People say that any representation is good representation: ‘Be happy that there are gay characters on TV now.’
But others argue that those characters shouldn’t be played by just anyone, but by actual queer people.
Russel T Davies on equality
Russel T Davies, director of It’s A Sin recently spoke openly about this debate. When talking to Pink News he said, ‘I don’t think gay is performative. I genuinely think that casting gay as gay now is the right thing to do.’
Davies stated that it was less about authenticity and more about equality for gay actors. He argued, ‘The equality notion is based on 50 percent this way, 50 percent that way. But 90 percent of actors are straight and 10 percent of parts are gay.’
In line with this, Davies urged straight actors to turn down queer roles, so there are more left for queer actors. However, Stanley Tucci, who played a gay man next to Colin Firth in Supernova (2020) told CBS, ‘I think that acting is all about not being yourself.’
Tucci doesn’t believe he should have to turn down queer roles because, ‘If we were to use that as a template, then we would only ever play ourselves.’
Stereotypes
There are countless films featuring queer characters that have been played by straight actors. Take Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl (2015), Mackenzie Davis Happiest Season (2020) and, most notably, James Corden in The Prom (2020).
The Prom sees a group of fading Broadway stars set out to help a young lesbian in the state of Indiana as she is told she can’t take her girlfriend to prom. The film was hit with mixed reviews, but most looked at Corden’s performance of a narcissistic theatre actor who has limp wrists and a stereotypical gay lisp.
Reviewers labelled the performance as ‘offensive’, ‘homophobic’ and ‘aggressively flamboyant’.
This sparked the conversation around people playing into a gay stereotype.
Having the ‘gay best friend’ who likes shopping and gossip, or the butch lesbian cousin with no personality wearing plaid, reduces queer people to a simplistic and often offensive stereotype.
People also argue that straight and cis people cannot authentically portray the internal and societal struggles that queer people go through, as they haven’t lived it.
Zoey Luna, a transgender actor, told NBC, ‘I think when a cis person goes in to play a trans role, they’re bringing more of a projection.’
They’re just acting…
Aside from the stereotype argument, others say that actors are simply doing their jobs and are ‘acting’.
Anthony Hopkins isn’t really a serial killer (to our knowledge), he is just acting. So, people argue that this is the same as someone acting as a someone queer.
Rachel Weisz, who played a lesbian in the 2017 film Disobedience says ‘It’s about becoming and representing someone else… I’m not anyone that I play, otherwise I’d just be in a documentary.’
Similarly, Ruby Rose, a lesbian actor, told NME, ‘ I think we would be in a weird place if only gay people can play gay people and only straight people can play straight people. I personally love Grey’s Anatomy so if they had to fire everyone and hire only real doctors – oy vey!’