So, Adam Lambert comes out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and you're thinking, "What's next? Rolling Stone announces 'Water is wet'"?
I get where you're coming from. But there are deeper lessons to be gleaned.
First, notice how Lambert comes out-in a music magazine, with his sexuality occupying a relatively minor portion of the article. And he does so with the candid yet indirect phrasing "I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay." The gayness is almost taken for granted-embedded in a sentence about public reaction, rather than placed front and center.
That approach reflects a larger trend in how society-and in particular, younger generations-view gayness: as a simple matter-of-fact, not something to be belabored. The contrast with Clay Aiken's "Yes, I'm Gay" People Magazine cover is subtle but important.
And yet, second, there's an ambivalence in the article that captures the national tone on the issue. Lambert says, "It shouldn't matter. Except it does. It's really confusing."
He's right on all three counts.
"It shouldn't matter." American Idol is a singing competition, and Lambert wanted to-and should-be judged on his vocal performance. His decision to wait until after Idol to answer the gay question, he claims, stemmed from his desire that his sexuality not overshadow his singing. (It may also have stemmed from a desire for votes, and I couldn't blame him for that. It's not as if he lied about being gay or took great pains to hide it.)
"Except it does [matter]." As Lambert himself put it in the interview, "There's the old industry idea that you should just make sexuality a non-issue, just say your private life's your private life, and not talk about it. But that's bullshit, because private lives don't exist anymore for celebrities: they just don't."
The music industry doesn't just sell songs; it sells images. For better or worse, personal backstory is part of that (especially on Idol).
What's more, gay celebrities give hope to closeted gay kids, who need to know that they're not alone and who sometimes don't have gay role models in their everyday lives. That's not to say that Adam Lambert is any more representative of gay life than any other gay person. It's just to say that his representation, such as it is, will reach more people.
"It's really confusing." Yes indeed. We live in a nation where, for some people, much of the time, gayness is a non-issue, and for others, virtually constantly, it's huge. American Idol is one of those "common denominator" phenomena (say that three times fast!) where these different groups interact with each other. Often they can do so while avoiding the issue of sexuality. But not always.
And the tension here is not just between groups; it's also internal. When Lambert says, "I'm proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It's just another part of me," he unwittingly raises a question-one that opponents often hurl at us: "Why be 'proud' of something that's 'just another part' of you?" Why take pride in a trait that you didn't choose and is supposed to be no big deal?
Answer: because it is a big deal. It does matter. Maybe in an ideal world it wouldn't, but we are still far from that world.
Ironically, it's a big deal precisely because our opponents insist on making it a big deal. Thanks to them, Adam Lambert (like every gay person) has to negotiate the issue of revealing his sexuality in a way that straight people never do. I think he's handled it admirably.
Lambert told Rolling Stone that "I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader." Fair enough. But it's also fair to note that civil-rights change doesn't only come from civil-rights leaders. It also comes from countless small acts of revelation by ordinary and not-so-ordinary people, including Adam Lambert.
9 Comments for “It Shouldn’t Matter. Except It Does”
posted by Bobby on
Of course it matters, people who say “I don’t talk about my sexuality” are lying. Anyone who gets married, gets a baby shower, wears a wedding ring, displays a picture of his or her significant other is talking about his sexuality.
Recently, Perez Hilton published private gay sexual pictures of closeted Dustin Lance Black and inspite of lots of bitching about “ew, how gross those pictures are” over 1,000 people left comments.
I’m glad that at last gay celebrities are being treated like straight celebrities and their sex lives/dates are getting covered.
Act Up used to say: Silence=Death. I say Silence=Shame. If you can’t discuss your sexuality then you’re ashamed of it, and since the breeders are obviously NOT ashamed of their opposite-sex preference, I say we learn from them and imitate them.
posted by JayP on
Here we go again Bobby,
Sometimes Silence=shame, and sometimes:
Silence=fear of rejection, or fear of getting beat up, or fear of being thrown out the house, or fear of being arrested, or many other things.
Your answer is too easy and assumes you know the person’s heart and intention. And while I completely appreciate those who have had the courage to stand up and have faced those issues, I also completely understand those who cannot.
By the way, I love having these discussions with you. It’s great. Nothing but love intended.
posted by Bobby on
“Silence=fear of rejection, or fear of getting beat up, or fear of being thrown out the house, or fear of being arrested, or many other things.”
JayP, if you read Lambert’s interview (or just watch him interviewed on 20/20) you’ll see that Lambert claims he was never in the closet.
And you know something? I’ve suffered rejection myself for all kinds of reasons. It’s not like he’s living in Iran where open homosexuality is punished by death.
You know, this is what I don’t get about celebrities, they have no problem lecturing us about animal rights, the environment, gun control, anti-war philosophies but when it comes to coming out and giving closeted gays a glimmer of hope they get all defensive.
Why do we make excuses for closeted celebrities? What have they done for us? I look at them as keepers of the big lie. Homophobes want them to stay in the closet.
Tell me, JP, aren’t you tired of hearing gay men sing songs about loving women? Aren’t you tired of our heterosexist culture that worships women while rejecting men? At least now Lambert can write some gender-neutral songs and maybe feature some male on male action in his music videos. Famous gays should not be in the closet, period.
posted by Greg on
“Recently, Perez Hilton published private gay sexual pictures of closeted Dustin Lance Black and inspite of lots of bitching about “ew, how gross those pictures are” over 1,000 people left comments.”
Dustin Lance Black hasn’t been in the closet for years.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
This is SO much like how white people would deny they didn’t care about black sexuality, but built a WHOLE discriminatory system around it.
If any of you have read “Black Like Me” by John Griffin, it’s a non fiction book about a white journalist disguising himself as a black man and traveling throughout the South during Jim Crow.
He had quite a revelation. He realized that polite daylight society wouldn’t discuss blacks or sex, but after dark…the prurient interest in black sexuality came out, and John G found himself the repository for all kinds of white fantasies and expectations regarding blacks and sex.
I have noticed that gay men and women get much the same treatment.
Consider this: Adam Lambert IS a very talented singer. He has striking blue eyes highlighted by that black dyed Manga hairdo.
Gay folks like blacks, have gotten more of a pass when they are entertainers. The prejudice falls away a bit for the sake of enjoying the abstraction of performing arts celebrities.
But Nat Cole, however ground breaking and beloved he was as a singer…couldn’t buy a house in Hancock Park, in Los Angeles in 1962.
Adam Lambert was on a show that has the public vote. He was good to go on singing and entertaining the folks, but he can’t marry his very good looking boyfriend.
I have NEVER blamed Josephine Baker for renouncing her American citizenship and becoming a citizen in a country that NEVER made her sit anywhere she didn’t want to.
She got a lot of shit for that too….from WHITE people!
Goes to show…contradiction, thy very name is bigotry.
posted by Bobby on
Well Regan, for once we are on the same page. I haven’t read “Black like me” but I did watch “Carbon Copy,” a 1981 movie in which a white-executive loses everything for acknowledging his black son.
It is amazing how gays make excuses for other closeted gays. Why is it wrong to demand that gay celebrities be as open about their sexuality as straight celebrities? Every straight contestant in American Idol is open about his or her sexuality, we all know when they’re divorced, widowed, married, who they’re dating, what type of women they like, yet Lambert gets to stay in the closet and that’s ok?
No, I may not be a radical gay activist but I’m not closet case either. Gay celebrities owe it to themselves and others to come out. Every gay celebrity in the closet helps the enemy.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Well, the issue with Lambert is academic, he’s out now.
Entertainers get a bit more leeway than say soldiers, and a soldier’s job is obviously more important.
I just hate the whole idea that a person can’t be honest about their orientation without a boulder crashing down on them.
posted by Bobby on
” I just hate the whole idea that a person can’t be honest about their orientation without a boulder crashing down on them.”
—That’s because we live in a culture that celebrates lies. Parents tell their kids to avoid talking about sex, politics and religion. If someone gives an honest opinion and it happens to be politically incorrect, people will rise against them, our whole collective obsession with avoiding confrontation and hurting people’s feelings has done more harm than good.
In the military they claim that gays are bad for unit cohesion, that’s really surprising since the military is the one place where a man from the getto and a redneck from the trailer can serve together and learn to survive each other. It’s such a joke, you’re putting racists, anti-semites, liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans and all kinds of people under the same tent, yet sexuality is supposed to be threatening?
posted by Peter on
The other thing is that our culture has the perception that gay is exactly equal to sex. In situations where it is inappropriate to talk about the sweaty parts of life, any mention of anything gay is seen that way.
So when a straight person talks about a spouse, kids, a shared home, or even a date, it isn’t seen to be about sex. When people take pictures of a straight celebrity at the beach or at a premiere, or at the grocery store, it isn’t about sex.
But a gay person talking about the same thing is perceived as talking about sex. So Lambert is seen as injecting sex into the situation. Of course, the absurdity of this is two-fold: First, the vast majority of things gay people do aren’t sex in any sense, and our culture insists on injecting sex into and onto celebrities whatever they do (Britney Spears career, anyone?)