クリスティン・チェノウェスVSニューズウィーク
チェノがニューズウィークのコラムニストと全面戦争に突入しました*1。
事の顛末はこの記事でどうぞ（ビデオが自動再生されて音が出ます。お仕事中の息抜きで読んでらっしゃる場合はご注意を〜！）。
最近はPushing DaisiesやGleeなどのテレビドラマにも出演していますが、元はWickedでおなじみミュージカルスターのチェノ。すごく乱暴に要約しますと、チェノの最新主演ミュージカルPromises Promisesについて、ニューズウィークのコラムニストRamin Setoodeh 氏が、同じく主演で恋人役の「ショーン・ヘイズが（オネエ系の）ゲイなのは周知の事実なので、チェノと恋に落ちる役に説得力がない」と酷評。
そしてGleeに出演のカミングアウト済みのゲイの若手俳優*2を始め、次々にゲイ俳優はストレートを演じられないとあげつらい、あげくに「Sex and the Cityのシンシア・ニクソンは配役された当時は男性と結婚していたから、問題が無い」と不思議な論理を展開。
人気者だからこき下ろすのが怖いのか、NPHことニール・パトリック・ハリスとポーシャ・デ・ロッシだけは「問題ない」そうです。ただし「二人とも（コメディで）誇張した演技なので、もっと繊細な芝居には無理」そうな*3。
「他の劇評家も言いたいけど遠慮して言わないだけだと思う」と書いていますが、全部Setoodehの主観のみに基づいていて、実際そんな話を他の批評家から聞いたわけでもない。うーん、Newsweekは会社の身売りでフラフラしててロクに掲載記事を精査していないんでしょーか。
劇場で長く働いていればゲイ友も多いし、いわんや共演者をこき下ろされて激怒したチェノ、公開書簡でこのコラムニストにケンカを売ってしまいました。曰く「ユダヤ教徒への偏見が強かった昔、ユダヤ教徒の俳優がキリスト教徒の役も演じるために、名字を変えざるをえなかったのと同じ事なの？カミングアウトした俳優が活躍することで、自分の性に不安を感じている思春期の子たちにどれだけ勇気を与えてると思ってるの？しかもコラムを書いたSetoodeh自身もゲイなのに。何言ってんの？バカなの？死ぬの？（要約し過ぎ）」
これに対してSetoodehは更にOut of Forcusというコラムを書いて反駁。「いや、映画の事を言ってたんですよ、ゲイの俳優が主演した映画なんてないでしょ」と論理をすり替えて応戦。その上「コラムの一部分だけを読んで曲解した人々から『反ゲイ』のレッテルをはられ、コメント・電話・メールで総攻撃を受けた」と被害者顔で逆ギレ。さらに、外野からラジオのDJが「デビューしたばかりの若手の演技を全否定するなんて！」となぜか参戦しているので、当分面白そう大変そうです（こら）。
以下、火種になったコラム全文。 更に下にチェノからの公開書簡全文があります。長いのでたたみます。
Straight Jacket
Heterosexual actors play gay all the time. Why doesn't it ever work in reverse?
By Ramin Setoodeh | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Apr 26, 2010The reviews for the Broadway revival of Promises, Promises were negative enough, even though most of the critics ignored the real problem―the big pink elephant in the room. The leading man of this musical-romantic comedy is supposed to be a single advertising peon named Chuck who is madly in love with a co-worker (Kristin Chenoweth). When the play opened on Broadway in 1968, Jerry Orbach, an actor with enough macho swagger to later fuel years and years of Law and Order, was the star. The revival hands the lead over to Sean Hayes, best known as the queeny Jack on Will & Grace. Hayes is among Hollywood's best verbal slapstickers, but his sexual orientation is part of who he is, and also part of his charm. (The fact that he only came out of the closet just before Promises was another one of those Ricky Martin-duh moments.) But frankly, it's weird seeing Hayes play straight. He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is. Even the play's most hilarious scene, when Chuck tries to pick up a drunk woman at a bar, devolves into unintentional camp. Is it funny because of all the '60s-era one-liners, or because the woman is so drunk (and clueless) that she agrees to go home with a guy we all know is gay? (Click here to read Newsweek's response to Kristin Chenoweth)
This is no laughing matter, however. For decades, Hollywood has kept gay actors―Tab Hunter, Van Johnson, Anthony Perkins, Rock Hudson, etc.―in the closet, to their own personal detriment. The fear was, if people knew your sexual orientation, you could never work again. Thankfully, this seems ridiculous in the era of Portia de Rossi and Neil Patrick Harris. But the truth is, openly gay actors still have reason to be scared. While it's OK for straight actors to play gay (as Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger did in Brokeback Mountain), it's rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse. De Rossi and Harris do that on TV, but they also inhabit broad caricatures, not realistic characters likes the ones in Up in the Air or even The Proposal. Last year, Rupert Everett caused a ruckus when he told the Guardian that gay actors should stay in the closet. "The fact is," he said, "that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the ... film business." Is he just bitter or honest? Maybe both.
Most actors would tell you that the biographical details of their lives are beside the point. Except when they're not. As viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker-room torture in junior high school. Which is why it's a little hard to know what to make of the latest fabulous player to join Glee: Jonathan Groff, the openly gay Broadway star. In Spring Awakening, he showed us that he was a knockout singer and a heartthrob. But on TV, as the shifty glee captain from another school who steals Rachel's heart, there's something about his performance that feels off. In half his scenes, he scowls―is that a substitute for being straight? When he smiles or giggles, he seems more like your average theater queen, a better romantic match for Kurt than Rachel. It doesn't help that he tried to bed his girlfriend while singing (and writhing to) Madonna's Like a Virgin. He is so distracting, I'm starting to wonder if Groff's character on the show is supposed to be secretly gay.
This is admittedly a complicated issue for the gay community, though it is not, in fact, a uniquely gay problem. In the 1950s, the idea of "color-blind casting" became a reality, and the result is that today there's nothing to stop Denzel Washington from playing the Walter Matthau role in the remake of The Taking of the Pelham 1-2-3. Jack Nicholson, by the force of his charm, makes you forget how he's entirely too old to win Helen Hunt's heart in As Good As It Gets. For gay actors, why should sexual orientation limit a gay actor's choice of roles? The fact is, an actor's background does affect how we see his or her performance―which is why the Tom Hankses and Denzels of the world guard their privacy carefully.
It's not just a problem for someone like Hayes, who even tips off your grandmother's gaydar. For all the beefy bravado that Rock Hudson projects on-screen, Pillow Talk dissolves into a farce when you know the likes of his true bedmates. (Just rewatch the scene where he's wading around in a bubble bath by himself.) Lesbian actresses might have it easier―since straight men think it's OK for them to kiss a girl and like it―but how many of them can you name? Cynthia Nixon was married to a man when she originated Miranda on Sex and the City. Kelly McGillis was straight when she steamed up Top Gun's sheets, and Anne Heche went back to dating men (including her Men in Trees costar). If an actor of the stature of George Clooney came out of the closet tomorrow, would we still accept him as a heterosexual leading man? It's hard to say. Or maybe not. Doesn't it mean something that no openly gay actor like that exists?
〓 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/id/236999
上記に対するチェノからの公開書簡。
As a longtime fan of Newsweek and as the actress currently starring opposite the incredibly talented (and sexy!) Sean Hayes in the Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises,” I was shocked on many levels to see Newsweek publishing Ramin Setoodeh’s horrendously homophobic “Straight Jacket,” which argues that gay actors are simply unfit to play straight. From where I stand, on stage, with Hayes, every night ― I’ve observed nothing “wooden” or “weird” in his performance, nor have I noticed the seemingly unwieldy presence of a “pink elephant” in the Broadway Theater. (The Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Tony members must have also missed that large animal when nominating Hayes’ performance for its highest honors this year.)
I’d normally keep silent on such matters and write such small-minded viewpoints off as perhaps a blip in common sense. But the offense I take to this article, and your decision to publish it, is not really even related to my profession or my work with Hayes or Jonathan Groff (also singled out in the article as too “queeny” to play “straight.”)
This article offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian. For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile. Setoodeh even goes so far as to justify his knee-jerk homophobic reaction to gay actors by accepting and endorsing that “as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school.” Really? We want to maintain and proliferate the same kind of bullying that makes children cry and in some recent cases have even taken their own lives? That’s so sad, Newsweek! The examples he provides (what scientists call “selection bias”) to prove his “gays can’t play straight” hypothesis are sloppy in my opinion. Come on now!
Openly gay Groff is too “queeny” to play Lea Michelle’s boyfriend in GLEE, but is a “heartthrob” when he does it in Spring Awakening? Cynthia Nixon only “got away with it” ’cause she peaked before coming out? I don’t know if you’ve missed the giant Sex and the City movie posters, but it seems most of America is “buying it.” I could go on, but I assume these will be taken care of in your “Corrections” this week.
Similarly, thousands of people have traveled from all over the world to enjoy Hayes’ performance and don’t seem to have one single issue with his sexuality! They have no problem buying him as a love-torn heterosexual man. Audiences aren’t giving a darn about who a person is sleeping with or his personal life. Give me a break! We’re actors first, whether we’re playing prostitutes, baseball players, or the Lion King. Audiences come to theater to go on a journey. It’s a character and it’s called acting, and I’d put Hayes and his brilliance up there with some of the greatest actors period.
Lastly, as someone who’s been proudly advocating for equal rights and supporting GLBT causes for as long as I can remember, I know how much it means to young people struggling with their sexuality to see out & proud actors like Sean Hayes, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon succeeding in their work without having to keep their sexuality a secret. No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams. I am told on good authority that Mr. Setoodeh is a gay man himself and I would hope, as the author of this article, he would at least understand that. I encourage Newsweek to embrace stories which promote acceptance, love, unity and singing and dancing for all!
–Kristin Chenoweth
http://www.zimbio.com/Kristin+Chenoweth/articles/cSmgYrWjICi/Kristin+Chenoweth+Open+Letter+Newsweek+Over
更にこれに対するSetoodehの反駁
Out Of Focus
The Internet is attacking me for my essay on 'Promises, Promises.' But can we steer the debate back to where it belongs?By Ramin Setoodeh | Newsweek Web Exclusive
May 10, 2010When Sean Hayes, from Will & Grace, made his Broadway debut in Promises, Promises playing a heterosexual man, the New York Times theater review included these lines: "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." This, to me, is code: it's a way to say that Hayes's sexual orientation is getting in the way of his acting without saying the word gay.
Instead of hiding behind double entendre and leaving the obvious unstated, I wrote an essay in the May 10 issue of NEWSWEEK called "Straight Jacket" examining why, as a society, it's often hard for us to accept an openly gay actor playing a straight character. You can disagree with me if you like, but when was the last time you saw a movie starring a gay actor? The point of my essay was not to disparage my own community, but to examine an issue that is being swept under the rug.
Immediately, a number of gay blogs picked up my essay and ran excerpts from it out of context, under the headline that I was antigay. It went viral. Chenoweth wrote a letter to NEWSWEEK calling the article “horrendously homophobic,", even though she went on to acknowledge that I am openly gay. It went even more viral. In the meantime, commenters on the Internet piled on the attacks. Many of them said they hadn't even read the original article (some of them did) but they all seemed to agree on the same point: that I was an idiot.
Over the weekend, I became the subject of a lot of vicious attacks. I received e-mails that said I will be fired, anonymous phone calls on my cell phone and a creepy letter at my home. Several blogs posted my picture, along with a link to my Twitter feed. People commented about my haircut, and that was only the beginning. I was compared to Ann Coulter and called an Uncle Tom. Someone described me as a "self-hating Arab" that should be writing about terrorism (I'm an American, born in Texas, of Iranian descent).
But what all this scrutiny seemed to miss was my essay's point: if an actor of the stature of George Clooney came out of the closet today, would we still accept him as a heterosexual leading man? It's hard to say, because no actor like that exists. I meant to open a debate―why is that? And what does it say about our notions about sexuality? For all the talk about progress in the gay community in Hollywood, has enough really changed? The answer seems obvious to me: no, it has not.
I realize this is a complicated subject matter, but the Internet sometimes has a way of oversimplfying things. My article became a straw man for homophobia and hurt in the world. If you were pro-gay, you were anti-NEWSWEEK. Chenoweth's argument that gay youth need gay role models is true, but that's not what I was talking about. I was sharing my honest impression about a play that I saw. If you don't agree with me, I'm more than happy to hear opposing viewpoints. But I was hoping to start a dialogue that would be thoughtful―not to become a target for people who twisted my words. I'm not a conservative writer with an antigay agenda. I don't hate gay people or myself. As for my haircut, I don't know what to say. Should I change it?
〓 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/id/237758?cnn=yes
まあ、チェノも主演舞台をニューズウィークに全否定されたら商売上がったりなので、そういう計算も入っているとは思いますが、Setoodehのクルクル変わる論点と比べれば、どちらの方が説得力があるかというと、明らかですよね。なんというか、最初から「Outしたゲイが主演したメジャー映画はない」論調で行けば、こんなに悪者にはされなかったのに。何が怖いのか、テレビに出たての新人や見ている人が限られる演劇を標的にして話を逸らしているので、ヤヤコシイことになってしまいました・・・。
ETA 23May2010:発売中のニューズウィーク日本語版に「ゲイ俳優のジレンマ」として翻訳が掲載されていますが、同号の巻末に「自殺未遂から4年間も悩みぬいた末に、レズビアンであることをoutしたカントリー歌手」のインタヴューが掲載されていました。何だか皮肉な編集になってしまっていますが、ニューズウィークは何が言いたいんでしょ。
