Closet
continued from pg39

excruciating. What did Ellen
or Anne tell us that we didn’t
already know? Not that it
isn’t important to talk about
discrimination, homophobia,
hate crimes, marriage, and
babies, but are Ellen and
Anne really the best ones to
do it? Midway through the Q
& A period, sweating with
discomfort, we fled in search
of quiet and alcohol.

It’s not that Ellen shouldn’t
be out. It’s just that at UVM,
her talent — being funny — the
reason she became a star, was
irrelevant. Might Ellen actu-
ally have been a better role
model if she’d been less out
and more funny? If she’d
inspired us through her art
rather than preaching Gay
Rights 101 to the converted?

I don’t want Ellen to vali-
date my homosexuality or
solve my personal problems; I
want her to make me laugh. I
want Ricky to make me shake
my bon-bon. I want Kevin to
make me contemplate human
emotions in a new way. What
the Star says about him is just
trashy gossip — not that
there’s anything wrong with
that.

Speaking of which, before
he was officially outed in his

bathroom bust, George
Michael released a CD called
“Older.” Nowhere in its
ambiguously pronouned
lyrics does he say “I’m gay!”
Consequently, it could be
considered a product of the
closet. Yet any careful (i.e.
gay) listener will hear same-
sex love and loss between the
lines. For me (a former
Michael loather), this made
the music more special and
meaningful. I — unlike the
average straight listener —
understood without being
told.

In bygone days, under-
standing without being. told
was the norm. Gayness exist-
ed mostly between the lines —
an exclusive secret. In the
closet, the secret brought me
more pain than pleasure.
Now, the farther out of the
closet I roam, the more
intrigued I am by the human
complexities wedged inside
that cramped little space.

My favorite movie last
year, American Beauty, was a
closet flick. In the gay press
many reviewers noted that the
only “normal” characters in
American Beauty were Jim &
Jim, the openly-gay-couple-
next-door. To me, they were

the movie’s only boring char-
acters. As a parody of the dan-
gers of assimilation and
“Martha Stewart Living,”
maybe. As illuminators of the
human condition, no way.
Leave that to the homophobe
closet-case, or any of the
other characters, each of
whom was living inside one
kind of closet or another.

The day after American
Beauty swept the Oscars,
mainstream America discov-
ered that most of the guys
clutching the gold boy were
fags. You mean those homo
moments weren’t just aberra-
tions? How shocking! That
the movie was made by
queers and is dripping with
queer sensibility eluded them.
A gay film ’had been shoved
down their throats and they’d
barely gagged (except during
that icky garage kiss). The
closet has the power to seduce
and disturb the masses in a
way that openly gay does not.

Last fall, to research a
potential fiction project, I
lurked on an on-line support
group for Catholics conflicted
by SSA (same-sex attraction,
I finally figured out, not ASS
backwards). Reading their
closeted stories was sad and

continued from pg42

bian imagery that does exist
was created by men for men
(a continuing phenomenon, of
course) until the 19th century,
when, finally, French animal
painter Rosa Bonheur por-
trayed lesbian life from the
inside. Things pick up by
1900, when Paris is described
as “Lesbian Heaven.”

Saslow covers not only gay
men and lesbians, and all time
periods, but various world
cultures as well. He has a
chapter on Asia and Islam that
includes discussion of the
Kama Sutra, rampant male
prostitution during the Song
dynasty, Japanese “pillow

books,” and the proliferation

of erotica during the - late
Ming period. Saslow admits
that he’s barely scratched the
surface there, that more “fos-
sils remain to be excavated.”
The need for further exca-
vation is evident throughout

the book; considering he cov.-
ers three millennia in three
hundred pages, there’s not
much room for in-depth dis-
cussion of any one artist or
period (though he does pro-
vide a good “further reading”
list). The closer he gets to the
present ~—~ when film, maga-

zines, television, comics,
advertisements etc. enter the
mix — the more scattered

things become. Transitions
get a bit awkward when Julia
Morgan, who designed San
Simeon for William Randolph
Hearst, appears within para-
graphs of the “Arrow Collar
Man” and a Nazi traveling
exhibit. Likewise, Tom of
Finland segues dizzyingly
into David Hockney into
Andy Warhol into Philip
Johnson into the founding of
the “Advocate.” But these are
quibbles.

In these days when history

is being made right here in
Vermont, and when, because
the gay movement has
changed so much in the past
30 years, Stonewall can seem
like the ancient past, it’s
refreshing to place ourselves
and our art within a much
larger framework.
Considering that the United
States’ first real contribution
to male sexuality in art,
Thomas Eakins’s “The
Swimming Hole,” didn’t
come until the 1880s, to say
there’s a world out there
beyond us is ludicrous under-
statement. Pictures and
Passions goes a long way"
toward reclaiming the images
that many have tried to keep
buried, the images
together, form the picture of
who we are today. V

that, '

June 2000 | Ou

I fascinating. One posting was

from a man who had seen
American Beauty and was so
agitated by its “lust and
homoerotic imagery,” he
found himself wandering the
streets at 1am, hoping to run
into an acquaintance who he
knew had a porn “problem.”
Reaffirming what my own
life has told me: the closet is
more pleasurable from a safe
distance. ,

For people struggling with
their sexuality, I ’m glad Ellen
did her creatively funny
“puppy” episode. I’m glad
“Will and Grace” exists and

tin the Mountains I43

packs an increasingly sharp
satirical bite. But I’m also
glad that the closet — much
maligned in these proudly out
times — is back in vogue: wit-
ness Matt Damon’s exquisite-
ly furtive lust for Jude Law in
The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Some day the closet may be a
meaningless cultural artifact.
Until then, it’s an alluring
place to revisit even if you
don’t plan to live there again,
ever. V

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