The LA Times asks this morning why Neil Patrick Harris can’t host everything, and I have to agree. He did another great job at the Tonys last night.
It wasn’t a great Broadway season (they had to take their opening number, from last year’s hit, “The Book of Mormon”), and the Tonys aren’t exactly at the heart of American culture, but NPH has charm and talent, honed in television work, and solid appeal to television audiences.
I am beginning to think of him and his counterpart in hosting ability, Ellen Degeneres, as the Mormon missionaries of the gay rights movement. Both of them are clean-cut, attractive without being distant or glamorous, and have a presence that wears well over time. And when they ring the doorbells of Americans, they are usually welcome.
The good will they have built up is their own, but it can’t help but resonate positively for the rest of us as the culture moves toward equality. I’m glad we have both of them.
3 Comments for “Hello!”
posted by Hello! | QClick Radar on
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posted by Houndentenor on
As long as he and his writers can keep coming up with such clever and entertaining opening and closing bits, he can host forever afaik. Broadway hasn’t been the center of American popular culture for a long time, but it’s still significant. Kudos to CBS for continuing to air the Tony Awards. They certainly don’t get very high ratings, but it’s important to promote live theater. Plus I got to see one of my friends on TV (in Porgy and Bess) and cheer when his show won an award. 🙂
posted by TomJeffersonIII on
Goodness! You mean that I am not the only young gay man that watched the Tony Awards…..;0)
It helps that when they came out — Ellen and Neil — they were secure in who they were, did not have much in the way of serious emotional problems and could pull off looking and talking like the sort of folk you might expect to see at a suburbs cookout.
Ellen’s career took a bit of a nose dive when she came out. Her sitcom got canned, another sitcom did not catch on and her day time show was a lifesaver.
Neil has done lots of stuff in the ‘geek-con’ world. Which is a pretty accepting audience. He did voice work for a short lived MTV Spider-Man cartoon series, guest starred in an episode of quantum leap and outer limits and did the josh whedon dr. horrible sing along blog.
Ellen is probably a Democratic Party member, although she keeps public statements about politics to a well-prepped and well rehearsed minimum.
I do not think that Neil Patrick Harris has said much about politics one way or the other. He did that Prop 8 music video as well as a guest starring role on a 1990 cartoon about AIDS-HIV and I think he also was on Sesame Street. However, even less so then Ellen.