... Larry Gross, a professor specializing in LGBT and TV issues at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism said that in today’s climate “refusing to play a bisexual role is not a good career move. It’s pretty clear Luke will suffer as a result. Hollywood will either say he was unprofessional or a phobe of some sort"...
July 24, 2014
"It’s unfortunate that an actor today would feel uncomfortable playing gay, especially on a program that has always put LGBT characters front and center."
"But Nelsan Ellis and Nathan Parsons are proof that Luke Grimes is not the norm. Grimes is the exception," said Stacy Lambe, Associate Editor of OUT Magazine.
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So, now you have to be willing to put a dick in your mouth to work in Hollyweird.
Wonderful.
Why is it unfortunate? Why pick that adjective, specifically?
I guess I should be happy they didn't say it's sad, but jeeze, why can't a person decide something and not have it be commented on? Live and let live, people. Unless you're gay I guess, in which case it's hector everyone for their decisions if they are in any way, shape or form possibly perceivable as "anti-gay" (whatever that means).
Everytime I read about an HBO show, though, I think of this.
He doesn't want to put on the gayface.
So basically a bunch of people with zero say in his career, who wouldn't actually be able to give him jobs, get him jobs, or keep jobs from him, are saying this will be bad for his career?
I can see why this merited a news article.
Hollywood is chock full of stars who never play gay characters. Hollywood is chock full of GAY stars who never play gay characters, for that matter.
I've never understood how it's considered a good thing to compare homosexuals and vampires. One is a vicious parasite that preys on the unsuspecting, manipulates and abuses the weak-minded, and seeks to convert the innocent against their will.
And, if Hollywood wouldn't have reached those conclusions on its own, Larry Gross will do all he can to make sure that those conclusions will be reached.
[Leftist] We should all denounce the 1%. [/Leftist]
But somehow this action by the 1% is perfectly acceptable.
[Leftist] McCarthy was awful. Communists were unfairly targeted. [/Leftist]
But blacklists are cool against somebody who turns down a bisexual role.
Hollywood is full of actors who won't play Republicans/conservatives; they're on the record saying so.
Plus there's a whole subset who insist on playing only noble, never villainous. Redford, for example, is renowned for never playing a role in which he's not a shining star. Several scripts, including The Natural, were rewritten with this demand in mind.
Oh what a glorious New World the left has given us.....
Phobe of some sort. Indeed.
.....created by the openly gay Alan Ball and produced by his company in conjunction with HBO – routinely pushes the envelope when it comes to relationships.
That Hollywood thinks that gay vampires are pushing the relationship envelope tells you all you need to know about what passes for the Hollywood mind.
I'm sorry, this was pushing the envelope back when The Boys in the Band was staged. After 8 seasons of Will & Grace on prime time TV, it takes some major cluelessness to say that in public.
Oh, but they're undead! Well, that makes all the difference, doesn't it? Maybe Mr. Grimes looked between his skis when he was up in the air & saw the shark below.
Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Luke Grimes is being chastised for being a straight actor taking work away from the LGBT community. "It's unfortunate that an actor like this would be chosen, especially given the number of bisexual actors looking for this kind of role. This is Jonathan Pryce in Miss Saigon all over again."
And furthermore this is not uncharted territory. More like played out. In Stephen King's Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, he goes into some detail on vampires performing man-man acts and being used as a vector to transmit AIDS. Additionally, Anne Rice went way down this rabbit hole. Zounds, won't someone read a book?!
You must toe the tine the master orders! Whole-heartedly!
"Redford, for example, is renowned for never playing a role in which he's not a shining star. Several scripts, including The Natural, were rewritten with this demand in mind."
One of his best films was also one of his earliest, Downhill Racer. He played a young man of ambiguous character and courage. But you are right that he did not repeat that much. The other exception that comes to mind is The Way We Were, where his character is, when all is said and done, a saddened loser. Another great role too.
Traditionally a kiss acted is taken to be acted, and sexual intercourse acted is taken not to be acted but real.
I think gayness falls into the real category, even if it's accepted as acted.
As if the heterosexual inclination was taken as given in the former, with kiss leeway for acting; and not in the latter.
The New Blacklist.
This is yet another instance of 3% of the population (estimate of % of gays/LGBT in the world) being shoved down our throats. (Excuse the pun).
What about a woman who refused to do a hetero naked sex scene?
Would she be vilified and black-balled from working again?
This is getting extremely ridiculous.
So why does Tom Cruise still work. I bet HE wouldn't "play" a gay character!!!
So being gay is equivalent to a parasitic, demonic predator. Got it.
Him quitting will do more harm than anything else. Producers don't like cast changes unless budgets are out-of-control.
Not only is the rainbow sparsely colored, but it is growing incoherent.
As suspected, homophobia is a projected, or perhaps displaced, psychological fear or hatred.
Maybe he could play Elliott Garfield when they remake The Goodbye Girl.
On the other hand, if you refuse to play a christian character potrayed in a good light, you'll be celebrated I'm sure.
Make that, a conservative christian character. Obviously if you call yourself christian and accept homosexuality and every other sort of sin as just fine and dandy, well, that's the norm of Christians on TV.
A phobe of some sort-lop.
Isn't he the dude in 50 shades of grey?
I'd play gay if
I didn't have to be gay in the course of the movie. You want gay mannerisms, I'll camp it up. You want my tongue in a mans mouth. Find a gay dude.
Being open minded about other people being day shouldn't mean that you have to be sexually bisexual on a movie set.
Come on now! If Marilyn Monroe had to suck some dick to become a star it's only fair that this does too.
The comments so far say it all.
Mr. Wibble wins the thread.
"It's surprising there are so few homesexuals in America."
A couple things here:
One, you attribute a quote to Larry Gross that he did not say. From your link what Gross said was, "refusing to play a bisexual role is not a good career move." Which is an opinion. However, the next part of the quote: "It’s pretty clear Luke will suffer as a result. Hollywood will either say he was unprofessional or a phobe of some sort" is not by Larry Gross but by Dan Gainor of Culture and Media Institute.
Second, Culture and Media Institute is a right wing watch dog website and very clearly does not represent Hollywood. Dan Gainor is not expressing this opinion as if he wants Luke to be punished. He is expressing what he thinks Hollywood will do from his right wing point of view. Which is rather cynical. No one in Hollywood or on the set of True Blood has said Luke will be blacklisted. In fact his rep says – in the article – that Luke quit because he had a scheduling conflict and it had nothing to do with the storyline.
Wasn't Will Smith going to kiss Anthony Michael hall on the movie six degrees of separation until Denzel Washinton told him not to kiss a dude on screen? They ended up using a stunt double. if its good enough for Denzel, then its good enough for this no name actor.
Sounds a bit like a threat, don't you think?
LarsPorsena said...
Come on now! If Marilyn Monroe had to suck some dick to become a star it's only fair that this does too.
Why hold back? The real, gentler analogy would be Marilyn being coerced into sensually kissing another woman. This is where these GBLT clowns want to take it.
AustinRoth said...
So, now you have to be willing to put a dick in your mouth ON CAMERA to work in Hollyweird.
FIFY
Does this make Hollywood the one part of the economy where conservatives begrudge a business owner the right to hire who he wants?
None of the people complaining here would object if it were the other way around. No, you're just fine with gays being denied employment for being gay.
If Grimes' career is hurt because employers don't like his attitude, it's nobody's fault but his.
Henry said...
Maybe he could play Elliott Garfield when they remake The Goodbye Girl.
You couldn't do that story arc in Hollywood today. In fact, good luck finding a producer/executive who would even think of it.
I don't see how this post qualifies for your "homophobia politics" as you defined it.
Maybe "pro-choice"?
Why does anyone spend any time watching any of the smut coming out of Hollywood? A waste of time and you are funding people who advocate for the polar opposites of your values. Accepting gays is altogether different than forcing someone to play the role of a gay character.
Correction 'Culture and Media Institute' and Dan Gainor are a left wing watch dog group. I meant to point out they are conservative.
Let's try this instead - let's have gay actors playing gay parts, and straight actors playing straight parts. And, then see which group moans more. My guess is that there are more gay actors than gay parts, and, thus, more gay actors playing straight parts than the other way around.
Of course, this would work better if the number of gay and straight roles corresponded to their respective percentages in the general population, which I pointed out wasn't nearly accurate, with a lot more gay parts than gays, as a percentage.
Yeah, maybe he didn't want to have to do an on-screen same-sex kiss.
I wouldn't either.
Plus, if he's perceived as gay, it hurts his ability to take on leading male roles in the future. Bad career management.
Furthermore, he's a fucking free man! He should take whatever roles he wants, and decline whatever roles he wants, for any reason he wants.
It must be crushingly depressing to have chosen a career where people have to like your politics in order for you to work.
I watched the first couple of seasons of True Blood. There was lots of gore and nudity which tends to attract my interest, but it just got too politicized and homoerotic. Sometimes you just want to relax and watch naked women and arterial bleeding, instead of parables about the need to be non judgmental about vampires unless they're Republican...... Game of Thrones is my favorite. They don't try to make the Lannisters look like Republicans. There's a fair amount of kinky sex, but the homosexuality is upstaged by the incest. That was a nice touch having the incestuous lovers go at it on their son's coffin. You can be outrageous, and you can be political, but it feels manipulative if you try to be both.
Things tend to end badly for a small, strident minority that more and more delights in abusing and threatening a large majority they achieve power over. A majority that resents and fears the domination and calculates how to end the minority's power over them.
Just how many French aristocrats are there? What percent of the troops are actually loyal to them?
Russians, then affected Slav nations, then Germans, back to Russians, then other nations of the Warsaw Pact "What is the source of Jewish Bolshevik power and control? How to we end that? What are their actual numbers?
Now we have people calculating the clout of the Gaystapo. If they have the power to destroy the careers of any that fight their agenda (see the Mozilla CEO, certain anti-gay sports jocks banned from broadcasting) ...if they have the power to make all media serve them and their lifestyles and actively promote gay sex as normal and healthy to younger people they wish to recruit....if they have the power to punish millenia-old religious institutions that disagee with them...
We are back to the calculations as applied to French aristocrats, Euro colonialists, Jewish Bolsheviks...How many are they? What is the source of their power. How can they best be removed from power and control over the masses??
I guess Grimes won't portraying "shifty grades of fey" anytime soon.
It wasn't just portraying a gay male character. It involved a sex scene (or multiple sex scenes). So reverse the sexes. If a female actor objected to doing a same-sex sex scene, would anyone even notice. Of the director objected, she would cry sexual harassment - and she'd be right. His body. His choice.
He did not turn down playing a gay man. He was asked to play a bi-sexual monster.
Gay are born that way, right. And straights are born that way, right.
So bi-sexuals must be the only immoral abominations, right. Living dead who chose to seduce any thing that moves because they can now get away with it no matter how destructive the result are not like any gay men that I approve of.
chick hates, yet is obsessed by gays; no wonder that thing is underemployed in a city where he should be gainfully employed in his area of specialty. Why is she selling wine?
Any pics of gay assholes being filled chick at your service. He has a filled gay asshole folder in his pic directory that he can show you ASAP!!!!! He has studied, chronicled, and observed the filled up gay asshole with the so much detail. Miss Chickla is so Sullivanist.
chick, the most insane, passive aggressive, poster ever here or anywhere. Now thrill us with a passive aggressive post about how you hate how Althouse voted u freak.
I thought you were never cumming back here chick? She is drawn to the homo postings....natch.
I am sorry u can't get your dick hard anymore...not.
Have a super republican, non gay, Sarah Palin! weekend.
So reverse the sexes. If a female actor objected to doing a same-sex sex scene, would anyone even notice
Well, I would notice. And I would strongly disapprove! For reasons totally related to LGBT equality, I swear.
More seriously, though -- people need to stop reacting like this guy's been blacklisted. The empirical evidence is that nobody gives a crap, apart from a few gossipy hangers-on.
He's got a "porn for girls" movie coming out and an Eastwood-directed war film coming out. Movie producers don't seem to think his core audience consists of people who get outraged if he doesn't suck enough on-screen wang. :)
Nobody's ever been blacklisted for refusing to play a gay character. Maybe someday that'll happen, but it'll probably be sometime *after* A-list gay stars stop suing people for saying they're gay.
William:
Hmm. A man of principle. I wonder how many other people are prepared to drop their opposition to the menagerie of dysfunctional and socially awkward behaviors.
traditionalguy:
Anything that moves, huh? That sounds like a Sodom and Gomorrah revival. Life imitates art.
cassandra lite wrote:
[There are many actors] who insist on playing only noble, never villainous [roles]. Redford, for example, is renowned for never playing a role in which he's not a shining star. Several scripts, including The Natural, were rewritten with this demand in mind.
Dead on... even to the the extent that the resultant film makes little sense. In the film version of "The Natural" Roy Hobbs is shot and grievously wounded by female serial killer who stalks and murders rising sports stars as a hobby. Yeah, right. Redford's monstrous ego and his moral vacuity were entirely responsible for that ludicrous plot device.
Today's Hollywood looks down on actors like James Stewart and John Wayne. Mention their names or films at a Malibu cocktail and you'll see eyes rolling and hear titters and profanities.
Wayne was three times the man any living film star is. If he's been a trannie he'd have been three times the woman as well.
Like I said, the day that people who refuse to call gay "marriage" "holy matrimony" will be guilty of thought crimes is not far off.
So basically a bunch of people with zero say in his career, who wouldn't actually be able to give him jobs, get him jobs, or keep jobs from him, are saying this will be bad for his career?
I can see why this merited a news article.
Are you familiar with the career of Michael Ovitz? He created CAA. He was President of Disney.
He said "gay mafia" in an interview, and now he's gone.
Hollywood is chock full of stars who never play gay characters. Hollywood is chock full of GAY stars who never play gay characters, for that matter.
I think that's true, although of course "stars" are people who already have power and can do what they want. The point is that this kid is starting out. He has no power. People have to open doors for him.
Yes, there are lots of people in Hollywood who won't do gay sex scenes. That's why it's important to take this nobody and make an example out of him.
Out magazine, by the way, would go after gay people too. They have no respect for privacy, for sexual autonomy, for liberty.
Recruit children for the role. They think girls are yukky.
Everytime I read about an HBO show, though, I think of this.
I've seen that clip before, it's hilarious.
The porn people are smarter than the HBO people, or at least more realistic. In porn all the stuff you do is in the contract. Anal? In the contract. S&M? In the contract. Lesbian? In the contract.
I don't want to say this agent is stupid, but he or she is certainly not swift. And the producers aren't particularly smart, either.
Chan said...it is only when nudity is involved that it must be written into a performer’s contract.
Yeah, that's because gay sex scenes weren't a thing back in the day. Welcome to the 21st century! Put it in the contract. You're heard of prenuptial agreements? This is like a pre-gay agreement.
"Did you sign the pre-gay?"
"Yeah, yeah, but I just thought there would be one dude. There are way too many dudes. Wait, is this porn?"
Just more wish-casting by Hollywood, insisting the world be how it isn't.
It easiest to see how foolish this all is my remembering when you first learned that Elton John was gay. Then tell me whether the next time you heard one of his songs that you always thought was him singing about a girl, still has the same affect on you.
Or better, watch Rock Hudson play a leading heterosexual man.
Clanks pretty eff'n bad, doesn't it.
Does this make Hollywood the one part of the economy where conservatives begrudge a business owner the right to hire who he wants?
None of the people complaining here would object if it were the other way around. No, you're just fine with gays being denied employment for being gay.
Feel free to name examples of people applauding gays being fired for being gay around here.
I'll say tiny minorities led by moronic activists becoming more and more totalitarian in their demands tend to cause huge backlashes. Activists might want to consider that.
We've seen immigration activists effectively slaughter the idea of an open border after Obama leaves office for decades.
@richard mcenroe -- I'm glad someone got the reference. The Goodbye Girl has not aged well. What Neil Simon thought was funny in 1977 is cringeworthy today.
At least Elliott Garfield stuck with the part.
Quaester wrote: In the film version of "The Natural" Roy Hobbs is shot and grievously wounded by female serial killer who stalks and murders rising sports stars as a hobby. Yeah, right. Redford's monstrous ego and his moral vacuity were entirely responsible for that ludicrous plot device.
I hope this is sarcasm.
Look up Eddie_Waitkus
tim maguire: Does this make Hollywood the one part of the economy where conservatives begrudge a business owner the right to hire who he wants?
Speaking only for myself, and not for all conservatives, I think that it should be legal for a business owner to hire or not hire whomever he wants for whatever reason.
That doesn't mean I think it's always right.
It is those who think that the government can (and should) tell business owners who they can or cannot hire that must explain the exceptions (such as, allegedly, this one).
This is a crappy article. Maybe there's some beef here, but it isn't in the story.
"Back in December Grimes’ rep said his departure was due to a scheduling conflict with the filming of forthcoming movies 'American Sniper' and 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and had nothing to do with storylines. However, HBO announced that he would be replaced by Nathan Parsons in the final season due to differences in the 'creative direction of the character.'" Who said gay?
"Nelsan Ellis, the actor who plays Kent’s gay lover on the show, is speaking up -- and he’s not happy...'You quit your job because you don’t want to play a gay part? You make a big statement when you go, ‘I don’t want to play this part because it’s gay'"
So who's making a statement here?
"Nelsan Ellis and Nathan Parsons are proof that Luke Grimes is not the norm. Grimes is the exception"
So two people prove that one is a "the exception"? maybe in a group of three.
Plus there's a whole subset who insist on playing only noble, never villainous. Redford, for example, is renowned for never playing a role in which he's not a shining star. Several scripts, including The Natural, were rewritten with this demand in mind.
That may have been true at one point but he definitely played a villain in Captain America: Winter Soldier.
I don’t think he was asked to play a gay or bisexual character originally when he signed on last season. Last season he was introduced as Jessica’s love interest and after the writers found out that this would be the last season, they had to figure out a way to split the two of them up so she could end up with Jason. After having killed off another character to put another two characters back together, they decided instead to suddenly reveal that all along his character was secretly a drug addict and gay which is why (even if you ignore the casting change) the character from Season 6 and Season 7 seems like two entirely different people.
Isn't this what Adam Carolla was referring to as the gay mafia? GLAAD was upset and demanded an apology.
Are you familiar with the career of Michael Ovitz? He created CAA. He was President of Disney. He said "gay mafia" in an interview, and now he's gone.
Your timeline's wrong. He lost power, THEN he blamed his problems on "the gay mafia". He was already a has-been when he did that interview.
I personally think a lot less of actresses unwilling to do nude scenes. Can we stop giving them jobs?
Mr. Grimes is working steady in some big movies. Closest straights must be hiring him. I seriously think attacking anyone for not wanting to go gay for pay comes back on those who do the attacking.
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