Gay Guys, How Dare You Be Slightly Overweight! [Movie Transcript]

(Playing ♫ Faith ♫ by George Michael)

Well, I guess it would be nice
If I could touch your body
I know not everybody
Has got a body like you (Ohh!)

But I've gotta think twice
Before I give my heart
I know all the games you play
Because I play them too

Ohh, but I need some time off
From that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor...

Brett: I think having taught the Queer Eye on America course, I was thinking deeply about how mass media creates and reflects certain stereotypes. One of the things I was really struck by was how there's a very narrow definition of what it means to be gay in America, which seems to be coming out of film and television.


I think of our own alum, Carson Kressley (Class of '91), and I think about how he and shows like Queer Eye and Will & Grace create this very narrow definition. To be fair, I think it happens for every sexual orientation, except for maybe transsexual or transgender, which is an orientation--it's a lot of identity politics.


We just have these very narrow slots for what you can be, so if you're a lesbian, you've got to be butch (not femme) because that way, you're not messing up everybody's radar. And if you're gay, if you don't look like a New York urbanite, then Oh My God, How dare you be slightly overweight or How dare you be a Bear or a Cub! Or how dare you be... anything that doesn't work within people's traditional parameters.

It's amazing to me how people are so simplistic and they get rid of the beauty of the complexity of the individual.

JiMBO's Hollywood Screen Kiss [Director's Commentary]

To this day, Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss is still one of my all-time favorite GLBT movies, after Mambo Italiano, To Wong Foo, D.E.B.S, and The Broken Hearts Club, of course. Although I do find it strange that Sean Hayes, the title character, has deflected all questions about his sexual orientation. I suppose, after playing a flamboyantly gay character on Will & Grace, he doesn't want to be typecast in only that sort of role.


In his own words, "Being an actor, the less people know about my personal life, the more open-minded they can be about each role I play." I respect that, so long as he remains an ally to the GLBTQ community; but still, we're hard-pressed to find openly gay role models in A-List Hollywood.


And the two friends I was referring to are Janelle and Alexis. Janelle and I have been close friends since elementary school, bonded together by the fact that we were the only two black kids living in Pasadena. My coming out only brought us closer; she had figured it out years ago and was very supportive. We still talk, she was the first to write essay responses for my project, and last night I helped "Nelly" move her girlfriend into a new apartment. Unfortunately, Alexis didn't take it as well as I had hoped, and she and I have lost touch in the past couple of years. She married her high school sweetheart in Hawaii over the summer, and I wish them all the best.







UPDATE: Sean Hayes openly discusses his sexuality for the first time ever in the April 2010 issue of The Advocate!

JiMBO's Hollywood Screen Kiss [Movie Transcript]

(Playing ♫ This Is My Song ♫ by Petula Clark)

I know why the world is smiling,
Smiling so tenderly,
It hears the same old story,
Through all eternity




During my senior year of high school, I found a movie called Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, starring Sean Hayes a.k.a. "Jack" from Will & Grace. And I really enjoyed the movie--so much that it inspired me to come out to my two best friends at one of my Halloween parties.



Love, This is My Song
Here is a song,
A serenade to you

I showed them this clip of "The Tuxedo Dance" because I think it's one of the most romantic things I've ever seen on film.

The world cannot be wrong,
If in this world,
There is you.