In a Newsweek article from last November, he took down a whole host of TV characters for being too swish for prime time, labeling their queeniness not only grotesque, but injurious to our people’s hopes for long term aggregation into the mainstream. (If there were, I would have been fired long ago.) Yet this is just what Setoodeh has suggested in his writing. Why do I find it so droll? Because anyone with even a marginal amount of sense knows that there’s no one right way to be a homosexual. This is a common, and oh-so-boring, thread in discussions of gayness. Here’s my theory: it seems to me that his real issue is not actually with these or other homos playing straight, but with some deep-seated conflict he has with gay guys that he perceives as being too fey or effeminate. Since Setoodeh takes other critics to task for using “code” in their discussions of sexuality, and deciphers it to suit his whims, I’m going to take a page from his book and do the same. No, for me, much more important than his fundamental-and fundamentally flawed- theories on the subject, is the pink Freudian slip he reveals as underlying the accusations in his piece (in which he offers a grand total of two allegedly germane examples, criticizing Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes for being too “queeny” to play the hetero lead in Promises, Promises, and cutting on Glee’s Jonathan Groff for acting “more like your average theater queen” than a romantic possibility for the show’s young female star). Setoodeh’s specious and incoherent arguments which, according to his own rebuttal, hinge on warrantless conjecture about what would transpire among the movie-going public if George Clooney suddenly came out. Second, I’m not going to even attempt to take down Mr.
Haven’t you? Honestly, I see more cultural relevance in Archie Comics than that rag, so I’m all for a boycott. First, I would like to note that I’ve been banning Newsweek for 26 years, ever since I finally lived out the subscription I was forced to purchase by my wrestling-coach-cum-world-history-teacher (who insisted that the Spanish Armada was actually one big ship).
But, as VF.com’s self-proclaimed Fun and Faggy Editor, I have a few additional things to say about this topic. We here at VF.com have already made small mention of gay sensation(alist) Ramin Setoodeh, as well as his Newsweek article suggesting that gay actors can’t credibly play straight roles and the resultant ban on the magazine proposed by Glee creator Ryan Murphy.