I Just Declared my Sexuality. Yay For Me!

[El_Machinae]

At least they're lending their faces to a social cause for a cause where "lending your face" is appropriate. Lots of celebrities lend their face to a cause, in lieu of money, when what we actually need is money being shuttled to that cause. There are a few really obvious exceptions, di Caprio puts his money where his mouth is on climate change. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation is heavily funded by their own money. Colin Kaepernick gives money as well as face-time. And these are all super-necessary donations, as well as very valuable face-lendings.

Compare that to Trump 'lending his face' for the "kids with AIDS" charity, when what we actually needed was money. Or how Bill Clinton derives huge speaking fees from charities that use him as a keynote.

It's extraordinarily possible for there to be donations that help battle homophobia. But this is one of those problems where more people lending their faces is actually part of a grander solution, because it's the forced invisibility that's part of the problem.

There are worse things in the world than people doing good things to get noticed. So, cynical snarkiness about this is tilting at the wrong thing. Have a problem with how they're helping? Help better. Or help stop someone who's actively hurting the process of making the world better.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

di Caprio puts his money where his mouth is on climate change.

Before or after he experienced his first chinook while filming in Alberta and panicked, thinking the climate had actually changed by 20 degrees in a few hours?

 

[innonimatu]

I'm probably quite a bit older than you, and I can tell that THANK GOD for those people in positions of celebrity who chose to come out. They were an essential component of overcoming the homophobia that has dominated our cultures for generations. I mean, maybe it's cute or trite now. But even two decades ago, it was a terrifically scary thing to do. And people did it, out of bravery and the desire to make the world better.

Was it really? Perhaps there, here in Europe celebrities have for decades got a "free pass" on being gay even when societies were religious/conservative. Not all of them sure, but it was not unusual. I guess the US was publicly (not in private) more prudish about anything sexual, as usual.

I can't fault them for wanting to keep any resulting stories on their terms, given the bloodlust of the paparazzi. You'll get the stories either way, but:

• Celeb comes out in a planned statement, headline is "CELEBRITY XYZ COMES OUT AS GAY"
• Celeb drops it into a standard interview like you suggest, headline is "DID CELEBRITY XYZ JUST COME OUT AS GAY?"

That second one sounds like a nightmare to endure.

Incidentally I just did a quick check and apparently there's still no openly gay Premier League footballer... that's the sexuality declaration I'm hoping to see some point soon because some participants in that arena need to face some proper facts about the world, and I do of course mean the fans. Unlike the Hollywood luvvies that one would take extra bravery even if it were scripted and stage-managed. BBC did a poll and found, among other things, that 8% of football fans would stop watching their team if a player came out, and while the BBC tried to play that down for some reason (82% would be fine with it y'all!), 8% of a full Old Trafford stadium, while a minority, is still quite a lot of bald fat men in tracksuits throwing coins at you.

Public figures (and anybody else for that matter) can no longer really hire if they are gay. But the media does play along in pretending. I live in a country where the "national hero" footballer is so obviously gay that only a deaf-blind person would not notice. Despite that the local tabloids keep pretending he has girlfriends... and some fans are indeed willfully blind (and deaf).
I don't know how those "heroes" can live with themselves, I see them as pathetic.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

At least they're lending their faces to a social cause for a cause where "lending your face" is appropriate. Lots of celebrities lend their face to a cause, in lieu of money, when what we actually need is money being shuttled to that cause. There are a few really obvious exceptions, di Caprio puts his money where his mouth is on climate change. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation is heavily funded by their own money. Colin Kaepernick gives money as well as face-time. And these are all super-necessary donations, as well as very valuable face-lendings.

Compare that to Trump 'lending his face' for the "kids with AIDS" charity, when what we actually needed was money. Or how Bill Clinton derives huge speaking fees from charities that use him as a keynote.

It's extraordinarily possible for there to be donations that help battle homophobia. But this is one of those problems where more people lending their faces is actually part of a grander solution, because it's the forced invisibility that's part of the problem.

There are worse things in the world than people doing good things to get noticed. So, cynical snarkiness about this is tilting at the wrong thing. Have a problem with how they're helping? Help better. Or help stop someone who's actively hurting the process of making the world better.

I have no issue with lending one's face to a cause, but that is usually not what is happening here. The press conference is held for selfish reasons.

And I do help better. I counsel and mentor gay youth, as well as work for causes in the gay community. I have yet to hold a press conference celebrating those facts.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't doubt that you do more to help than some celebrity does. That's not really in question, all told. In general, most people aren't helping make the world better in any vigorous way.

But I'll still resent the person who's wreaking the world for selfish reasons much more than snark at people who're making it better for selfish reasons.