Democrats’ gay support is welcome, but when will words translate to action?
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Chris Crain
Friday, July 08, 2005
For two decades, Luther Vandross sang the soundtrack to America’s bedrooms,
but as much as he touched hearts and stirred loins with music about love and loss,
his own romantic life remained mostly a mystery.
The black singer who proudly declared that he would never don a “blond
wig” to achieve mainstream fame among white fans, nonetheless hid his
own love life to placate his heterosexual female fan base.
That kind of study in contrasts would make for great reading, but you wouldn’t
know it from the obituaries and “appreciation” stories published
in the mainstream press after Vandross died on July 1. With rare exception,
the straight press sidestepped long-standing speculation that Vandross the “lifetime
bachelor” was, in fact, gay.
The de-gaying of Vandross is only the latest example of a long-standing media
tradition of glossing over the personal life of anyone who does not live a publicly
heterosexual life. On the obituary page, at least, homosexuality remains the
love that dare not speak its name.
WHEN NOVELIST SUSAN Sontag died last December, the mainstream press published
long and lavish profiles that nonetheless ignored the “open secret”
of her bisexual past and long-time relationship with famed photographer Annie
Leibowitz.
The straight-washing of gay artists continued in late May, when filmmaker Ismail
Merchant died. Despite a 44-year relationship with James Ivory that was both
professional and romantic, the mainstream press stuck to the heterosexual storyline.
Does anyone doubt an epic romance that produced so many film classics would
have been the subject of fawning tributes had the couple been male-female?
Criticism from this publication of the Merchant obituaries proved too much
for Hank Stuever, a usually funny, very gay entertainment columnist at the Washington
Post. Stuever whined at us “gripey gay media watchdogs” for pointing
out the glaring omissions in the Sontag and Merchant posthumous coverage, and
he offered a piece of parting advice:
“When a gay (or gayish) celebrity croaks, call your local obit desk …
and give the editors a big ol’ gay heads up to make sure they know,”
Stuever wrote, “especially if you can point them to any previously published
references by the decedent about his or her extra-fabulous time on Earth.”
How’s that? Stuever challenges the gay press to come up with “previously
published references by the decedent” about being gay, as if an obituary
were merely a collection of statements by the dead person about their own life.
Would that famous people could so completely control their press coverage! Of
course, the press regularly reports speculation about the private lives of the
famous, in life and death.
Even so, Stuever ought to be blushing now. It seems his own newspaper published
an obituary of Vandross that reported — “eleventyseven” paragraphs
from the lead — that there were rumors not only that Vandross was gay,
but that he had AIDS.
Just in case the Post computers don’t come enabled with browsers containing
the Google search engine, here’s a “big ol’ gay heads up”
that there’s even more out there on whether Vandross was a homo.
In Craig Seymour’s biography of Vandross, “Luther: The Life &
Longing of Luther Vandross,” the author asks the singer about the gay
rumors but doesn’t get a straight answer (pun intended).
“You’re trying to zero in on something that you are never gonna
get,” laughed Vandross. “Look at you, just circling the airport.
You ain’t never gonna land.”
Let it be noted that in the history of humanity, no straight man — and
certainly no straight African-American man — has ever refused to say whether
he’s straight or gay.
Give the Post credit for at least noting the speculation, one step better than
his obit in the New York Times, which waxed on in the lead that Vandross “spun
romance into hits” but about his own romantic life noted cryptically,
in the article’s final sentence: “Mr. Vandross is survived by his
mother.”
But the F-minus goes to the Associated Press, which cheerfully reported that
Vandross’ weight “fluctuated so much that rumors swirled that he
had more serious health problems than the hypertension and diabetes caused by
his large frame.” Can you say “AIDS,” everyone?
What’s more, AP reported that Vandross, “the lifelong bachelor,
never had any children, but doted on his nieces and nephews. The entertainer
said his busy lifestyle made marriage difficult; besides, it wasn’t what
he wanted.” Can you say “gay,” everyone?
IF AP CAN’T manage to say the “G word,” Answers.com and Wikipedia
can. The exact same information — in the exact same words — is reported
on that site under a section of Vandross’ bio titled “Sexuality”
that deals expressly with rumors that the singer was gay.
Wikipedia reports that Vandross was asked about being gay on the BET show “Journeys
in Black,” and refused to answer the question.
Does any of this “prove” Vandross was gay? Maybe not, but it’s
enough to make it into stories about his life.
Of course Vandross is partly responsible for the lack of real evidence here,
but so is the mainstream media, which interviewed Vandross countless times in
his career without ever reporting (or even asking?) anything about his romantic
life.
The same could be said about Sontag and Merchant, who managed public careers
of almost a half-century each while dodging almost any coverage of their personal
lives.
The truth is that the mainstream press is afraid to ask famous people if they’re
gay, and even more afraid to print their responses. And when the famous person
dies, the same lily-livered editors claim that the public record is, tragically,
too skimpy to merit mention in post-death coverage.
Luther Vandross talked often in interviews about his failure to crossover to
mainstream pop stardom, putting it down to his refusal to “buy blond wigs”
and “walk differently.” But he was willing to lead on his largely
female fan base, wearing a “straight wig” as it were, and hiding
his own romantic life.
He built his entire career “spinning romance into hits” and yet
kept his own romances almost completely hidden. That storyline was surely deserving
of more coverage than it got, and didn’t even require answering the question
that Vandross so rarely got asked.
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