|
To address the question, "Why do these people have to get in my face and announce that they're gay? I don't care, and there's been enough of them that it's commonplace that a celebrity be gay."
I've been thinking about it, and I think it has a lot to do with the being a public icon. If we use the estimate that 5-10% of the population is gay, it's still a smallish fraction of people relatively speaking. If you meet somebody on the street and they don't exhibit stereotypical gay characteristics, it's not your first inclination to assume they're gay. The same can apply to Celebrity X. The fact that pop culture is so deeply imbedded into American society means that like it or not, people DO care about gayness. It's an interesting fact to many people, and to others it becomes a point of moral contention. Thus, it becomes news.
The pop culture thing has a lot to do with it, also the degree of saturation. If a Broadway actor came out of the closet publicly, I doubt it would get any media attention outside of the various outlets people turn to for stage show news, and even then people would say, "Uh, no shit." It's just not worth reporting, not enough of the population knows who those people are, and the saturation of familiarity with gayness within the community or particular culture is so high that it's NOT news, and therefore people who are gay in Broadway just don't make it known.
I don't know when it will stop being reported that Hollywood stars are gay. Probably when we stop giving so much of a shit about them. And I don't see that happening any time soon.
|