“We specifically designed the character to act straight and act normal. When I say ‘normal’, I mean he’s not like the characters on Modern Family where they are flamboyant and camp and they walk around tiptoeing. That creates separation – that’s us and them. It shouldn’t be like that.”
– Matt Wilson, star of Australia’s popular Neighbours TV show, on why his character is straight-acting.Fans have lashed out at Wilson who eventually tried to clarify that he didn’t mean to offend. Thoughts?
That’s what happens when you give gay characters to straight actors…”Neighbours” is CRAP television. Stereotyped characters played by B-grade actors given terrible scripts. Straight-acting? That show is lucky to have ANY acting…
I have read comments from gay men who have said the same thing. Russel Tovey being one of them. This isn’t about the actor’s sexuality. This is about the actor’s level of buy-in to gender and sexuality roles as ascribed by heteronormativity.
I am all for straight actors playing gay roles and gay actors playing straight roles because they are actors. What I am not for is heterophobia and for telling someone they can’t do something just because they aren’t x, y, or z.
He didn’t do a very good job of explaining himself. At all. “Acting straight” and “acting normal” are so fucking ridiculous. If the character is hiding, trying to pass himself off as straight, feeling he has to “act” that way, then sure, that can make for some compelling drama. I don’t watch the show but his character is described as openly gay so there goes that argument. If his character is not flamboyant then just say that, for fucks sake, none of this “normal” bullshit. The stereotype of the fem gay won’t go anywhere if you have to call your character “normal” as if fems are “not normal”, something alien and to be feared. Describe your character as a person, nothing more and nothing less, let the writing and the portrayal show who the character is. Describing your character as “normal” or “straight acting” makes it sound like his sexuality is the only thing interesting about him. When someone asks about him you say “Oh, he’s the baby of the family, he can be a bit naive, he’s a funny guy, he’s gay, he’s also a confident guy.” not “He’s gay but he’s straight acting and normal.” That doesn’t help anyone.
Sorry for the scatterbrain comment, stuff like this just annoys me. There is no such thing as normal. Fem gays are as real and valid as butch gays and flamboyant straight guys.
Come on YoppyDooDoo… you reek of misogyny and self-hatred. As for this Neighbours kid, who cares – his opinion is null and void ha.
Haha, what a weak retort. Misogyny? You reek of SJW. I never made even the slightest disparaging comment about women. So you must presume that the average guy must be some chauvinist who believes women belong in the home and should obey the man. Wrong.
Self-hatred? Nope. I’m content and confident in who I am. You might not be, since all you’ve done in this comment is throw a couple of meagre and unlinked insults. Psychological projection? What vexes me is being labelled/looked at like some kind of oddity because there’s a stereotype that gay/bi men should be fem. It’s pretty much like having something forcibly associated with you, and all because people confuse personality with sexuality.
Unfortunately, to erase the camp stereotype presently, you would have to
1) get all of those normal gays to be more loud and more proud than those abnormal ones, drowning out their existence in reality
2) protest every single portrayal of a gay person as abnormal (your reading:camp) drowning out their existence in media. Sorry Andy Cohen. Goodbye Drag Race. Goodbye HGTV.
3) after all that fails to turn it around in your lifetime, pull off a camp gay genocide.
4) when that fails because of all the normal straight people who still think of the camp stereotype for gay even though they are all gone for the time being, BURN THE WORLD DOWN.
Barring that, go far enough back in time and edit history so that gayness is never discriminated against in all cultures and societies. This would alleviate the need for gay pride and the need for the differentiation that camp is. It would just be.
Nope. “straight acting” is an insult to gays which enforces the camp stereotype. It in no way confronts the invalidity of the camp stereotype. “I’m straight, unlike those others.”
this world is getting sicker by the second… Last night i had a huge discussion with some guys when they asked me my type… I said, i like my guys as normal as possible.. Meaning… Not feminine, not macho, not a bear, not whatever stereotype… just as normal as possible.
How the fuck is that wrong!
I agree with him wholeheartedly. Acting all different and “made” just creates separation as he says. Noone was born with the taught behaviour of acting super feminine, screaming and flapping their wrists. Personalities created for attention divide us from the NORMAL people. Who look at us weirdly. Thinking that is what gay is and means.
TL;DR hear this man and stop acting a fool.
He just doesn’t know he’s supposed to call it ‘masc’. Let’s not pretend straight-acting gay men aren’t fetishized.
Pretending to be super effeminate or macho is embarrassing either way.
I agree with him. Given half the chance, I would erase the camp stereotyping that exists in a heartbeat. It’s not true at all and it ought to stop. I, and I know other gay/bi friends I’ve mentioned this to, hate being tarred with that brush. There are fems out there but they do not represent the majority or the community. That’s just their personality, nothing to do with who perks their end up.