Kristin Chenoweth slams homophobic Newsweek article

A few weeks ago Newsweek published an article by Ramin Setoodeh arguing that gay actors can’t convincingly play straight. This is one of those pieces where the author turns his own personal way of seeing things into a poorly founded and offensive argument: Setoodeh can’t separate his knowledge that an actor is gay from his experience of their performance. Rather than unpacking this pretty interesting and potentially revealing hang up, we instead get an argument that “queeny” actors pull us out of a performance.

Setoodeh’s problem isn’t just with gay actors, but with gay actors who he perceives as feminine in presentation. He even goes so far as to suggest that a gay George Clooney, who’s considered all manly and masculine, would be more acceptable but that we don’t have openly gay actors “like that.” Setoodeh has previously argued that femme-presenting gay male TV characters are “hurting” the public image of gay men. I get the feeling Setoodeh has a very specific idea of who should and should not represent gay men and by connection what gay men should and should not be like, and his ideal doesn’t have room for men who push the limits of acceptable gender performance. He wants to exclude those who face some of the harshest, most extreme and consistent homphobia because they don’t paint the image of gay men that he likes.

I was very happy to see Kristin Chenoweth, who has co-starred with two actors Setoodeh criticizes, Sean Hayes and Jonothan Groff, post a passionate and well-reasoned response to this bigoted article. Here’s an excerpt:

Setoodeh even goes so far as to justify his knee-jerk homophobic reaction to gay actors by accepting and endorsing that ‘as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school.’ Really? We want to maintain and proliferate the same kind of bullying that makes children cry and in some recent cases have even taken their own lives? That’s so sad, Newsweek! The examples he provides (what scientists call ‘selection bias’) to prove his ‘gays can’t play straight’ hypothesis are sloppy in my opinion. Come on now! Openly gay Groff is too ‘queeny’ to play Lea Michele’s boyfriend in Glee, but is a ‘heartthrob’ when he does it in Spring Awakening? Cynthia Nixon only ‘got away with it’ ’cause she peaked before coming out? I don’t know if you’ve missed the giant Sex and the City movie posters, but it seems most of America is ‘buying it.’ I could go on, but I assume these will be taken care of in your ‘Corrections’ this week.

Chenoweth is a consistently great model of how a publicly Christian celebrity can also be publicly supportive of gay rights. She has also shown how to respond to criticism through action – she came under fire from the gay community for appearing on the 700 Club to promote a 2005 album, but has since criticized homophobic Christian right leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and has made a point of speaking out publicly for gay rights.

Shame on Setoodeh for continuing to write homophobic articles steeped in traditional sexism and on Newsweek for continuing to publish them. And thanks to Kristin Chenoweth for responding so forcefully and publicly.

You can contact Newsweek here to let them know what you think about their choice to publish this offensive article.