Those boys in gym class*photo Jason Bell for OUT
Tight lipped and eyes glued to the television screen, we waited for disaster. It was a moment we’d each been through, in one way or another. But sitting silent in a stagnant car, trembling teary-eyed at your mother just isn’t the same as slapping on that made-for-TV-smile and announcing to the nation: yep, I’m gay.
It’s not like the audience was without its suspicions. In a culture like ours, roman a clef and reality blend together, leaving us wondering which personalities we’ve made up, and which ones we’ve become. But in every television persona’s career (and every homo’s life) arrives a time to come clean. So just as we had, around dinner tables and after long, awkward telephone pauses, Adamo anted up the information.
It was an E-Talk Canadian celebrity special and big news on the blogosphere. But the attention only served as reminder we’ve chosen few gays as idols and kept countless others hidden in closets. So it was with relief we let out a breath, logging on to see the not-so-cumstained pictures on Perez, welcoming him to the Gaybourhood.
It didn’t kill Neil Patrick’s career, and it won’t kill yours, we told him. We’ve moved past that time, or at least like to think we have. And as it turns out, the ordeal meant as much to the audience as it did to him. Letters in the mail from boys like the ones we were in small-town-somewhere confirmed we still need to see ourselves on TV to believe. That shouldn’t be how things are, but it is. Now they see stereotypes, but at least know the options. We weren’t so lucky.
It’s with that I’ll extend a nod in the direction of Mr. Ruggiero, an honouree in the recently announced OUT 100.
Thanks for being a big gay, buddy.
We needed it.
It’s not like the audience was without its suspicions. In a culture like ours, roman a clef and reality blend together, leaving us wondering which personalities we’ve made up, and which ones we’ve become. But in every television persona’s career (and every homo’s life) arrives a time to come clean. So just as we had, around dinner tables and after long, awkward telephone pauses, Adamo anted up the information.
It was an E-Talk Canadian celebrity special and big news on the blogosphere. But the attention only served as reminder we’ve chosen few gays as idols and kept countless others hidden in closets. So it was with relief we let out a breath, logging on to see the not-so-cumstained pictures on Perez, welcoming him to the Gaybourhood.
It didn’t kill Neil Patrick’s career, and it won’t kill yours, we told him. We’ve moved past that time, or at least like to think we have. And as it turns out, the ordeal meant as much to the audience as it did to him. Letters in the mail from boys like the ones we were in small-town-somewhere confirmed we still need to see ourselves on TV to believe. That shouldn’t be how things are, but it is. Now they see stereotypes, but at least know the options. We weren’t so lucky.
It’s with that I’ll extend a nod in the direction of Mr. Ruggiero, an honouree in the recently announced OUT 100.
Thanks for being a big gay, buddy.
We needed it.
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