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Welcome to Backwards Day, everyone! Newsweek – part of the liberal media elite, dontcha know – published an opinion piece expressing an outdated view of gay actors playing straight characters. Then Kristin Chenoweth – an Oklahoma-born Christian – blasted the writer for his “bigoted, factually inaccurate article.” Newsweek dissing gays? The Christian lady sticking up for them? It’s a world gone mad!
The Newsweek column](http://www.newsweek.com/id/236999), by Ramin Setoodeh, uses Sean Hayes’ performance in the Broadway show Promises, Promises – a musical version of the 1960 film The Apartment](The Apartment (1960) - Movie | Moviefone) – as an example of why it’s hard to accept gay actors playing straight. “The reviews … were negative enough,” Setoodeh writes, “even though most of the critics ignored the real problem – the big pink elephant in the room.” Setoodeh says it’s “weird” to see Hayes (“best known as the queeny Jack on Will & Grace”) in the role of a heterosexual man:
“He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he’s trying to hide something, which of course he is. Even the play’s most hilarious scene, when Chuck tries to pick up a drunk woman at a bar, devolves into unintentional camp. Is it funny because of all the '60s-era one-liners, or because the woman is so drunk (and clueless) that she agrees to go home with a guy we all know is gay?”
It might sound like the problem isn’t with Hayes’ performance – which was nominated for a Tony, by the way, and which generally got positive notices even in the show’s negative reviews – but with Ramin Setoodeh’s own preconceived notions. This view is supported by Setoodeh’s further comments about other actors:
Continue reading Kristin Chenoweth Vs. Newsweek on Gay Actors