Did Out magazine 'out' Jodie Foster and Anderson Cooper? Or do the stars invite speculation about whether they are gay?
Newsstands across the United States and around the world will for the next month feature a clever cover from Out magazine showing two people holding masks with the faces of actress Jodie Foster and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper over the headline 'The Glass Closet: Why the Stars Won't Come Out and Play.'
The accompanying article was written, appropriately enough, by gay gossip maven Michael Musto, who offers his take on how celebrities like Foster and Cooper manage to live gay lives fairly openly without the general public ever being the wiser. Of course, Out magazine's provocative cover will introduce a new crack in their glass closets, though only time will tell whether the mainstream media runs with the story.
That ballsy cover illustration ultimately makes more news than anything Musto reports. After all, the local gay press has been writing for years about how both Foster and Cooper have danced around discussions of their sexual orientation. 'Openly closeted' is how I've described the two of them, along with others like singers Clay Aiken, Ricky Martin and Sean ( Just Jack ) Hayes, who rather than lie about being gay simply refuse to answer the question.
Some have accused Out of outing Foster and Cooper and clearly there was some concern about that at the magazine, since lawyers nixed the inclusion of Aiken in the cover illustration. But such accusations confuse speculation or even assumption that these celebrities are gay with 'outing,' which would require reporting actual facts from their romantic lives that prove their sexual orientation.
Celebrities are asked all the time about their personal lives, including their romances, so it's perfectly fair for the media to ask 'the question' of public figures and then let the person have their say. If they choose a non-answer, like Foster, Cooper and the other glass closet occupants, then so be it. Report the answer and let people think ( and say ) what they may.
Reporting a non-answer will no doubt lead to speculation that the celebrity is gay and just won't say, but that's not the same thing as rummaging through their private sex lives to fill in the blank. It's just common sense. Almost no bona fide heterosexual refuses to answer a question about their sexual orientation, so the non-answer is really an answer, after all.
Speculation like Musto's about whether Jodie Foster or Anderson Cooper is gay is no worse—and no better—than speculation about why Brad left Jennifer or when exactly he took up with Angelina. Expecting a different set of rules for closeted celebrities only perpetuates the idea that homosexuality, unlike almost any personal peccadillo, is so terrible that it still dares not speak its name.
And unlike Tom Cruise or John Travolta, who have endured years of gay rumors despite heterosexual marriages, Foster and Cooper are unmarried and have chosen not to present themselves as heterosexual, so it's even harder to see how they're harmed by public speculation that they're gay, even on the cover of magazines.
At the same time, there's almost never a justification for 'going behind' the non-answer—or even a suspect claim of heterosexuality—in the case of entertainment celebrities. We've seen gay activists, and in some cases journalists, dig into the private sexual activities of famous people just to prove they are gay.
Only when public figures have actively worked against gay rights does their sexual orientation become so newsworthy that it's worth delving some into their private lives. And even then, good editors balance the newsworthiness on the one hand, and the degree of invasion into their personal lives, on the other.
Musto is right that the 'glass closet' represents a significant improvement over how things used to be, when closeted gay celebrities used 'beards' and fake marriages to present themselves as heterosexual. But the rationale—some would say rationalization—is really the same as it's always been. Only society changed.
Before we became more accepted in the culture, celebrities faced a choice between a successful career and being honest about who they were. They chose to remain hidden, and while we can fault them for lack of courage, we should reserve most of our judgment for the homophobia that unfairly burdened their careers.
Today, as things have improved dramatically but by no means completely, celebrities aren't so paranoid about hiding the truth, so they just avoid discussing it. Stars may be more powerful and have more money, but in staying closeted in whatever form they make the same choice most gay Americans have made at one point or another in their lives.
Much more troubling than the choices these celebrities make is the complicity of the media—and how the stars have come to expect it.
A few years ago, before Anderson Cooper was a CNN celebrity-anchor, a newspaper I edited reported that he quipped from the stage of the GLAAD Media Awards in New York that he hoped from the evening not so much to win an award as to get a date. Cooper wrote an angry e-mail claiming we had 'outed' him, but he said what he said in a roomful of media. He outed himself, if anything.
It's a matter of time until glass closet occupants like Cooper finally open the door. The recent ho-hum reaction to T.R. Knight ( Grey's Anatomy ) , Lance Bass ( N*Sync ) and Neil Patrick Harris ( Doogie Howser, M.D. ) isn't just due to their B-list status. As America cares less, so will celebrities.
Someday in the not-so-distant future, Foster, Cooper and maybe even Clay Aiken, will take that final step, and no doubt receive courage awards from gay rights groups when they finally do so.
Chris Crain is former editor of the Washington Blade, Southern Voice and gay publications in three other cities. He can be reached via his blog at www.citizencrain.com .