| | I don't have any problem with Sam's "disillusionment" (I assume that's a fair characterization) with openly gay actors playing straight characters. I do think it's more of a personal quirk than a reasoned position. But I don't think there's "anything wrong with that" because we're talking about aesthetics and optional values. I don't think it's just a matter of esthetics and optional values. If, as you say, it's not a "reasoned position" -- if reason would dictate otherwise -- then how can there not be anything wrong with it? Granted, an emotional response is an involuntary reaction, but it can be rational or irrational, depending on one's subconscious values. If those values are inappropriate, then the emotional response will be inappropriate. I don't think you can dismiss it as an "optional value," any more than you can dismiss an aversion to voting for a gay presidential candidate as an optional value. The "personal quirk" you're talking about is a kind of prejudice, isn't it? I'll admit that I had trouble accepting Richard Chamberlain's character in "The Thorn Birds," knowing that he was gay, but I'm not defending it either.
Here's an interesting question: If you knew that a movie actor were a collectivist in real life, like Warren Beatty, could you accept his playing one of Rand's heroes in the movie, Atlas Shrugged? If not, and you knew that an actor were pro-liberty, like Tom Selleck, could you accept his playing one of the villains? If the latter, what is the difference? Perhaps, it's easier to accept an actor whose values one respects in the role of a character that one disrespects than it is to accept an actor whose values one disrespects in the role of a character that one respects.
- Bill
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"it might depend on the role and the actor"
My friend mentioned above has his hair braided weekly at a black hair-salon. The girls that work there recently explained to him how they had become disillusioned with the singer Maxwell (right) after he filmed some music videos where he sat in a bath blowing bubbles and behaved in other ways which they saw as effeminate. Yet these same women had no problem with the androgynous artist Prince (left) since he was this way upfront from the beginning. They found Prince's open androgyny intriguing, and Maxwell's revealed effeminacy a turn-off. One of the girls related how she had dated a bisexual guy with whom she had watched gay porn. The only reason she called it off with him was because he was unfaithful and she didn't trust her children around him after she discovered the extent of his promiscuity. It wasn't the sexuality - it was the revelation.
