Do gay gals especially hate Anne Heche?

Cafe Society
1

I mean no disrespect here, apologies if any offense is taken.

I have two female gay friends that both despise Anne Heche, and I’m curious if this is a widely held opinion. Their take on it:

She wasn’t getting enough recognition as Steve Martin’s girlfriend, so she became Ellen’s partner right after Ellen came out to get in on the publicity. After she used that to further her career, she dumped Ellen and is now married to a man. They equate her with the worst kind of slutty Hollywood starlet, in that she probably isn’t even Bi and only used Ellen to sleep her way to the top.

My take - she’s really not that famous, she’s Bi, and she’s extremely weird. I tried to tell them about that strange book she wrote, but I couldn’t remember what was so odd about it - doesn’t she think she communicates with aliens or something?

I welcome anyone’s input, regardless of sexual orientation.

2

I’m straight and I think she’s an absolute fruitcake.

My roomate is a lesbian and she can’t talk about her without crinkling her nose with distaste.

That bit they did on SNL with her on Celebrity Jeopardy was well worth her existance though.

“It means ‘I’m not crazy’ in my native space alien language.”

3

She’s proof that I’ll put up with a lot for great set of boobs. :wink:

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One straight man’s opinion: I think the beautiful thing about the Anne Heche story is that it shows how being batshit insane transcends any gender or sexual orientation boundries. You don’t have to be a lesbian to recognize that she’s an opportunist. Not a particularly outstanding actress, and not attractive enough to succeed despite a lack of talent, she had to become famous through her personal life.

I still get the shudders thinking about this interview that she, Ellen Degeneres, and Sharon Stone did on the Larry King show while they were promoting some HBO movie they were all involved with. Degeneres and Heche were on first, and Degeneres described Heche as very supportive and calming, saying “She’s like my little Buddha.” Cheesy, sure, but it seemed genuine to me. Not five minutes later, they brought out Sharon Stone (another not particularly talented actress who rose to fame via calculated use of her privates) who, describing Heche, said, “She’s like my little Buddha.” But she said it in that wide-eyed, creepy, manic voice that Gwynneth Paltrow used in her SNL impersonation of Stone, and the whole effect was genuinely unsettling to the point of being nauseating.

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I say you should Ask the Gay Guy. Tell 'em Swiddles sentcha.

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Hetero female checking in here. You are on track here when you say the reason we hate her is that she is a semi-talented attention seeking opportunist. She uses people. And she’s flaky. Be gone with her.

On the other hand, I cannot stand Christina Ricci as well, but I have no rational reason to feel this way. Is it rational to hate someone because they have a high forehead??

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So everybody thinks she’s crazier than a shithouse rat. I guess being lesbian has nothing to do with it. :slight_smile:

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Note: I like guys and girls, but I don’t like slapping labels on myself.

With that in mind, I thought she was cute in the movie “Six days, Seven nights,” but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch anything else she’s been in.

The objections that have already been stated cover for me as well. She’s obviously a flaky opportunist, and that outweighs cuteness, IMO.

I recently read some of her Barbara Walters interview (it was listed as a most embarassing celebrity moment in another thread). She was really wacked out at one point. Possibly she fell prey to the Supressed Memory Sexual Abuse thing, because she talked about memories of her father sexually abusing her when she was an infant, and how those memories led her to believe she was this otherworldly alter-ego being called Celestia.

So basically my opinion is: whatever. :rolleyes:

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Ellen and Anne became really significant roll models, mainly because of Ellen’s very public coming out and the surrounding media frenzy. It was really awkward when it became apparent that Anne Heche is a wingnut. (Whether she ended up with a man or not is beside the point.)

In a climate where gays are trying to show how normal we are, and how we come from nuclear families, and have nuclear families of our own, it’s kind of uncomfortable to go from saying: “Here is an excellent example of a healthy same-sex couple” to acknowledging that one half of that couple is loony tunes.

Whenever roll models disappoint, it’s not a happy thing.

Anne Heche hatred? I don’t hate her and I’m mostly indifferent.

However, I have to acknowledge that in some ways, Heche represents the greatest fear/stereotype that gay women have about bi women – that we are “indecisive, only experimenting, will choose/prefer the privilege of het-married life,” or are just a little loony and only dabble in a gay lifestyle etc. Bad, bad stereotype.

I have to admit, she did give a face to all the ugly stereotypes that are held against me.

I personally think, “oh, what an unfortunate example”, but I don’t hate her, and I don’t hold it against her.

As an actress, I find some of her performances to be better than average, like her part in Return to Paradise. Her offscreen behaviour doesn’t concern me.

I do understand why gay gals might want to give her a smack, but in general, I find that the lesbians I know tend to just roll their eyes and say “what a loon!” No one I know seems to particularly hate her or think she is a political disaster or anything.

So, like *Fairblue, I tend to think: “Whatever!” :rolleyes:

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Woe to ye who turn to celebrities as role models!

(Especially when the celebrity never asked to be a role model.)

As for roll models, I have always admired croissants.

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Now those are flaky. Bagels all the way.

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But didnt’ she sort of ask to be a role model by her and Ellen’s publicity? Didn’t they go on a publicity “tour”?

I remember Anne Heche’s Barbara Walters interview and book came out right before 9/11 and it got whisked out the door due to it’s irrelevance.

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I never followed the whole Ellen and Anne story but I know that they were a couple and Anne left Ellen to marry a man.

This is the first I am hearing about her apparently being looney.

Questions: How does this make Anne an opportunist and not Ellen? Did Anne decieve Ellen into thinking she was completely sane? Did Ellen know she was bi or did she think she was a lesbian? Weren’t they together for a while? Couldn’t Ellen figure out that Anne was a looney?

Like I said, I didn’t follow their relationship but it seems possible (from what I read here and brief news tid bits I may have caught) that Ellen used Anne to show everyone that two “famous” people can be a happy gay couple just like the heteros.

I am just curious if Ellen is getting off easy because she is a "loyal lesbian " and Anne left to go back with men.

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Dan Savage, in his column “Savage Love”:

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I don’t hate her so much as pity her; she’s basically a nutcase. NYR407, you must’ve missed all the publicity about Heche’s autobiography in which she apparently states that she has some kind of celestial/alien alter-ego and she has been chosen to bring peace to the people of the world…kind of a twist on your standard victim of incest split-personality tell-all book.

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Lesbian here. No ill-will toward her; she seems unbalanced and my only feeling is that I’m glad for Ellen not to be involved with somebody like her. People’s sexual orientations aren’t very interesting to me, and I don’t care whether she’s lesbian, bi, confused, or whatever.

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Yes I definately missed that. Or I should say that I didn’t pay any attention to it when it was in the media. I guess since I had no interst in Anne’s life before she was with Ellen and when she was with Ellen I really didn’t care after she left Ellen. Of course I am assuming the book came out after she left Ellen.

Does anyone know if her husband is a nut case too? If she is as unbalanced as people claim she is I find it hard for any sane person to not see it. Did she have some kind of mental breakdown that brought this side of her out? Or was she always this wacky?

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Another Dan Savage column:

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I’ve been a fan of Anne Heche as an actress ever since her turn as twins Vicki and Marley back on (I think) Another World. Hey, I just realized, maybe that’s at the root of some of her issues! She was twins on another planet!

Anyway, I think she’s a total twit and mad as a hatter to boot. I tend, though, to think her love for her husband is as genuine as is possible for her. If she’s looking for ways to enhance her celebrity through relationships, marrying a cameraman is not the way to go.

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See, I’d think just the opposite. (Straight male, BTW, so what do I know?) I mean, the fact that bisexual Anne Heche was willing to sleep her way to the top, to me, means that gays can say to straights: “See – we’re just like you! We have people that are fucked up by fame just like you do! We have people (Ellen) who are willing to chase tail against their better judgment just like you do! We have people who can corrupt young starlets just like you do!”

–Cliffy

[Heather Graham] This is Farrah – she’s the most powerful lesbian in Hollywood! [/Heather Graham]