I wanted to pass along a thought in response to your remarks to NGAA in your most recent column.
In your reply, you wrote, “You’re going to need a gay dude to act on the advice I’m about to give you… the kind of gay dude who obsesses about Broadway musicals.” I was surprised to see you endorsing a stereotype about both the LGBTQ community and those who obsess over musicals. I myself am a heterosexual man who has been obsessed with musicals my whole life (You’ll be happy to know Mame is in my collection—on vinyl—and I too find the OBC of Joseph to be a special kind of torture.) I pass this along because I am part of a statistical minority and have often had assumptions made about my sexuality based on my music preferences. I’m almost forty now and in recent years I’ve stopped caring about such things but in my twenties I kept my showtunes away from my paramours and when they did find out, I would play down my obsession.
I’m sure my various girlfriends have loved me in spite of musicals, though I am happy to report that my current girlfriend is different—when my friends asked her how she felt about the whole “musical thing,” she told them she loved it. And she does; her iPod is stuffed full of Broadway playlists I’ve made for her.
It strikes me that as we fight for equality for the LGBTQ community, we should work towards eliminating all stereotypes, no matter how minor they may seem.
Straight Musical Theater Fan
Some stereotypes are 1. broadly true and 2. completely harmless—and I think “guys who obsess about Broadway musicals are gay (usually)” qualifies on both counts. And nowhere in my response to NGAA did I say that all gay men love Broadway musicals, SMTF, or that no straight guys do. I merely advised NGAA to make friends with a gay dude (every straight guy needs at least one gay friend) who obsesses about Broadway musicals. My advice didn’t presume the non-existence of straight dudes who love Broadway musicals anymore than it presumed the non-existence of gay dudes who love less interesting stuff—like, say, football.
And speaking of football…
A guy who loves football will be assumed to be straight even though some football fans are rumored to be gay. The only difference between a gay male football fan and a straight male musical theater fan? (Besides the straight guy’s infinitely superior taste in fandoms, of course.) A gay football fan isn’t gonna fall to pieces when someone makes an incorrect assumption about his sexual orientation. Indeed, most gay male football fans are only too delighted to be perceived to be straight (full disclosure: I find their delight to be extremely off-putting)—some of these guys are are just as pleased to be perceived to be straight as you straight male musical theater fans are annoyed to be perceived to be gay. Because both camps (gay male football fans, straight male musical fans) seem to agree that it’s better to appear to be straight than appear to be gay—and that, my straight friend, is a much more pernicious and destructive stereotype than “all musical theater fans are gay.”
Now I recognize that being incorrectly perceived to be gay complicates a straight guy’s love life in a way that being incorrectly perceived to be straight does not complicate a gay guy’s love life. A gay male football fan who says, “Sorry, lady, I’m gay,” is going to be believed—because no one is secretly straight—and some gay men are going to find him more attractive by dint of how straight he seems when he puts on his makeup and pulls on his wig and leaves the house wearing his costume jewelry. A straight guy with a stereotypically gay interest like yours is slightly less likely to believed when he says, “Really, lady, I’m straight!”—because some men are secretly gay—and some straight women will find him less attractive by dint of how gay his thing for musicals seems. But that’s something you need confront straight women about, SMTF, not me.
Regarding your excellent Sondheim advice to NGAA: As a gay guy who is an celebrant in the church of Sondheim, I’d also suggest “The Miller’s Son” from A Little Night Music. It might give him the perspective that while mustering up the courage to explain how he feels with her, he could enjoy and live his life in the “meanwhile.” (Oh, and your comment “couldn’t get ass in a donkey storm” made my morning!)
Gay Musical Theater Fan
Good recommendation, GMTF. Thanks for sharing.
