aAndrew Scott is capable of many things, but giving boring interviews doesn't seem to be one of them. Last year, he brilliantly denounced the tyranny of standing ovations in modern theater (“I'm a big believer that if people don't want to stand up, they shouldn't stand up''). Now, in one of The Hollywood Reporter's intimate roundtables that proliferate during awards season, he challenges the outdated rhetoric of a time when homosexuality was synonymous with shame.
Moderator Scott Feinberg spoke with Scott, who played the role of a screenwriter who is magically reunited with his parents who died when he was 12 years old, in director Andrew Haig's All of Us Strangers. That moment happened when he named Coleman Domingo, who played Bayard Rustin, an advisor to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Netflix biopic Rustin stars “an openly gay actor playing an openly gay character who is central to a seminal film.” While the remark was intended as an entry point into a discussion about representation, it also led to other performers in the room (Robert Downey Jr., Paul Giamatti, Mark Ruffalo, Jeffrey Wright) “publicly I have never been called a “heterosexual” person.
Scott steered the conversation in a more positive direction, saying, “I'm going to call for the abolishment of the term 'openly gay.'' “It's an expression you only hear in the media. Why do people always say, 'This is a friend of mine who is openly gay…' even though they've never been to a party?” He wondered if it meant “publicly.” “We don't say you're 'openly Irish.' We don't say you're 'openly left-handed.' … There's something a little closer to 'shameless' there.” . “you Open about it? 'You must understand what I'm saying? “Let's park now,'' he suggested.
This phrase has historical use. One of the remarkable things about Rustin about him is that he was out during the dangerous period before Stonewall. However, it would be difficult to agree that this word is outdated today. This is a holdover from a more recent era when queer voices were completely absent from the media, resulting in all LGBT-related stories being reported from a straight, typically homophobic perspective. became. “Homosexuals have no freedom of the press in this country,” Andrew Ramsden, then editor of Gay News, wrote in 1982. As an out gay person, does that matter? If people can't be as open about homosexual viewpoints as straight writers are about their own, then a sizable section of opinion means that Britain's 'freedom of the press' has no place for expression. This means that the press is not free. ”
It is difficult to overstate the barrage of homophobia and militancy in the British media, but a sample can be obtained in an online database compiled by Terry Sanderson, who died in 2022. For 25 years, Gay Times' Media Watch column has monitored coverage of LGBT-related stories. And homophobia wasn't just commonplace, it became an issue across the British press at a time when Fleet Street was just dipping its feathers in the ink. In an era when brazen bigotry prevailed in interpreting fact and opinion alike, simply using the phrase “openly gay” mattered little.
No one who witnessed the hysterical coverage of TV presenter Phillip Schofield last year would argue that the ghost of homophobia has been laid to rest. As Jordan Peele's satirical horror film Get Out showed, rather than eradicating racism, liberalism and the Obama era encouraged it by giving it a fig leaf. , the abundance of rainbow flags on the average thoroughfare is a convenient way to distract from society's continued insistence on judging homosexuals. Sexuality by stricter standards. Schofield's relationship with the young man he was mentoring was, in the words of the presenter, “unwise, but not illegal.” But reactions in the press and on social media suggest that middle-aged gay men (as opposed to youthful heartstopper types) are only acceptable if they don't enjoy an active sex life. It showed that he was deaf. Compare that to the treatment of David Bowie. I like sleeping with underage girls His brilliance has not diminished. It also didn't stop Royal Mail from issuing a series of commemorative stamps in his honor in 2017.
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When we hear the words “openly gay” today, we are drawn into a period of shame that remains close to the surface for many people, as All of Us Strangers so eloquently demonstrates. Of course. (The film also serves to remind audiences that there was not just prejudice back then, but also pride.) Frankie Goes to Hollywood's “The Power of Love” dominates the soundtrack. ) It would be much better to ban this phrase than to ban it as if it were possible. It is to allow it to wither away and die a natural death under the scrutiny of its irrelevance, just as the 'minority' is finally giving way to the de facto righteous 'global majority'. If someone chooses to be openly gay, let them say it openly. That way, the rest of us can point out the mistakes. As Ben Jonson said, “Language best reveals a man. Speak so I can meet you.” Yas, diva!
