Welcome to another entry in the hopefully limited series of New York Times profile articles about obviously gay men that never mentions their sexuality. Today's target is Anderson Cooper, in an article about his new show in the context of his personal life.
The context is important. It is silly to demand that a journalist mention the sexuality of everyone they write about, and in fact that would be a step too far. Would someone reading about Apple's quarterly profit report care to know that the new CEO is gay? No, and it would be irrelevant to the story. But a profile article, which is explicitly about a public individual's private life is a different matter. Alessandra Stanley, the author, must have been trained by Martha Graham, for the dancing she does around Cooper's sexuality is masterful. The premise of the whole article, its reason for existence, is that Cooper has a new talk show in which he divulges details about his private life, except one, which is never named. Hence him going on vacation "with a friend," and Cooper not explaining "who looks after his dog, Molly, when he goes off on assignment." Before Stanley gets anywhere near the painfully obvious subtext, she moves on to a strange comparison of Cooper and Glen Beck for no apparent reason other than their similar hair color.
This dance is annoying for so many reasons, not least of all because of who is doing it. This is the New York Times for fucks' sake, not the Peoria Journal. Everyone who saw this headline and read this article: a) already knows that Cooper is gay and b) don't fucking care. Ignoring the big matzos ball in the room just insults the intelligence of the reader. And not to sound like an aggrieved homosexual who demands to have someone's sexuality inserted into every medium and aspect of one's life-I apply the straight test. That is, would this article have done this dance around the subject's personal life if they had been straight? The answer is a big fat no. An article about Oprah would have mentioned Stedman, so an article about Cooper should have mentioned Ben Maisani.
So why the difference? Because as progressive as the entertainment industry can sometimes be, they are, in the truest sense of the term, homophobic. They are afraid of gay people. They don't want them coming out, even if every single person knows. Indeed, if the article did mention Cooper's Ben, and the fact that everyone knows that he's gay but that he doesn't want to talk about it, what do you think would happen? Would Cooper deny it? He has too much integrity for that. Would thousands of Cooper fans call up and cancel their subscriptions to the paper, clinging to the idea that he's just waiting for the right woman and they might be the one? I know that a good number of midwestern middle-aged white women thought that about Clay Aiken back in the day, but I'd like to think we've evolved as a society since then.
So, New York Times, just call a gay man gay for once. By not doing so, you are promoting the notion that gay sexuality is different than straight sexuality. You wouldn't think twice about calling someone straight without them telling you that they are, so don't inflict a double standard. Just say: Anderson Cooper is gay, and the future success of a personal talk show might just rest on his saying that. And your journalistic integrity might just rest on saying it as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment