The Straight Men Are Coming to Save Us

A few years ago, I was up for a role in a play.

The character was a gay man like me, and in addition to that, we seemed to have a lot of the same characteristics.

I auditioned for the role.

I thought I did well.

Two days later the director of the play called me to let me know he’d decided to go with another actor.

A self-identified straight actor, who didn’t even really fit the role (a little too old, not quite the type, etc.) was chosen instead of me.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened to me, but it was the first time I decided to push back.

I told the director that I thought it was inappropriate to have the straight actor playing the role, and that if there was a suitable gay actor to play it instead, then that’s the actor who should be given the part.

The director went through the repertoire of responses—

Don’t be bitter.

“Appropriate” and “Good” are subjective.

Why can’t straight people play gay roles?

Does that mean gay actors can’t play straight roles?

I’d heard it all before—sometimes in comment sections, sometimes in meetings with other artistic types.

More recently, when a movement began advocating that disenfranchised people should be able to tell their own stories, I felt hopeful.

If people from different backgrounds, races, and identities were demanding representation via casting then maybe we’d finally gotten to the point where guys like me were no longer losing roles to straight people.

Mmmmmmmmm…Not so much.

It seemed that for every argument I found online where my more liberal and progressive friends were yelling about representation, there were other forums where those same people were shouting me and others like me down for daring to suggest that gay people be allowed to play gay roles.

I couldn’t figure out why that seemed like a bridge too far for most people—especially in theater.

The responses in these arguments usually went as follows—

Don’t be bitter.

How do you know who’s gay and who isn’t?

That shouldn’t matter.

Sexuality is fluid.

And yeah, sexuality…is fluid, but…there seemed to be an underlying truth not being spoken in all of these arguments.

And that truth is—

People really like straight guys.

Like, they really like them.

Now, don’t get me wrong, culture has made major inroads when it comes to diversity, but even then, it seems like we get way more excited when we’re talking about a straight guy.

I would argue that Issa Rae is just as brilliant as Donald Glover, but for some reason, there seems to be a special glow around Glover that Rae can’t seem to capture.

I know that glow.

I’ve seen it all my life.

It’s the Straight Glow.

Specifically the Straight Guy Glow.

And it’s a hard hand to beat.

For most of my life, I’ve tried to understand it.

Think about the excitement around any new star breaking into the culture.

If they’re anything other than a straight guy, there might be a buzz.

There might be interest.

But watch what happens when a Bradley Cooper comes along.

Or a Chris Evans.

Or a Chris Pine.

Or really anyone named Chris.

When that happens, it’s a different kind of excitement.

It’s the feeling that the hero we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived.

As someone who grew up Catholic, it makes me think of the fervor around the Second Coming and the adoration of Christ, and I don’t think that’s coincidental.

After all, most people’s visions of god may differ a little bit, but I would imagine the one thing all those versions have in common is that he’s a guy and he’s probably not into dudes.

I’m not going to go too deep down the religious well, because history, literature, and every other facet of life is just as enamored with straight men as the Bible is.

We have been trained to believe that whatever salvation we’re hoping for is definitely going to come in the form of a straight guy.

On a smaller scale, I see it all the time in theater, probably because straight men are the unicorns of the performing arts community.  It only makes sense that we get a little awestruck when one walks into the audition room.

But our fascination with them has always manifested itself in ways that negatively impact…just about everybody else.

I remember being in the audience of a play last season and hearing two people say about the lead—a straight guy—

“He’s really going places.  He’s going somewhere.  He’s very special.”

And it was the way they said that word—

Special.

It sounded like the way a mom would talk about the fine china that never gets used or a collector would talk about a keepsake.

To test my theory, I mentioned how much I liked someone else in the show, an actress.

“Oh, she’s great too,” one of them said, but you could see there was less of a spark to her enthusiasm.

The actress was great, but the straight guy actor?

He’s special.

I say all this not to rant and rave—although I do love ranting and raving—but because it seems to me that no matter how much we push for diversity and inclusion, it really won’t matter if we’re all secretly harboring crushes for the straight men among us.

I can be as guilty of that as anybody, don’t get me wrong.

And remember the director I was talking about earlier in this essay?

He was gay too.

And even though I got the sense that he agreed with me about how it would be much more meaningful to cast a gay man in the role of a gay man, his tone seemed to imply that he found it more interesting to cast the straight guy.

And by interesting, I mean—

I think he thought it would be hot.

Plain and simple.

Could I be wrong?

Sure.

But I don’t think I am.

Here’s how it goes down most of the time—

If the person in charge of casting is a straight guy, they’re going to give a leg up to someone they identify with—another straight guy.

If the person in charge of casting is a gay guy, they’re going to have to get over that age-old gay-men-falling-for-straight-men syndrome that we’ve all tussled with at some point.

If the person in charge of casting is a straight woman, you’ve got a better chance at fairness, but you’re still dealing with someone who doesn’t have the same shared life experience as you do.

And if the person in charge of casting is a gay woman, everything is going to go so well, because gay women may truly be the fairest people on Earth.  Like, every judge should be a gay woman.  Come after me for saying so, but I’m not backing down.

The fixation on gay men being at the forefront of every story—be it superheroes or television shows—is only really going to be dialed back when we take the solution to the extreme, meaning—

No straight guys in leads for awhile.

Seriously.

They’ve had a nice long run at being the center of the culture, but you don’t move a boulder by poking it, you move it by driving a tank at it.

People in charge of casting—particularly in theater--now need to say—

Do we absolutely have to cast a straight guy in this role?

And they need to say it all the time.

And if the character seems like it can only be played by a straight guy, then chances are, it’s a pretty lousy, one-dimensional character.

You know, I recently saw a production of a play where a character typically played by a man was played by a woman twenty years too old for the role, and it was a REVELATION.  I’ve never liked that character more.

The straight guy next to me didn’t seem to like the choice, but…

Eh.

He’ll live.