Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Gay, Set, Match

Sports Illustrated (which still exists, contrary to popular belief) has noted homosexual Carson Kressley rating fashion at the US Open for their website.

Click here to check it out.

On its face, there is nothing wrong with having someone do fashion at a sporting event, and a gay guy should have the same chance to do it as everyone else. Actually, since pretty much all gay guys are on TV are either fashion consultants, hair stylists or sidekicks/assistants to some Real Slut of Something County we should really have more of a chance, but let's just say we should just have an equal chance. You know, kinda like marriage equality. Not anything special, just the same thing as everyone else.

I have no problem with sports and fashion crossing into each other, obivously. But when Sports Illustrated, or any sports website, simply brings in a gay guy to make silly, over-the-top faces and comments about fashion at a sporting even it is actually offensive. This typical stereotyping of gay people is precisely why gay athletes don't come out and why still, in 2010, most gay people don't feel they have any mainstream role models to look up to. Would they have had a female stylist making the faces he's making there? And why is he wearing a crown? Are gay stylists now royalty? (Bravo execs are probably scurrying to write a treatment for that right now.)

I don't blame Carson for this at all, actually. He's just doing what he does and always has done, and that's all anyone does in the entertainment business. And I wouldn't begrudge him or anyone else a chance to make a dime. I fully blame the in-the-box thinkers at Sports Illustrated who decided to do a fashion piece and then figured they'd get some gay guy to really jazz it up. Yippee, a gay guy on Sports Illustrated. We're all so proud. Hey and can we insert little pictures of him making funny faces in each picture? Yea, yea, that's what people expect of the gays.

There's some gay kid somewhere who went to the Sport Illustrated website today to check a late-season baseball score, or see the results of the US Open, and instead got treated to the same cliche idea of gay people that we've all been smacked in the face with our whole lives. Oh, and that same kid is probably on the school football team and not even interested in fashion. (Though to paraphrase Seinfeld, "Not that there's anything wrong with that.")

It's not just closeted Republicans that send us the mixed messages that we get slammed with everyday. It's fools who make editorial decisions for sports websites, it's closeted TV personalities who could make a difference just by coming out, and it's comedians who should probably be doing drag because they'd be a lot more successful.

Now excuse me, I have to go get a brassiere.

3 comments:

Hal said...

Well said, Dave. Gays won't want for employment as long as they're willing to play the fool and be the gay equivalent of an African American appearing in a minstrel show.

Barry said...

Is Carson Kressley still relevant? And what exactly is he trying to say with THAT face?

Hal said...

With that outfit, it looks like he's saying, "I'm ready to play the Queen at a third-rate renaissance festival."