Marie Fairman My Blog: GAY PLAYING STRAIGHT

Marie Fairman My Blog: GAY PLAYING STRAIGHT

GAY PLAYING STRAIGHT

In a recent article written by openly gay columnist Ramin Setoodeh, Mr. Setoodeh asked the question, "Can the public accept gay actors playing straight roles in theatre, television and film?"  He pointed out the Tony nominated performance in Promises, Promises of Sean Hayes and several other actors on TV and film.  Of Mr. Hayes's performance Mr Setoodeh wrote in part, "...his emotions often seem pale to the point of colorlessness...his relationship with his costar Kristin Chenoweth feels more like that of a younger brother than a would-be lover and protector."

Can the public accept gay actors playing straight roles in theatre, television and film?  My answer is a resounding yes. Most gay people have been playing straight in a much tougher venue for several Milena.  Life.  I'm sure Mr. Setoodeh has played this intolerable role and pulled it off quite well.  It is good to live in a time of revelation where many people can feel free to be themselves.  The LGBT community is enjoying the option to live openly as a person with gender variance.  I'm one of them as a transgendered person.  But with that openness comes consequences.  Not just the obvious backlash from the straight community often armed with their few Bible quotations but a more insidious and ultimately destructive force.  The shame of an openly gay person being gay.  I have seen this too many times in my life.  When LGBT individuals stand up and let the world know they are gay, they may find support in the LGBT community and close friends, but that is simply not enough.  

When you announce to the world such a statement you reject all you believed at one point to be true.  You can only live the new lie for so long without it affecting you.  You have stated that you are gay and proud to be so and I do not doubt for one moment that is what you believe.  But loving yourself, after stating this to the world, is hard to do especially when you have been told all your life that you can't.  Repeatedly I have seen gay people create a new persona that is not them but a protective shield from themselves.  When you are in this place of self loathing and self detachment you may say and do things that are destructive not only to yourself but also many others as well.  I fear that Ramin Setoodeh is suffering from this.  He is lashing out not at Sean Hayes or any other gay actor but himself.  Perez Hilton does the same.  Their words and actions are the manifestation of their own denial that they don't love themselves because they are gay and other gay people should suffer the same false notion about themselves.  

First of all, let's getting something straight and I know this to be true. God loves you as you are.  You are created by God as you are and there is nothing that can change that.  Accepting this is impossible for many gay people but it simply is the truth.  Once you know that it is true it doesn't matter what anyone says or does. You are allowed finally to love yourself.  Do you have to find a faith community to have this realization?  No. But you do need some people that can represent all orientations, station and status to reflect this for you to see your own worth.

Gay actors playing straight roles has been going on for the same time as gay people playing straight in real life.  I can't tell you how many thousands of times I have had to endure straight actors playing straight characters supposedly hopelessly and passionately in love with each other and simply failing with every syllable, kiss, embrace and other nuance of their lifeless interpretations.  As a director I have likewise known that one or both actors are gay and they have been viscerally real in their portrayals as straight lovers.  Perhaps the problem for Mr. Sedooteh is that knowing some performer is gay and  not being able to allow himself to see them as anything but gay.  That is sad but this will pass.

One of the magic qualities of performance, be it on stage, TV or film or whatever medium is coming, is that we as a audience watch it with our own prejudices and pre-concieved notions.  That contributes to our enjoying or being repulsed by it.  That's not going to go away or should it.  But when we allow ourselves to suspend disbelief and let ourselves get lost in the fiction that enfolds in front of us we can be rewarded with enchantment.  That alchemy is what elevates the rare performance to the exalted level of art.  

At some point (perhaps a near future generation) a child will know from the very moment of their own consciousness that they are what God has made and it is good.  We all will reflexively honor and respect this even in ourselves.  We must hasten that day.  Till then we need to get lost in the fiction.


With hope for healing in us all,


Marie Fairman

Insomnia? May I recommend Nova

I've had trouble sleeping most of my life. And when I have fallen asleep it is not always in the most appropriate setting.  I have drifted off while listing to a director give me notes after rehearsal (he didn't notice thanks to one of my fellow actors responding), in mid sentence as I sit at a restaurant eating, while sitting on a toilet and while cooking.  This last one was before I actually turned on the stove but still...dicey.  After I had my heart attack I was told I had to sleep with some consistency or I would..ah what was the word the Cardiologist used...oh yeah...die.

Now with a combination of a prescription and a good book, I can turn my brain off and fall asleep.  But sometimes I need a little more encouragement to bring me to the repose I so desire.  I choose not to turn to more drugs but instead a rather curious way to put myself in sweet slumber. I turn on an episode of Nova.

But how can that be you might ask?  Nova is one of the finest representations of non-fictional or reality television show ever produced anywhere. I unequivocally agree. The subject matter is always informative, timely yet timeless and so beautifully photographed that on a large HD screen it can take your breath away.  The content is presented in a well thought out and meticulous manner with attention to detail and accuracy that is unmatched. The viewer can follow seemingly incomprehensible, complex issues in a way that are accessible to even the most impenetrable among us.  They take you to another world the same way a great book can.  The one thing they don't do is intrude with off the subject commercials during the presentation. And that's when the miraculous happens.  I believe as the show continues uninterrupted, somewhere I find the portal to drift off to dreamland.  

The lack of commercials is the key most certainly.  Did you ever notice that the commercial blocks (especially on FOX!!!!!) are LOUD.  Sometimes much LOUDER and that's saying something if you're watching something like 24. You may dismiss it but its true.  All broadcast entities that have advertisement have the volume turned up to "11" during these breaks.  Any show, no matter what the genre, during the show's content, will have moments of stasis and some quiet however brief.  A 21st century commercial block has a thirtieth of a second between each ad, announcement or promo.  It is this random series of disturbances that I believe keeps me awake.  Even when its recorded and I'm whizzing past these pods of information, it's still a break and  my mind and body are engaged.  How can you sleep when you're blasted with, "ANIMATION DOMINATION!!!!! "

Nothing like that ever happens when I'm watching Nova.  Not even when the subject concerns CERN and its massive particle accelerator.  When watching Nova I am a passive participant and I have only to sit back and do nothing.  I relax and allow myself to be completely absorbed.  Put me in a bed with lots of pillows propping me up and securing my head and the mix is as effective as any prescription non-addicting (yeah right) sedative. If I watch it live it happens around 822pm and I make certain that the TV turns off before the show is over. If I do wake up I'm still embraced in that state of grace which assures a quick and certain return to blissful sleep.

This phenomenon started years ago with the hypnotic voice of George Page on Nature and the late Carl Sagan when he narrated his seminal series Cosmos.  About the third time he would repeat the phrase "Billions and billions of star stuff" I was snoring on the couch before the second "B".  I have never been able to remain conscious for a Nature episode that George Page has narrated.  Even the one on dogs.  

I now record Nova, Nature, Masterpiece Theatre etc. and when I can't sleep I find one of them on my "Do Not Delete" list, hit the play icon and they are my calming voice.  Sometimes they are such great shows I do become fully engaged and don't fall asleep until it's over (I'm finding this happening more and more with Jane Austen presentations [could be the estrogen]) but even then I am as a consequence in a serene state of mind.  My mind is thinking about the great show and it questions and issues and not fretting about all the myriad of things that are swirling in my head as I come to the end of a day. Instead I can drift off with images of the elusive Higgs particle, a skeletal representation of a cheetah and how they are built a certain way that enables them to catch the impala or what's up with Mr. Darcy?  Really?

Maybe it's just me and it won't work for you.  But I thought I would share with you this modality to unconsciousness.  Not only do I sleep but I believe I'm more informed on many subjects that have seemingly no consequence in my life.  But then again, you never know having the knowledge that we now know that 95% of the universe of made up of mostly dark energy and  some dark matter and we don't know what that is exactly nor have we really ever seen it, could help me when I'm doing say... my taxes.  It's nice to know that even the smartest and most learned people don't know things.  

So thank you PBS and viewers like you and me occasionally that bring such high quality shows that challenge my intellect (which is easy to do) and bring rest to this weary soul.  Ah Sleep.  The Sweet Escape (Gwen Stefani not withstanding).

Love is too Weak a Word

Several years ago I became a Lay Speaker with the Methodist Church.  Simply put it means I'm not a Minister but sometimes I act like one in church.  Shortly after I got my certificate which proves you're A Lay Speaker, the Senior Pastor of our Church, graciously allowed me to give a sermon.  It was not a complex subject I decided to preach about.  It was "Love is too Weak A Word".  I felt at the time (pre - George W. Bush's Presidency) that Love was not getting good press. 

For me, when Barack Obama was elected and then inaugurated as President I thought that at last love had triumphed.  Fear which leads to hate and destruction was to busy to notice that "Love Came to Town" and took over.  I will cherish those days as long as I live.  My Mother would have loved it as would've Dad but my Mother would've said that what she was witnessing was a miracle.  

It was a miracle for me as well.  I seen on TV hate (this time taking the form of racism) battling the overpowering forces of love in Selma, Montgomery, "I Have a Dream" and finally the Civil Rights Act.  And for a few years the flood gates broke open and their were anti-war protests, Woodstock, Women's liberation and finally the sexual revolution!  I am so glad I was in my late teens and my early twenties when that happened.  And then just as we got going - Watergate, Reagan, Bush the First and Clinton getting a blow job and lying about it.  I always thought that he should have been more clever with his lie. "Yes I had a blow job in the Oval Office but it was Hillary who gave it to me." No one would've believed that.

So Al Gore loses the election in the Supreme Court and we place a guy who you can have a beer with in the  Presidency.  May I point out here that President Obama can drink a beer as well as he demonstrated IN FRONT of cameras but I digress.  After Bush became President we have had 9/11 and 9/12 (I'll talk about that more in a second), two wars that are STILL going on and now we have the Tea Party.

Where is love in this?  It was there on 9/12.  The world would have done anything to help us heal and grieve.  But we were afraid and we eventually did what we as a human race has done for millennia - we went to war.  I didn't say anything against the invasion of Afghanistan.  I was mad and the enemy was not going to capitulate to a nation that would not fight.  In hindsight, I realized that if we had turned to love and ask the world to help it might have done so.  Perhaps terrorism could be eliminated by eliminating its root cause.  Suffering in poverty.  Pie in the sky?  Idealism to the extreme?  Perhaps.  But I would argue it was not taking of Berlin and that ended World War II in Europe it was the Marshall Plan.  For the first time in human history we restored our enemy.  President Lincoln had the same idea after the Civil War but it ended with his death.  "Charity to all with malice toward none."  Pie in the sky?  Just long overdue.  

I'm not writing this for anyone but myself.  No really.  I don't have a lot of followers.  But every day that I see fear leading to just plain stupidity and that leading to rationalizations that defy logic I am concerned that love is losing the media war.  That love is too weak a word.  

In tennis it means nothing and I find sometimes that is all it means to me.  Nothing.  But it is not nothing!!!  Why do you think there is so much vitriol on the air and on the Internet?  Love is stronger than any force in the Universe including Gravity and Dark Matter and Energy (you can't prove me wrong on those last three) and the only way some people feel they can fight it is to yell and tell lies and put fear in us.  And why?  Because those are all the things that love is not.  Love isn't is fearful, loud or ignorant.  It is patient and kind.  I must live my life in love.

That doesn't mean that I'm not in mortal danger?  No but who isn't?  The fact is that love has literally saved my life. If it wasn't for love I would be dead for more than two years now (long story but true).  Love works through us when we least expect it and when we do let it work through us the world changes. As fast as some would like?  No but we must, like love, be patient and kind.

I know for myself that love needs me to be its voice, its hands and its feet. And so that is why I write about love this day.  Love has given me the courage.  Love is not too weak a word.  I am.

Marie

My Musings

My Musings

Moving Forward

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Taking a New Breath

I'm taking a new breath and blogging again. I believe that I have a unique perspective now that I never had before. I see things from multiple sides on many issues and most certainly on gender.

We tend to categorize the reality that we see because there is great comfort in it. But if we could just let ourselves be guided be what we sense rather than what we see, we, as a humanity, might open a new understanding about who we are and our place in the uncomprehending creation that surrounds us. We need to break down the barriers which are arbitrary and human made and seek to know what is really there.

In this blog, I will try to advance this outlook. I'm not as smart as I would like to be. I'm not as literate as most of my friends. But I know what love and acceptance can do. Love is limitless in its singular ability to forever change our reality. 

I want this blog to be a dialogue. I want to learn something. I want to listen.  Then respond with wisdom and help all to understand why the Steelers should be your favorite team. Period.

With love for all,

Marie Fairman