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The most important interview I’ve read on the subject!
Billy Eichner To Play Paul Lynde In ‘Man In The Box’, About Gifted Actor Stigmatized For Being Gay: Why Things Haven’t Changed, Gay Actors Still Excluded From Straight Roles & Even Playing Gay Icons. https://deadline.com/2020/07/billy-eichner-paul-lynde-movie-man-in-the-actor-stigmatized-for-being-gay-eichner-feels-things-havent-changed-for-gay-actors-1202990876/
Billy Eichner To Play Paul Lynde In ‘Man In The Box’, About Gifted Actor Stigmatized For Being Gay: Why Things Haven’t Changed, Gay Actors Still Excluded From Straight Roles & Even Playing Gay Icons. https://deadline.com/2020/07/billy-eichner-paul-lynde-movie-man-in-the-actor-stigmatized-for-being-gay-eichner-feels-things-havent-changed-for-gay-actors-1202990876/
Why [particularly the end of] this interview is SO good is it illustrates why straight actors & straight writers [& in some cases even some gay actors & gay writers] don’t care about this issue not being a two way street. It is the perfect rebuttal to ‘But it’s called acting.’
We know most straights position on this because they’re always quick to try to scream me down whenever I post about it. Tellingly this is still something most gay industry gatekeepers stay firmly silent on.
It has NEVER been abt straights not playing gays. Nor ‘best actor for the job’ (a trash lazy insidious comeback I loathe as an actor both black & gay who always hears this patronising term as a constant feeble shit excuse for names rarely even appearing on lists!).
The subject as Eichner correctly points out has always been about masculinity and what industry gatekeepers want to perpetuate.
I have been loud in the past about this and will continue to bang my drum, particularly until well intentioned straight industry liberals who run the business dare to see it from another perspective that isn’t their own by acknowledging their complicity in this very problem.
You are often made to feel mad. Like you’re the problem. And it can be isolating. In 2020 it shouldn’t have to feel like this!
