Monday, September 22, 2014

The Noted Homosexual Comes Clean

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Well not really, but it's a step in that direction... sort of. By omission (his middle name), at least. There's an interview with Noted Homosexual Luke Evans with The Telegraph out today, and well Luke has maybe decided to tidy up his messy little corner a little bit. Sweep things into a pile. (Of crap.) The passage of import:

"One of the advantages of becoming famous in your 30s is this ability to view yourself objectively and make judgments both personal and professional accordingly. One of the disadvantages is that any early candour may come back to haunt you. So when Evans decided to out himself at 22 (‘I’m going to have to be open,’ he told The Advocate magazine in 2002. ‘It’s who I am’) he may not have imagined how this would be blown up beneath the magnifying glass of a later celebrity. 

‘As I’ve grown up in this business over the past five or six years I’ve realised that there’s very little you can keep private,’ he says now. ‘So I’m protecting the only bit that I have any control over. My private life feels like the last thing I can keep hold of.’ Does he regret being so open early on? ‘I’m very happy with who I am – and so are my family.'"

Honestly though, what is he even going on about? He makes becoming a well-paid action-movie star sound like he's having nails driven up under his fingers. "My private life is all I have to hold on to!!!" Oh the exquisite pain and drama of it all -- it's so hard for Luke Evans making his big dumb movies. I mean what does that statement even mean? What exactly has he given up that his love-life is all he has left? It's nonsense. What he means is, "The only reason anybody writes blog posts (cough cough) about me is because I am insufferable with my unending nonsense, so I have to keep the only thing interesting about me going." Translation accomplished.
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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Basically the same thing he told the LA Times in 2011 when they asked him about The Advocate interview where he came out:

“My personal life is my personal life,” he says, “and I am very happy living my life as I am. People speculate, but I am not entertaining any of that. I’m happy in my personal life, and that’s it.”

Anonymous said...

Or maybe he is confused as to why people like yourself are so obsessed about who he sleeps with? Get a fucking life!

Jason Adams said...

Being gay is not just about who you sleep with, Anonymous. And as far as being obsessed, I'd say I'm more just hypnotized by the insane spectacle of his closet-hopping and the way the media-machine's been able to churn out obvious nonsense about him for so long without being called on it. It's fucking bizarre.

Anonymous said...

Exactly JA. How do you give a direct quote regarding your sexuality then instead of just acknowledging it (then say you want to keep some things private) you ramble on like your brain has been installed with a a malfunctioning PR quote machine. Its like he's trying to will it into non-existence and start all over again.

Ross said...

I don't give a crap who he sleeps with, but when he treats being gay like something that's shameful, he deserves to be called out for it.

das buut said...

Maybe he's playing closet hopscotch because he was hooking up with some other closeted tail.

Rock Hudson's ghost said...

To be fair, that's the EXACT same line ashamed homosexual Kevin Spacey recently spun when asked about his private life.

Anonymous said...

Why do you hate him so much?

I think there are three really important factors about his background that are affecting this situation that you're just not taking into consideration.

1) He's grew up in the South Wales Valleys in the 70s/80s. it was like the Apocalypse economically, like the great depression. It's still one of the poorest areas in Northern Europe and it's people and culture are vastly underrepresented, there was very little hope or opportunity for advancement. His family background is working class and not well off and he didn‘t do well at school, all the success he has had came from taking shitty extra work to pay his way and winning scholarships. Even when he was in theatre he had long bouts of unemployment and had to do other things, he's probably supporting his whole family financially.

You can bet someone from that background is going to have a pragmatic attitude to staying employed and making personal sacrifices to do so. We don't know what kinds of pressure are on him but we can guess.

2) His family are Jehovah’s Witnesses in a quite secular small community and he’s a gay atheist. He hated it growing up and he was very isolated and beaten up and bullied a lot. Even so he has managed to somehow maintain good relationships with his family and doesn’t blame them, but that’s got to have been hard and he’s sure to have internalized some stuff.

3) When he first came out he had just come from that background and moved to London and was having the first flushes of success in one of the most gay friendly work environments you could hope for. He hadn’t gone through unemployment yet, wasn’t famous, the all-remembering internet was in it’s infancy, and he expected to stay in that career indefinitely. He has since said that he was naïve and people have taken it to mean that he thinks being honest is naïve, but I think he really means that he was terribly young and inexperienced and hopeful and idealistic, and didn’t yet know how homophobic the film industry still is.

Yeah, he’s fumbled it a bit, but he’s only human and this is his life, which is always more messy and confusing and frightening on the inside than it looks to those on the outside. He doesn’t actually know how to do this, there isn’t a script, and how much do you want to bet that the advice he’s getting is actually good advice?

(put this in the wrong place originally so moved it here)

Anonymous said...

Is that you Luke?

Anonymous said...

No, I'm just getting incredibly frustrated with people reducing a person to this one single issue in such a black and white way, and then blaming him for it instead of questioning the prejudices of the industry, and thinking that it might be a more painful and complex issue for him.
We're entitled to representation, but we're not entitled to demand total exposure from individual people when they might not feel able to give it. What happened to safety and self care? Do celebrities give up the right to that as soon as they become celebrities, or if they once felt comfortable enough to talk about it in a completely different situation but don't now must they be dragged over the coals and called a coward forever more? We're doing the homophobes and bullies jobs for them.

Anonymous said...

STFU really. Your just finding excuses and justifications for someone being a complete hypocrite. Blame the industry? Like he can't make his own decisions. No blame the man who once said he'd rather die poor than be anything other than Out and proud.

Anonymous said...

Jesus Christ, did you read nothing I wrote or do you just lack compassion and understanding for other people's circumstances? He said that when he was 22 years old and thought it was safe to be out and had never yet been unemployed. He has since had a reality check about what it actually means. It would be nice to feel safe enough to be out and for it to not harm your career, but for a lot of us that's not the case, and it's not just 'fame hungriness', anyone who says your career isn't important has never been poor. It doesn't make you a hypocrite that you sadly might have to readjust to that reality. What you're asking him to do is personally throw himself under the bus to further the cause, and whilst it's an extremely important and worthy cause, no individual should be asked to do that if they don't for what ever reason feel they can. We are owed fair and equal representation from the industry, we aren't owed anything from individuals pertaining to their personal lives.

I think the fact that Luke came out when he was younger shows good will and I give him the benefit of the doubt that it means that if he felt comfortable being out now he would be, so he obviously doesn't (although he's getting there). I think it's better than a lot of celebs who never have any intention of coming out at all.

Anonymous said...

It's you who lack compassion and you are excusing selfishness and rationalizing lies. This actor is a grown man. He will be fine whatever happens. But there are kids growing up now who need to know that they are ok as they are, that being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. There are people who came out when it WAS a dangerous act, fighting an incredibly hard battle so that future generations wouldn't have to live with the pain and tragedy of life in the closet. This actor, and you by defending his self-centered brand if cowardice, spit in the face of those suffering kids of today and the heroes of the past. I cannot stress enough how incredibly hard you should go fuck yourselves.

Anonymous said...

How do you know he will be fine whatever happens? How do you know what the price of him doing it the first time was? Maybe that's what led to his subsequent unemployment or maybe his super religious family will disown him, or be torn apart, or be discommunicated for supporting him and he doesn't want to be responsible for that. We don't know.

I was one of those kids thanks, I know what it's like, but I also know what it's like to be in a place where you're fairly certain you would be at least beaten if anyone knew you were gay, and later, when you're not in immediate danger but you might be emotionally/socially/career-wise.

What you call selfishness I call self care and everyone is entitled to that. Not everyone is in a position, for whatever reason, even if it's 'only' emotional, where they have to be a crusader. Luke's actions don't make me feel unsafe or unsupported, but the way he's being attacked for trying to manage his own life as he sees fit really, really do. It makes me feel like there's some moral obligation and impetus on individuals to coming out that makes me feel immensely judged and pressured (I'm out in certain areas of my life and not others because it's not safe).

How is it fair for gay people to make other gay people feel like that? Don't we get it enough from outside sources? If those kids see us tearing down one of our own and loathing him and hoping his career fails just for 'getting it wrong' where are they going to feel safe? I'm not saying we should support staying in the closet, just be understanding about why it happens, and hold the people with the actual power to change it accountable, not the people who are affected by it. That's like hating women who get facelifts, or black women who straighten their hair, instead of the industry who demands it of them. Yes it's their choice to pursue that career, but it's still victim blaming. T

The people who do come out should be hailed as heroes, but we don’t have the right to demand it of anyone. In Luke’s case, it looks like he’s building up to it after he got to a reasonably secure place in his very new film career, which he might not have had at all if he had been more open, so to me all this vitriol is premature before we know what he’s going to do, and is doing no good at furthering our cause, but is causing pain to gay people like me. How counterproductive.

I trust from what he’s said before and what he’s doing now that he has every intention of coming out when he feels comfortable doing so, and I’m willing to give him time to settle in. Yes, I’ll be very disappointed if he stays closeted indefinitely and won’t like him as much anymore, but it’s his choice and I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Also, I know this is an emotional topic, but I don't appreciate being told to shut the fuck up and go fuck myself. My viewpoint is as valid as yours and I care about the same issues (which is why I‘m writing such essays about it), but I haven't spoken to you so disrespectfully.