So yesterday the paparazzi found Ellen Page and Clea DuVall walking together in Old Montreal. This isn’t an enormous deal. People walk together all the time. I walked in to work yesterday with a co-worker whose name I can’t remember even though we’ve worked together for years. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Except, of course, we to think it does. Are they friends? Are they friends who wear the exact same black high-top Chucks and skinny charcoal jeans? Are they “friends.” It’s so fun to speculate . I do it. All the time. Constantly. I wallow in it sometimes. It’s silly, really. But it’s also telling.
When a celebrity we perceive as gay is spotted with another celebrity we hope is gay, woo doggie, do we project. It’s the whole Gay by Association theory. If Star A is gay and Star B knows Star A, Star B must also be gay. Dude, if only it was that easy. Don’t you think I would have made the cute barista with the cool (and might I add complimentary) spoon thumb ring gay if we had that kind of power? If merely walking down the street, going to dinner, being seen in the presence of one of us could make a person queer, honey, every day would be a gay pride parade.
I guess what this all boils down to is human nature. We’re curious creatures, that’s for sure. Sometimes I think besides opposable thumbs, the ability to gossip is what really sets humankind apart from the rest of Earth’s animals. But we also have a desperate desire to feel a little less alone on this big ball of rock going around the sun. And so if seeing someone who hope might be like us give us even the tiniest hint that she might, in fact, really be like us – well we’ll take that tiny crumb and run with it. Sometimes it’s just a crumb, sometimes it’ll lead you to the whole cake. In this case, I don’t honestly know. I have no grand thesis here. But I am glad Ellen and Clea are friends. Because in my head, Graham from “But I’m a Cheerleader” and Juno from, well – you know, “Juno,” were already BFFs. Isn’t it great when reality finally catches up to the voices in your head.
I have, as a straight guy with lesbian friends, done just the opposite. Every time see one of my friends with a guy, I hope they have "changed teams" cause, well, I'm on the other team.
ReplyDelete:-)
And Juno can do what eve she wants.
Talking about curious: In Germany, there's the Women's Soccer World Cup going on at present - and even though it would be interesting to know the orientation of the one or the other, it's the amazing fact that the media are covering the games during prime time, there's public viewing in even smaller towns, and the opening game in the Berlin Olympic Stadium was sold out with approx. 75.000 spectators - with homosexuality being mentioned only in the context with tolerance. It may not be perfect but it sure is inspiring. Oh, and we know of two players who actually used to be an item at one point.
ReplyDeleteSo even if you don't really like soccer or football as it's called over here, maybe you just check the internet to get a feeling of the party atmosphere - it sure is worth it :-)
Let all the actors hiding in plain sight in their glass closets come out first, then we can talk the whole "queer by association" nonsense.
ReplyDeletesometimes I forget that some people aren't gay. :)
ReplyDeleteI work with my partner for in a small lesbian renovation company often for queers...very often. Most if not all of my friends are gay...so short of family I assume everyone else is gay!
they both have black shoe laces in their chucks.
ReplyDeletethat clinches it.
I was so impressed with that episode of west wing when all the press thought CJ was gay (she wasnt), and she was like - noone should be hounded and treated like this and so she refused to say if she was gay or not because it was nobodys business and in solidarity with gay folk. I thought it was so top.
ReplyDeleteBut then, I do that all the time - assume celebrities are gay, cos like you say, you want to project yourself onto them that you have all their good qualities or whatever. The most recent example is Sara Ramirez, who I loved to think was bi/gay cos she was elusive like CJ about it and never said - now she is engaged to her beau, and whether or not she is bi I realize my ideas didnt harm anyone, but i still dislike on principle that I technically would be lumped in with the 'press' in the CJ analogy, yknow? Like, and it really brought home that it aint nobodys business but theirs. so... i dont know it that makes sense, but Im currently trying to desperately disassociate Queen latifah from being gay in my mind. I still love her guts tho.
You hit the nail on the head. We are a minority and we just like to know and believe there are others like us in the world. Nothing mean or malicious about it.
ReplyDeleteObviously, there was some sort of sleepover and one of them had to borrow the other's clothes in the morning, so that's why they're wearing the same jeans and shoes. In my dreams anyway. I feel it's a compliment when we hope a celebrity is gay. It's like, we love you so much and you are so awesome we want you as a member of our team.
ReplyDeleteThey're not just out together, they're on holiday together in Montreal.
ReplyDeleteOK, that still doesn't mean much by itself. But since those pap pics, various twits have commented on the two of them having been spotted in various LA haunts together in the last few months....
Alright, I just think my gaydar went off really loudly seeing them together, dressed the way they were.
But I am ambivalent about them being papped.
I knew there was speculation about Ellen, but I didn't realize Clea wasn't out. She used to work for one of my friends at a coffee shop in LA and he said she was like a little Shane McCutcheon. He's gay too so it was a friendly atmosphere for her, but I just assumed she was open about it in general. If you're worried about it, Clea, don't be. I just watched a sex scene between Cynthia Nixon and John Benjamin Hickey on The Big C and it was the straightest thing I've ever seen and neither actor seems to have paid any kind of price for being out. "It gets better." :-)
ReplyDeleteAre you still wearing "skinny" jeans if they're baggy on you?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Camelia, it's a compliment when we hope you are a member of The Gay Team. We wish it to be true if we dig who you are as a person. Obviously, no one wants Glenn Beck on our team, I for one would throw his ass right back.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, who the hell knows. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. We can pretend, lol!
With there pics i find myself crushing ellen page all over again, but seriously, they dont strike me as a couple at all.
ReplyDeleteDid somebody say something? I was just a' starin' at the pretty new pictures of Clea DuVall...her hair is redder again..,.an-d-- bluuuhhgghhh(shakes self vigorously in attempt to return to the physical plane)
ReplyDelete-So, yeah, anyway, I agree w/Ang715--I think it's (usually) different when gay people speculate because it's (hopefully) more in the tone of wanting more "like us-ses" and not in a malicious "oooh, let's get the dirty, dirty dirt" vein. Because people who think being gay is dirty, dirty dirt and speculate maliciously are people like Michelle Bachmann.
But for someone like me, personally it's just more pleasant to speculate that Clea DuVall (a random example) is like me because then when I'm supposed to be working on that TPS report but instead am imagining reaching out to touch her pretty, pretty hair she doesn't judo-chop me in the neck and yell, "Get off me, you perv! Security!", but says, "Hey, let's make out for three hours!" and then after we do that we go short-sheet Michelle Bachmann's bed and leave a note that says, "Dear Michelle, This is a sign. Love, God. P.S. You do know that a short-sheeted bed is the omniscient-international sign for "Get the hell out of politics," right? Good girl." And then we call Ellen Page and we all go to the Bahamas, and I wear my very, very baggy skinny jeans.
(Baggy skinny jeans! :D Thank you, Anonymous! (P.S. Were you in my British Lit class Winter '98? Your name sounds familiar.))
The last scene in Hard Candy of Ellen in the wife-beater does it for me!
ReplyDeleteWhat more to say re: Clea Duvall - OMG Rabdrake