Interesting Article: From Anderson Cooper to Frank Ocean, the Closet Door Opens – But Where are the A List Gay Movie Stars?

By Brent Lang | The Wrap – 51 minutes ago

Are there no gay movie stars?From Anderson Cooper to Jim Parsons, gay celebrities have been gently pushing open the closet door with shockingly little fanfare over the past year.

Their statements have been so understated that a recent piece in Entertainment Weekly on the new politics of being publicly gay noted, “What was impossible 60 years ago and dangerous 40 years ago and difficult 20 years ago is now becoming no big deal.”

That may be true, but there is one big exception.

In the nearly a decade since Tom Cruise won his second of two “I’m not gay” lawsuits in 2003, Hollywood movie stars remain uniformly heterosexual even as American society and public perceptions of sexuality have visibly changed.

Also read: Anderson Cooper: ‘I’m Gay’

Despite the recent matter-of-fact statements from the likes of Cooper, Parsons and Zachary Quinto, no A-list star on the level of a Brad Pitt or Robert Downey Jr. has come out, even though statistically it seems highly improbable that no major actor is gay. Meanwhile, the rumors and lawsuits that have dogged such actors as John Travolta or Cruise may lead the public to their own conclusions.

Even emerging stars like Tom Hardy, who once implied that he had flirted with bisexuality, are quick to quash the rumors if they get out of hand.

“We don’t have a leading man who is out,” notes Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com and a publicist who has guided stars through coming-out announcements. “We don’t have anybody in a major professional sport. There is plenty of room to get further along.”

Also read: Obama’s Gay Marriage Support a Hit in Hollywood, But Will It Help Fundraising?

It seems there are still enormous pressures for big-name stars — especially those tied to romantic or action careers — to remain guarded about their sexuality.

And there’s an added element: The international market is not as accepting as America is becoming.

The movie business is a globalized enterprise, one that is increasingly dependent on foreign audiences. The question is less about America’s changing attitudes towards gays and lesbians, than the views of places like China, a country that boasts a big population of moviegoers, but one that is not exactly progressive when it comes to same-sex relationships.

Also read: Dustin Lance Black Mulls Obama Fundraiser After Shift on Gay Marriage

For the film business, not much has changed since “My Best Friend’s Wedding” star Rupert Everett told the Daily Mail in 2009 about his coming out: “It just doesn’t work, and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point.”

“The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business,” Everett said.

Although Anne Heche made waves when she went public as Ellen DeGeneres’ girlfriend in the mid-’90s, her career faded along with their relationship, and the major movie actors who are openly gay remain supporting actors like Ian McKellen and Quinto.

It is no coincidence that the majority of the household names who have come out publicly have been television stars. After all, from DeGeneres’ ground-breaking declaration that she was a lesbian 15 years ago up to the portrayal of a happily married gay couple on ABC’s “Modern Family,” the small screen has been one of the most open, accepting and barrier-shattering parts of Hollywood.

That may have to do with demographics. Television’s prize age group is viewers between 18 to 34 years old, and a recent Gallup poll shows that 66 percent of people in that age bracket believe gay marriage should be legal.

“Young people set the ad rates,” Bragman told TheWrap. “These were the kids that grew up with ‘Will and Grace’ and ‘Queer Eye.’ Well, you can’t watch ‘Will and Grace’ and ever be threatened by a gay person again.”

The same is not as true for the world of athletics, movies nor music genres like rap and country.

Also read: Hip-Hop Singer Frank Ocean Comes Out in Love Letter

Similarly, despite the public pronouncements of, say, Elton John and Michael Stipe, certain sectors of the music business remain stubbornly resistant to gay artists.

“There are pockets of acceptance that are more robust than others, but [coming out] is not a non-nonchalant thing,” Chely Wright, an openly gay country singer, told TheWrap.

Wright came out in 2010 to an onslaught of media attention, but also softer record sales, demonstrating that, at least in terms of country singers, there is commercial risk to being openly gay.

That makes Frank Ocean’s revelation this week that he is bisexual all the more extraordinary. Ocean is not only African-American, but he is a hip-hop singer — two constituencies that have historically been slower to accept, even openly hostile to gays and lesbians.

That may have been the reason for the unusual way in which Ocean choose to come out. Instead of issuing a statement or sitting for an interview, he wrote a lyrical blog post about his attraction to a male friend when he was 19. Wright argues that Ocean’s decision to provide such a personal look at his own sexual awakening had a lot to do with his audience.

“His constituents were a lot like mine,” Wright said. “Country and hip-hop are on the same latitudinal line on LGBT issues, so when you give the news to a fan base that might not understand, you have a responsibility to explain yourself and to explain what gay love is about. It’s not just who you have sex with, it’s who you go to a movie with or play Scrabble with.”

In contrast, Cooper, Parsons, Quinto and “White Collar”s’ Matt Bomer seemed to take pains to downplay the drama surrounding their announcements. That may have to do with the fact that being gay and a celebrity is no longer novel, but it may also be that many of them were, to borrow a phrase from Slate’s June Thomas, “openly closeted.”

That is partly attributable to the rise of snarky blogs like Gawker and Perez Hilton that both capture celebrities in private moments with loved ones and feel none of the compunction about speculating about stars’ sexual orientations that once constrained the press.

With the internet, any closet, it seems, is made out of glass.

“We live in a very transparent world,” Bragman said. “It used to be someone would say privately that they saw so-and-so in a gay bar or had sex with them, now we have text messages and emails, and that changes things.”

In turn, more traditional media outlets have abandoned the non-aggression pact when it comes to closeted celebrities. When OutWeek Magazine chronicled Malcolm Forbes’ gay lifestyle in 1990 shortly after the media baron’s death, it set off a wave of hand-wringing. But things have changed dramatically.

Media publications rushed to publish that Jodie Foster had come out of the closet when she thanked a female friend in a 2007 speech at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment breakfast, even though she never said she was gay. Foster continues to keep her sexual orientation private.

Yet the growing ease with which stars of the small screen are opening up about their sexuality may eventually inspire some of their big screen brethren, as well.

“It wasn’t that long ago that playing a gay character was practically the kiss of death for an actor’s career,” Bil Browning, founder and publisher of the gay politics and culture blog The Bilerico Project, told TheWrap.

“[That was] a concern even as recently as ‘Brokeback Mountain’ where Mark Wahlberg turned down the lead because he was ‘a little creeped out’ by the gay theme and worried about his future career. Celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris, Anderson Cooper, Matt Bomer, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson are proving daily that LGBT people are simply a part of the fabric of life.”

LA Times Article: Frank Ocean’s Coming Out Could Be Watershed Moment In Black Music Views About Homosexuality.

Frank Ocean performs at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Related photos »

• Photos: Gay Celebrities: Who is out?
• Frank Ocean releases statement on his sexuality
• Live: Frank Ocean at the El Rey
• Frank Ocean album ‘Channel Orange’ due July 17

By Gerrick D. KennedyJuly 4, 2012, 11:45 a.m.

Frank Ocean’s Def Jam debut, “Channel Orange,” isn’t due for two weeks, but the album has had Twitter abuzz for days.

As the Odd Future crooner previewed the highly anticipated disc for press, attention shifted to his sexuality after one blogger’s brief mention that when he sings about love on a number of tracks he uses “him” as opposed to “her.”

It was that quick line that has dominated the blogosphere.

PHOTOS: Gay celebrities, who is out?

What was fascinating about the rampant speculation about Ocean isn’t that it spread so quickly (much of this week’s headlines have centered on Anderson Cooper confirming his sexual orientation), but rather how many blogs haphazardly drafted their own analysis, most of them without having heard the album.

Now we know for sure: Tuesday evening Ocean took to his Tumblr to address the spreading headlines. In a preface post, he wrote that he would be posting what was originally meant to appear in the liner notes for “Channel Orange.” He made clear that he lived the lyrics in his songs, which he sings with such an intense passion, urgency and plainness. This was his story.

“With all the rumors going round.. i figured it’d be good to clarify..,” he wrote.

In the letter – actually a screenshot of a note document – he describes the first time he fell in love with a man and how the relationship progressed. He bluntly stated, “I don’t know what happens now, and that’s alrite. I don’t have any secrets I need kept anymore.”

“4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide,” Ocean wrote in part of the letter. “Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence … until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless…”

The straightforward letter – which can be read in its entirety here – is undoubtedly the glass ceiling moment for music. Especially black music, which has long been in desperate need of a voice like Ocean’s to break the layers of homophobia. There are plenty of reasons this moment has so much weight. Too many for any single article to explore.

Ocean has never talked at length about his personal life, leaving his music and its often-complex narratives to drive the conversation. But in a culture where the gossip increasingly and frustratingly outweighs the music, Ocean’s casual and candid approach to addressing his personal life, and revealing his personal truth of having loved a man, will be seen as groundbreaking.

There was no cover story, no anonymous sources or PR-orchestrated announcement (though this is not to demean those celebrities who have taken those approaches to this issue). Sure this will be seen as his “coming out” but it should be noted he doesn’t use the word “gay” or “bisexual,” and his letter isn’t about caving to the pressures of the labels we are so quick to pass out.

Ocean told his story on his terms and in his own words, something virtually unheard of in hip-hop and R&B — genres he has already pushed forward artistically with his work, and could push further.

Thursday, Ocean played the disc for a small group of music reporters at Los Angeles’ Capitol Records.

“This will take about an hour of your life,” he said before focusing on the control board and bobbing his head to the album, a stellar kaleidoscope of atmospheric beats, lush harmonies and those complex narratives he’s known for.

“It’s a bad religion, to be in love with someone who can never love you,” he muses over an organ on “Bad Religion,” one of the track’s catching attention along with the Andre 3000-assisted “Pink Matter” and the album’s wrenching closer “Forrest Gump,” where he sings of a boy he once knew.

“You’re running on my mind, boy,” he offers on the track.

The reaction to Ocean’s revelation is still uncertain –- although any negativity can be drowned out by the album’s raw beauty and masterful craftsmanship. The outpouring of tweets supporting Ocean has made it clear that he’s going to get a fair amount of love from fans and the industry, with some already touting him as a hero and a trailblazer. Being someone of his stature will place a heavy burden on his shoulders as being the “first,” but this moment was so very necessary.

Hopefully, in the wake of his letter, the urban community will fully embrace Ocean for his honesty and bravery. It’s impossible he’s alone.

BBC News: The Reality Is Regular Gay & Lesbians Still Have To Deal With Job Discrimination When Coming Out At Work.

By Kate DaileyBBC News Magazine

Should sexuality be water-cooler conversation?

One of the biggest names in US TV journalism, Anderson Cooper, has confirmed that he is gay. But should regular professionals come out to those they work with?

Long before Anderson Cooper confirmed it, evidence of his sexuality was apparent for anyone who cared to look. He was photographed on holiday with the owner of a popular New York City gay bar. In 2007, a man in a Cooper mask was featured on the cover of Out Magazine, which named Cooper as the second-most powerful gay man in America.

Indeed, in an era when the US president endorses gay marriage and the most popular TV chat show hostess in the US, Ellen Degeneres, is a lesbian, there seems to be little reason to make an official declaration of sexuality in a public forum.

So why does it matter that Cooper is now “officially” out?

“In a perfect world he should be able to go about his business and it not be an issue,” says Canadian broadcaster Rick Mercer, host of CBC’s The Rick Mercer Report.

“But there’s no doubt about it: him acknowledging that he is a gay person who is successful and happy and loved means an awful lot.”

Mercer made waves last year when he released a YouTube video calling on gay adults to come out as a way to fight back against bullying and provide a positive example for gay children.

“If you have a life that’s a public life, whether you choose it or not, or a position of responsibility, it makes a difference to be out at that level, whether you’re Anderson Cooper or the chief of police,” he says.

But in 2012 how easy is it for that chief of police – or even the assistant manager of a FootLocker or a call-centre worker – to come out?

‘Permissible discrimination’

In a survey of gay employees conducted in 2011, the Center for Talent and Innovation found that about half of respondents were closeted at work.

“The sad reality is that it’s still perfectly legal in the US to be fired for your sexual orientation in 29 states; [the] same is true in 34 states for gender identity,” says Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

“The laws give licence to discriminate and there are real risks for people’s careers and their livelihoods.”

Continue reading the main story

Anderson Cooper’s reveal

The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.

I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don’t give that up by being a journalist.

Excerpt from Cooper’s email to Andrew Sullivan

In the UK, where employment discrimination based on sexual identity has been illegal since 2003, laws have not managed to eliminate homophobic behaviour in the workplace.

“Our survey found that 800,000 people in the workplace witnessed physical homophobic violence, and 6% of the UK workforce have witnessed homophobic bullying. It may be a comment like ‘I hope you go to hell and your children too’,” says Colleen Humphrey, director of workplace for Stonewall, a gay-rights organisation in the UK.

“People who work in fields with safety equipment tell me that the safety equipment has been tampered with.”

There are other hazards in the professional world: -a spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently resigned once his sexuality was made public, drawing vicious online taunts, and a lawyer in Virginia was denied a judicial position because legislatures worried he could not be impartial on issues like gay marriage.

But those were political casualties. Both Humphrey and Cole-Schwartz say that the corporate culture is shifting rapidly.

“Huge majorities of Fortune 500 companies forbid discrimination outside of what the laws require. On one hand you have permissible discrimination from a legal standpoint, but increasingly that kind of discrimination is not tolerated,” says Cole-Schwartz.

Some corporate fields are shifting faster than others.

“Anecdotally, the fields you think of that are not perhaps as accommodating for other diverse groups are similar for the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community,” says Karen Sumberg, executive vice president of the Center for Talent Innovation, singling out “heavy industry, engineering”.

“Finance is ahead of the game on this topic, but law is not,” she says.

Double lives

In explaining his silence on the issue, Cooper said he was at least partly more interested in reporting the news than reporting on his private life. Many LGBT employees feel the same. “A lot of people are private people,” says Mercer. “I understand the reluctance to discuss sexuality at work.”

But the pressure many people may feel to keep their private life extremely private can be detrimental both to employee and company.

“Instead of concentrating on having to switch switch pronouns, tell lies, and conceal details of their lives, they can concentrate on their professional lives,” says Sumberg. “For companies, there’s more trust and better talent retention.”

While the HRC and Stonewall emphasise the importance of companies creating safe environments for a diversity of employees, gay workers in some firms can face a Catch-22.

“Support for LGBT issues has such a strong correlation to whether not people know LGBT Americans,” says Cole-Schwartz. “I think that the more someone can be out, the more he or she is going to be able to influence the perceptions of the people around them.”

In some cases, though, that means being put in the position of office trailblazer, a role not everyone finds themselves comfortable with.

That dilemma may be a temporary one, with the current “Generation Y” workforce described as being more prominently out at work than their predecessors, according to Karen Sumberg.

As people come out at younger and younger ages, experts say they are more likely to enter the workforce out of the closet and less likely to go back in for professional appearances – which will create a more inclusive work environment for employees of all ages.

“Over a 20-year span it’s been an incredible change,” says Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York. “It’s one of the most fast-lifting stigma that I can think of.”

Entertainment Weekly Article: CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper Finally Comes Out Of The Glass Closet Declares He Is Homosexual!!!

by James Hibberd

CNN anchor and daytime talk show host Anderson Cooper has publicly declared he’s gay.

In discussing last week’s Entertainment Weekly cover story on the emerging trend of celebrities nonchalantly coming out of the closet, Cooper revealed his sexuality to Daily Beast blogger Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan emailed Cooper about the story, noting that public figures revealing their sexuality still matters, even if many are no longer startled by the news. The 45-year-old newsman has always been private about his personal life and has long been rumored to be gay.

“We still have pastors calling for the death of gay people, bullying incidents and suicides among gay kids, and one major political party dedicated to ending the basic civil right to marry the person you love,” Sullivan wrote. “So these ‘non-events’ are still also events of a kind; and they matter. The visibility of gay people is one of the core means for our equality.”

To which Cooper responded:

Andrew, as you know, the issue you raise is one that I’ve thought about for years. Even though my job puts me in the public eye, I have tried to maintain some level of privacy in my life. Part of that has been for purely personal reasons. I think most people want some privacy for themselves and the people they are close to.

But I’ve also wanted to retain some privacy for professional reasons. Since I started as a reporter in war zones 20 years ago, I’ve often found myself in some very dangerous places. For my safety and the safety of those I work with, I try to blend in as much as possible, and prefer to stick to my job of telling other people’s stories, and not my own. I have found that sometimes the less an interview subject knows about me, the better I can safely and effectively do my job as a journalist. …

Recently, however, I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.

I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.

The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud.

I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted…

Cooper’s full statement to Sullivan is here.