Hollywood's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" Hypocrisy

As a fierce opponent of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, I applaud anyone who strikes a blow against the failed and religious discrimination based policy. That includes many in Hollywood who reacted with shock when Proposition 8 passed a year ago. Unfortunately, Hollywood is not without its own glaring hypocrisy and don't ask don't tell policy in which actors and stars are pushed to stay in the closet and threatened that being gay would end their careers. Imagine if we had dozens more like Neil Patrick Harris who did not hide who they are and demonstrated that they are just as normal as anyone else in Hollywood - or at least as normal as what passes for normalcy in Hollywood. The example of numerous out and successful well know actors would go a long way to perhaps open some very closed minds. Truth be told, we gays do NOT fit with so many typical stereotypes of us disseminated by out detractors and enemies. An article from the LA Weekly looks at the hypocrisy and double standard that Hollywood evidences with its own DADT policy. Here are some highlights:

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He [Howard Bragman] is not merely helping gay actors to form sensible plans for going public. The gay guru of Hollywood, Bragman is in fact facing down the U.S. film industry on its insistence that gay actors remain in the closet. “As far as I know,” says Dale Reynolds, a Los Angeles–based actor and journalist who founded a gay actors support group in the late 1970s, “he’s the only one doing this.”

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Many gay actors aren’t signing on for Bragman’s services, which Jason Stuart, chair of the Screen Actors Guild Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Committee, believes is a little nuts.

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The publicist hasn’t brought out an A-list, gay male actor — yet. But Bragman says that day is coming, and after the first superstar decides to reveal himself, a fundamental shift in American acceptance of gay leading men may not be far behind. He’s currently working with a famous musician who’s still closeted from the public, but who will come out next year. And the manager of one major movie star approached Bragman a year ago and asked about his client’s possibly going public, but the actor still refuses to pull the trigger.

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In 2009, this situation seems incredible to those who have watched the tremendous success of Neil Patrick Harris, who became a star on Doogie Howser, M.D. Harris came out nearly three years ago. His recent widely accepted and positively reviewed hosting of the Emmys seemed almost like a globally televised message from one side of Hollywood to another: It’s okay to cast leading men who are gay, so get over it, studio heads.

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the Hollywood machine — studio heads, agents and casting directors — is a surprisingly conservative entity. Its power players think Americans can’t handle gay actors in straight–leading man roles.

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But the entertainment industry remains intensely schizophrenic on the topic. Only a year ago most of Hollywood was publicly appalled by Proposition 8, the anti–gay marriage ballot measure that passed in November. Heavy-hitter Pitt and Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg contributed $100,000 checks to the “No on 8” campaign, and dozens of Hollywood big shots, like Rob Reiner and Barbra Streisand, attended an A-list “No on 8” fundraiser at the Beverly Hills home of billionaire grocery magnate Ron Burkle. Yet the big studios and their mostly male chiefs — and the scores of socially liberal men and women who play key roles as casting directors and agents — have together created a kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which places enormous pressure on gay, male actors to remain in the closet.

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“It kills your soul,” says one young, gay actor in L.A., who requested anonymity. “It’s an insane job [to stay in the closet]. I see the destruction of my close friends.

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He [Bragman] always tells his clients to first come out to loved ones. “You must tell your family,” the publicist says, adding that this shouldn’t be done on a whim. The celebrity should know what he or she wants to achieve — some people simply want to unburden themselves, others want to sell books. He prepares them for an antigay backlash, alerts the gay press and keeps them in the loop.

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The dichotomy between Hollywood’s claimed social benevolence and its actual practices was seen starkly in July, when prominent gay TV director Todd Holland publicly revealed a practice of his own, which is probably common in the L.A. and New York film and TV industries: He advises gay actors who want to succeed to “stay in the closet.”

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In fact, the mounting data suggest something far more revealing about Hollywood than about the U.S.: Tinseltown has long been criticized as an isolated subculture that holds itself in excessively high regard, viewing everyday Americans as behind the times. There is every possibility that Hollywood is projecting its old biases about America, without learning how the public really feels.

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Witeck sees an entertainment industry that’s surprisingly brittle and outmoded, “behind on cultural change,” and which is, despite spending huge sums on audience surveys and marketing, still not able to properly “calibrate” its audiences the way professional pollsters do. “The world has changed,” Witeck says, “and Hollywood needs to catch up.”

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Unless famous gay actors seek out Bragman, Hollywood will never dismantle its closet, says journalist Hernandez. “It’s up to the actors to do it. They have to not care about professional repercussions. They have to believe in their talent and be willing to possibly lose some jobs. They can change the system, and they have to come out to do it.”

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Perez Hilton . . . offers up an even more dramatic vision of the future: “If every single gay celebrity came out at the same time,” Hilton says, “it would rock this world.”

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I hope that Hollywood will soon end its own DADT policy. Living in the closet dies kill one's soul as I know all too well from my personal experience. No one - be they famous or an everyday person - should be forced to live a lie and pretend to be someone else throughout their life simply because of the religious based bigotry of others.