The Celebrity Outing Phenomenon

I think it is important that people make their own decisions about when and how they come out. While there is a need for gay visibility in the media, this visibility should be the choice of the actor/actress/director/whatever. Recently the actor T.R. Knight confirmed rumors that he was gay after another member of the Grey's Anatomy cast made some homophobic comments. While T.R. came out on his own, the homophobic comments possibly pushed him into the decision. I don't know where I'm going with this, but basically I think people should talk about their sexuality when they are comfortable about it, not when they are uncomfortable because of rumors and homophobia.

I found it troubling that, a few weeks ago, after GREYS ANATOMY a news blurb went "And WHICH one of your GREYS ANATOMY stars is GAY?! Find out on KNBC tonight at 11."

Since when is a person's sexual orienation NEWS?

in vietnam, queerness isn't something that's openly talked about, unless it's in a sensationalized seedy headline sort of thing. what interests me is that there's no celebrities that i know of that are publicly out. however, there are lots of singers and actors, that everyone would tell you is gay. if you ask them how, they say they just know, or they've heard it from the grapevine. I did research on queer related stuff in ho chi minh city this summer, and when I would ask my friends, who were shocked about my research and felt uncomfortable with the idea that some people in their neighborhood may be gay, they totally felt comfortable with gossipping on how these celebrities were gay. not might be gay...but that they were. these actors and singers, their work doesn't explicitly have to do with anything queer. for example, my mom gets squeamish when i talk about anything related to gayness, but she gets giddy at the chance to talk about all the gay cai luong (vietnamese folk opera) singers out there. What interested me is this idea that everyone knows for sure. I feel like we don't really have that here in western popular culture. There are some folks that people joke about, like Tom Cruise (i think he is, though i as a queer person don't want to claim it. let scientology keep him). however, it's not something wide spread that everyone thinks tom cruise is gay. Is this because we do have some celebrities who come out? Is it also because we have more gay roles? Does this lessen the need to have this elephant in the room syndrome, where everyone knows but no one openly talks about it?

on a related note, dam vinh huong had a new album out when i was there. though he hasn't done the whole press conference coming out, i wasn't completely right when i said he's not publically out. he has hidden notes, references, and meanings to his work. the newest album is called "liberation", obviously uses Brokeback Mountain imagery, including the back cover showing him and another guy riding off together. In the album booklet, it had an image of a shirt tucked in another shirt. fun times. my mom likes dam vinh huong.