Newsweek Columnist Says Gays Don’t Play It Straight

So Ramin Setoodeh of Newsweek is coming under fire lately for his article stating that openly gay actors, for the most part, cannot successfully play straight people. Of course, Setoodeh does try to make a weak case for two people who got it right:

Portia de Rossi

and

Neil Patrick Harris

Admittedly, these were the first two openly gay actors who came to my mind at first, and that kind of made me feel dirty inside. Why aren’t there more openly gay actors playing straight parts?

I don’t know. I wish I had an answer. Maybe part of the problem is casting. I wonder if casting directors look at openly gay actors and then fit them primarily into openly gay roles. For the sake of argument, it can be a little daunting searching for openly gay actors, even just on the internet. Lists are littered with gay celeb names like RuPaul or Perez Hilton. I cannot see Bobby Trendy ever winning a role which would be better suited to, say, Brad Pitt. Names alone could be part of the problem.

Maybe the issue is just that there are not a lot of actors or actresses who are out professionally who fit the physical types we Americans expect to see as leading men and ladies. Or what if Tom Cruise actually came out? Or Mel Gibson? What if Jennifer Aniston came out of the closet? I think it’s an interesting debate worth having.

Before you take a stand, I recommend checking out this clip from CNN Headline News, featuring Ramin Setoodeh, the author of the article, kickass openly gay sex columnist Dan Savage, and Amanda Bearse, better known as Marcy Darcy from Married…with Children.

Why do you think there aren’t more openly gay people playing the straight leads in movies?