The Boring Homosexuals

Last night I had the honor of hanging around after my show and talking with 5 of the most boring homosexual men I have met in a long time! And I mean these guys were boring! They weren't cracked out on drugs, they took turns speaking, they didn't try to be funny or diss one another, they weren't bitchy, they didn't quote Bette Davis lines every 5 minutes, not one of them had a faux-hawk and they actually listened while others were speaking! Man these guys were boring! And I felt lucky to get to talk to them.

Living in West Hollywood and New York I am constantly confronted with the stereotype I see in the media.
I go to the supermarket and I end up in line behind some bitchy loud queen giving everyone attitude and talking on a cell phone. It makes one forget! I forget that crazy-homos are not the norm. The boring homosexual goes unnoticed in this culture. No one cares about the everyday gay man with a good job and husband and a child and a sober life. We eagerly await the release of Brokeback Mountain :a new movie about two repressed, closeted, angst-filled cowboys. The kind of men that turn me on! The kind of men that end up alcoholic and suicidal.

But the men I met last night are not drunks or drug addicts or suicidal or repressed cowboys the men I met last night are boring mortgage brokers, and accountants and they should be celebrated. They are the true radicals.

I hate that bitchy slogan, "We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” Queer means odd. Why would anyone chant, "We’re here, were odd, get over it!?!” Let's change the slogan to, "We’re here! We’re sane! Can we do your taxes?!?!" Or how ‘bout ,"Were here! Were drug free! Can we adopt your unwanted children, please!"

One of the men last night mentioned to me about a situation involving a child they were trying to adopt, he said, "…you should write a play about what happens when two gay men are expecting a baby and they go to the hospital and cut the umbilical cord and then three days later the mother changes her mind and decides to keep the baby." I should write that story. It sounds dramatic but it also sounds like a hard- sell. It's not sexy or racy or controversial. In short, it's boring. And it's exactly the type of story we should be telling. But somehow I can't imagine Jake Gylenhall and Heath Ledger lining up to play two normal, healthy, happy gay men. Healthy characters don't win Oscars.

The Academy loves dying, unhappy, gay people. (Philadelphia, Boys Don't Cry, Monster, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, etc. etc.) And why should we complain? What alternatives do we force upon the world? Imagine a movie like The Firm with Tom Cruise but the character is gay instead of straight. Imagine that. It's time for the boring homosexual to go where they belong: center stage