

And of course lesbian sex is brilliantly filthy. I've read Dorothy Allison ;)

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

In homophobic political discourse, the subject of women NEVER comes up. Ever.
If there isn't an incorrect number of penises involved, it's simply not part of the discussion.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

You know, now that I think of it, that's absolutely true.

Huh.

Must think more about this.

[weirdquark]

I don't remember how the subject came up, but I was socializing with some of my cousins over the summer and one of them was going on about how he didn't like gay people. (The rest of my cousins were like, "dude, what's your problem" and informed him that he was an asshole.)

So I was sitting there trying to decide if I wanted to disprove his assertion that he didn't know any gay people by holding out my hand and saying, "hi, I'm queer" but since it was around two in the morning, he was drunk, and his argument for not liking gay people besides "sex is for reproduction" and "it's just wrong" was "anal sex is nasty", I figured my odds of finding out that lesbians were hot or didn't exist or otherwise don't count were fairly high and it would piss me off more than I wanted to deal with at the time.

That and his saying that he'd want to kill his (non-exisitent) son if his son was gay doesn't really make for warm fuzzy safe feelings even when everyone else was as horrified as I was. On the up side, his non-existent kids now have standing offers to come live with pretty much everyone else who was there.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

This is why I can only be bi: I can't knit to save my life.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Aiken is more famous than Foster?
I am dismayed. And old.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I hadn't heard of Clay Aikin till everyone on my ljlist kept posting about him coming out.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I sort of knew, in that, if you reminded me, I'd remember.
What ever happened to the person who won that year? I thought he was really good.
But Foster has done some pretty major roles, plus behind camera stuff I only grok in terms of end product...
Any day now I will run into someone on line who doesn't know who Humphrey Bogart is, and I'll just curl up and die.

[saltbox.livejournal.com]

Oh god, me too.

[eac.livejournal.com]

I was just going to say this, but you've done it for me.

I'll also note re: Lohan that the snark in the comments in the San Francisco Chronicle (which I shouldn't read, because people are loathsome) are all about how she's just a tourist who's going to decide she's straight after all. This makes me really angry -- she's only obliged to be in love with the person she's seeing, not forswear men for all eternity.