I’m sure Todd Holland had no idea what a storm his comments at last weeks Outfest would cause. When he said that any aspiring gay actors should keep the closet door firmly shut if they wanted a Hollywood career, the gay blogosphere and Twitter universe went into overdrive.
I wasn’t going to wade into the debate, but I shall now. I think Todd and all those attacking him for stating a regressive point-of-view are looking at it all wrong. Hollywood isn’t homophobic, it’s economic. Studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars on making and promoting movies and when you’re playing with those sorts of figures you can’t take any chances, not just with the public perception of your actors, but with any part of the production.
Lets face it, the carefully crafted public image of movie stars is a million miles from the real person anyway – there’s a whole army of PR people constantly at work on this, and why? Because movie stars are designed to lead an aspirational life for the majority of moviegoers, not a minority.
The stark lack of out and proud actors is also a product of the way cinemas work. It’s all about appealing to the widest demographic – or pandering to the lowest common denominator, depending on how you look at it. Cinemas only show a limited number of films at any one time and the competition between studios to take a slice of the audience pie is fierce. They won’t risk anything that might make Joe Public pick the other film and not theirs.
So, what’s to be done? I think it will sort itself out with the gradual diversification and niching down of entertainment, including movies. Movies will become cheaper, will be delivered over the internet and will aim for more specialist markets. So gay moviemakers, in effect, will be able to cut out the middle man and make the sort of movies gay viewers want to see, with gay actors, and if they appeal to a broader audience, then great.
I believe gay filmmaking should always be on the fringes, because that’s a more interesting place to be. And with it becoming easier to make and distribute movies, we’ll, hopefully, start seeing better, more cutting edge, stories. And if Hollywood sees cool, hip stuff being made with gay actors in it, they’ll come calling. I say make them come to us, not the other way around.
Of course, in the economics of the Internet, a sizeable minority of the world’s population starts to look very attractive. That could well be the scent to get Hollywood sniffing at the closet door.
By: Nick A Johnson
About the Author:
Nick Johnson writes a blog, http://thatgaymovie.com, all about gay films, with news, reviews, comment, trailers and clips.