Hank Stuever writes a weekly column for WaPo called “Question Celebrity.” I gather it’s a pun: you write in with questions about celebrities and celebritydom and the column takes a skeptical view of the whole notion of the celebration of celebrities. I feel ambiguous about the column. It’s not bad, but not great. I suppose it’s as good a look at the entertainment industry as you can get from a Washington-based, politically centered newspaper.
Last week, he addressed the still lingering dust-up on Grey’s Anatomy. If you’re out of the loop, months ago Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington got into a fight on the set of the TV show and Washington referred to fellow actor T.R. Knight as a “faggot;” Knight was indeed homosexual, but not in a public fashion. In January, at the Golden Globes, Washington compounded the issue by simultaneously denying he ever said the word and repeating it — all in front of the press.
Stuever said:
Knight once again stated how much he disliked being defined by his sexuality. (Aren’t straight actors who populate the gossip pages pretty much always defined by their heterosexuality? All that dating, dumping, marrying, impregnating, divorcing? How come only gay people have to worry about overstating their private selves?)
I’m guessing that Stuever himself isn’t gay or he wouldn’t have to ask this question. If you are a white, middle class heterosexual, you probably often wonder why people make such as fuss of identifiers. The reason why is that humanity has a tendency to define what we see as normative states in invisible terms. If you’re a white guy, that seems pretty average and you don’t make a big deal of it. White becomes normal and only every other race needs to be defined. If you’re pointing across the room to two white guys, you might identify one as the tall guy. If it’s a white guy and a black guy, you might pick out the black guy, even if he’s 6’7″ in height.
So, heterosexual actors aren’t “defined” by their sexual preference, even if the tabloids are filled with their sexual escapades. Those activities are things they do, but not who they are. This is not always the case for gay actors.
What’s the Real World impact on gay actors? Not getting work.
Stuever ends:
[T.R. Knight] may one day be defined only by his acting, but I have a hunch he’ll always be defined by his sexuality — that dude who got called the f-word and kept having to explain to the media how it’s-not-a-big-deal-but-it-is, lending the incident, and the word, far more power than either ever deserved.
I’m not sure about this phrase: “…lending the incident, and the word [remember, it's "faggot"], far more power than either ever deserved.” Do slurs have power? Of course, otherwise people wouldn’t use them as verbal weapons. Does that mean we should pay attention? It depends. There is a school of thought that you remove the power of a word by adopting it yourself and claiming its power for yourself. Thus, you end up with African Americans using “nigger” freely, while “queer” has become the identifier of choice in some parts of the homosexual community.
In this instance, it seems like a pretty ugly workplace incident to me and I’m not sure that I’d agree that it doesn’t deserve some coverage. How much is a judgment call.
Quite frankly, I really like Grey’s and, while normally I don’t attach actors’ personal activities to their professional ones, I’m finding that it’s affecting my viewing of the show. It’s becoming difficult to watch a scene with George and Dr. Burke having a close relationship and avoid thinking, “But that’s a lie.” Not that all on-screen actions aren’t inherently lies, but this one can affect the suspension of disbelief.
Tags: Grey’s Anatomy, T.R. Knight, Isaiah Washington, Hank Stuever