I’m really sick of hearing how brave straight actors are who portray gay men in movies. The gist of the rationale seems to be that they’re risking their public images, and hence their careers, in order to do a good deed for humanity or some such.
So, show me the straight actor whose career was ruined when he played a gay guy, I dare you!
Reaching way back, a young Al Pacino played a gay bank robber in Dog Day Afternoon, and apparently this didn’t destroy him, because he went on many years later to take on the role of malignant political closet-case Roy Cohn in Angels in America. And as if all that courage weren’t enough, he’s now signed on to play world-class kink-meister Salvador Dalí in the upcoming sleaze-fest Dalí and I: The Surreal Story. The man should be knighted, at the very least!
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal’s careers somehow made it through their stint on Brokeback Mountain undaunted.
River Phoenix’s portrayal of a homeless gay prostitute in My Own Private Idaho freed him from the damning “teen idol” tag for good and all, and helped his acceptance as a brilliant adult dramatic actor.
The ever-heroic Tom Hanks not only played a gay guy in Philadelphia, but a modern-day leper, and not only did it not destroy him, but he got an Oscar for it! Meanwhile, I’ve been playing an HIV positive gay man for the last twenty years solid (and doing a bang-up job at it to, I might add) and nobody has yet stepped forward with the major awards to mark my daring-do!
From the few clips I’ve seen and the trailer of Little Ashes, it does seem as if Robert Pattinson and Javier Beltrán portray Dalí and Lorca wonderfully, but already I’m hearing talk of Pattinson’s amazing courage in accepting a role like this, just as his career is starting to take off.
I will give the two of them this much, however — I’ve yet to hear either one of them bitch about how harrowingly disgusting an experience it was to kiss another man for money. And for even that little, for simply not pandering to the anticipated homophobia of the audience, they come out way ahead of virtually every other straight man who’s ever played gay in my book.
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