FEBRUARY 23, 1996 GAY PEOPle's ChronICLE 9

SPEAK OUT

'Everyone knows the star is gay-so why doesn't she say so?

by Kim Painter

The Celluloid Closet aired as an HBO special on January 30. It was narrated by Lily Tomlin, whose script was written by Tales of the City author Armistead Maupin. The film traces the history of gays in Hollywood movies, focusing on an array of gay material committed to film in code, much of it surprisingly pointed in its message.

The film is set for national release this spring, but is already awash in an ironylaced controversy. Maupin announced early in the project he would “have a hard time writing narration for a closeted person.” In response, Tomlin indicated she would use the film as a vehicle for her own coming out.

Maupin wrote the script, but the coming out part didn't happen. Maupin now says, “I have to endure the cruel irony of a film called The Celluloid Closet narrated by a closeted person!"

The cruel irony is not lost on gays and lesbians. In fact, the topic of coming out— what it means and its level of importance— is the hottest battle raging in today's queer community. Maupin himself has been through the wars. The first book of his Tales of the City series was filmed by the BBC and broadcast on America's Public Broadcasting System. In its hop across the Atlantic, it was weighted down by all manner of censorship, including a ridiculous pixel mass that moved onscreen to obscure frontal nudity. A kiss between two men brought an outpouring of homophobic guff from some of the nation's most panic-riddled spiritual lead-

ers.

Maupin was not in a mood to be kind when Tomlin's hesitant step toward the altar of coming out went into a permanent stall: "She's been playing both sides of the fence

for a very long time. It enrages me that she presents herself as a person of conscience and continues to dodge the one issue that's central to her life. I don't know what she thinks she's going to lose certainly not a big, juicy romantic lead." Ouch!

So the homo world faces another big fight over what it means to be out, who is safe coming out, and the level of treachery to be read into a refusal to come out. The Tomlin wars promise to be as bitter as the ones after 1995's Academy Awards ceremony, where Jodie Foster appeared in signature Armani slinkwear on the arm of a fine-lipped lad. After her 1992 acceptance speech for The Silence of the Lambs she prattled mysterious thanks to a yet-to-be-defined “tribe”— homos were in no mood for closet games and the boy-girl team took a drubbing. Still, FOJS (Friends of Jodie's) insist the fellow was "just a friend, and besides everyone knows Jodie's gay!"

Everyone knows Lily's gay, too. But knowing is not the same as being told. One is clear, while the other leaves people the option of denial.

Hollywood is a company town where fortunes are built on the public's sexual adoration of film stars. Pressuring gay stars to shut up and accept being assumed straight is vicious hypocrisy.

The message taken in by young people hinges on whether their idols are open or cagey: Being gay is not absorbed by kids as okay when revered adults refuse to speak clearly about it. As Maupin says of Tomlin: "Her silence about her own sexuality undermines all of her good work and it reinforces the notion that homosexuality is something to be tolerated, but never discussed."

"That's not the message'I want to send to teen-agers, or the message of The Celluloid

Closet," he continues. “I didn't spend four months of my life so Lily can sound more enlightened than she really is."

On the other hand, Hollywood's closets may simply be full of people who object to being role models. It is a job that forces you to take on the well-being of a lot of people you don't even know. A strong argument could in fact be made that our notion of the role model is loony and unhealthy. It seems to be based on reality, though, unhealthy or not, which is why we have these awful fights about coming out.

Both sides of the argument—those who support the positive, large-scale effect of being open and those against the insulting loss of individual privacy-raise good points. Otherwise, the debate wouldn't be so harsh. It remains to be seen whether the coming out wars will come to any resolution.

Kim Painter writes a weekly column for the University of Iowa's Daily lowan, where this first appeared.

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