They don’t think they’ve been misled, they have been. If you go out of your way to deceive people using lies and subterfuge, I think that is unethical. The lying alone is unethical, but to lie about something you know would influence people’s decisions is wrong.
How far do you take this? Does someone have to be honest if it will get them killed? Fired? Beat up? Blacklisted? Jailed?
Yes, in almost all circumstances. Would it be ethical for me to lie on the stand for a criminal because I was afraid of reprisal? There are mitigating circumstances that would make that behavior understandable, but that doesn’t mean it is right.
Revealing your sexual preference to people isn't one of those circumstances. What purpose would it serve to come out in the military? What purpose would it serve a doctor to tell his patients he's gay (even if they were to ask)? Lets say a doctor had a patient who point blank asked, and then told everyone in town that Dr. So and so's is gay, and it ruined the Dr's career. The fact that many people would judge him negatively because of his sexual preference when it has NO MERRIT on the care they receive from him is reason enough for him NOT to tell. Why do many in society judge gay people negatively?If a person doesn’t want to make their sexuality public knowledge, for whatever reason, then that’s fine.
Turn up to award shows with your mum, your best female friend, your sibling, your posse of male friends, just don’t show up with this month’s hottest starlet and pretend you’re in love.
Likewise, when the teen mags ask what you’re looking for in your ideal partner, the judicious use of “person”, “someone”, “partner” and “lover” can avoid outright lies. "I’m waiting for that special someone " is at least more honest than “I’m waiting for the right girl”, even if it stops short of “I’m waiting for a handsome man to sweep me off my feet”.
Fudge the issue by all means, don’t outright lie.
Marilyn Monroe allowed everyone to think she was a dumb blonde, because that’s what suited her. She did not, however go to the “chicken of the sea” or the “does Wal-mart sell walls?” lengths as Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton (I don’t for a moment believe either of the latter “ladies” are as dumb as they appear).
I am an atheist, living in Georgia. I am also a math tutor. There are several parents who currently employ my services who I feel certain would not do so if they knew about my lack of belief.
I have not yet had to lie about my lack of belief, as I have yet to be asked a direct question regarding it. If asked what religion I am, I will state truthfully that my wife and I are members of the Methodist church where we were married. However, if directly asked whether or not I believe in God by a parent or student, I will lie without hesitation.
The relationship I have with my students isn’t close enough to compel me to give that kind of personal information out. I don’t feel that I should be compelled to submit myself to the bigotry of the community around me. So, until community standards change, I’m not going to let my personal beliefs prevent me from doing something that I love.
Wow. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
This has to be just about the most outrageous OP I’ve come across here in a long time.
It’s unethical to protect yourself from bigotry? Wow.
I don’t think it’s right to commit a crime and then lie on the stand, unless committing a crime included “it’s a crime to be a Jew” or “it’s a crime to be black.”
I don’t believe anyone should ever have to fess up to things that will get them murdered, or other severe reaction for their race/belief/religion/etc.
Look, in show business, all bets are off. The typical casting call sheet would have all involved up before the EEOC in five minutes flat - if it weren’t show business. All the kind of stuff you’re not allowed to consider in job interviews is a major part of what gets considered in casting.
Lying is not just gay/straight. IIRC, the Beatles covered up John being married for fear of turning off the teenyboppers and their fantasies.
What would be improper would be for gay actors, who can play straight, to not get picked because they are gay. I bet this used to happen, but doesn’t anymore. But image is totally different. If John Wayne loved to crochet, you can be damn sure it would never get into a fan mag. Hell, half the actors in Hollywood lie about their names!
There have always been actors who play gay. Paul Lynde comes to mind, though I have no idea if he was gay or not. Anne Heche, who is bi, plays straight, and it hasn’t hurt her career any. It isn’t even unethical, because people want to be lied to. It’s suspension of disbelief - you don’t show all of a set on camera, and you project a consistent image.
There is one more reason this is ethical - it protects the privacy of the actor. The role is not the image is not the actor. That’s a very good thing if you are an actor who wants to have your own life at least part of the time.
There’s a specific term to describe this kind of thing.
It’s called passing.
Entertainers who pass in order to make a buck are only being unethical in the sense that they are not helping knock down the doors of close-mindedness and prejudice that they are trying to escape from; they are only going with the status quo. But their passing, by itself, does not actively cause any harm. So I can’t say it’s a big ethical crime.
It is a little cowardly, though. But judge not lest ye be judged and all that…
Bullshit. Lying in self-defence, or in defence of others, is never unethical. None of Bass’s lies deprived anyone of health, property, or opportunity. They related to an area of his life that, properly, should have had no impact on his career, except for the machinations of bigots and homophobes. No one has a right to know about the private lives of celebrities. Who Lance Bass sleeps with is no one’s business but his own, and his partners’. Anyone else prying into that aspect of his life deserves to be lied to, especially if they are the sort of person who would refuse to buy his albums because of his sexuality.
That’s where this gets even more complicated: if refuse to comment or show up at those things with your mom, people start wondering aloud if you’re gay. Just ask Kevin Spacey.
What pittable, ivory-tower bullshit. Why do they clamor for bread? Let them eat cake! Have you ever been gay-bashed? Have you ever been a member of a minority that the majority of your society would turn a blind eye to, or more likely look on in gleeful fascination, if you *were *bashed?
What a luxury it is, to speak from a perspective where all lies are alike, and all truths carry the same consequence.
Do you even think, to yourself, that you have any idea what you’re talking about?
An entertainer? Nahhh. The image entertainers have to cultivate (especially these days, when appearance is all that seems to matter) to sell product is so phoney, adding an additional layer of phoneyness is hardly a good reason to take offense. In my opinion, however, to live by the phoney is to die by the phoney. Vanilla Ice was unethical when he stole a riff from Queen. He was your standard entertainer when he tried to make people think he was “street”. When people bought it, he made money. When he was “outed” as a punk-ass surburban wannabe, he stopped making money. Nothing unethical about the phoney, nothing unethical about the reaction to it, since it’s all an exercise in hawking, and consuming, pure bullshit. If Lance Bass can no longer sell records to girls in training bras because they think he’s a poof instead of a hunk now, I fail to see the great injustice to anyone. So Lance isn’t marketable anymore to the same demographic. I guess he’ll actually have to rely on talent and wits now, and suffer not being loved for being something he isn’t. And I wasn’t born beautiful, and so I can’t cash in on my looks. Oh woe. Ain’t that just a B.
I’ve seen this attributed to George Burns, though I bet someone else said it first:
Acting is all about authenticity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
I can’t believe anyone is saying that an entertainer not showing is true face to the fans is somehow shocking.
This is an interesting discussion because I don’t see the greater question limited to sexuality. It could just as easily apply to race/ethnicity.
Back in the day, light-skinned blacks used to pass as white in order to escape the discrimination that came with being a stigmatized minority. Entertainers did this as well as common everyday folk. Now I’m of two minds when I analyze their situations. Being black before the Civil Rights Movement was no picnic. How can you fault someone for taking the pragmatic route and passing as white if they had that opportunity? It makes practical sense.
But when I look at the bigger picture, the dilemma becomes more apparent. People who pass take the easy way out, so to speak. Although it’s hard to fault someone for taking the easy way out, it is those who are most able to pass that are in position to buck the status quo the most. Lena Horne, for example, could have passed for white and bypassed all the complications that race burdened her with. But she chose to identify as black and in the process, she helped chip away at racism by showing the world how insane it was in a way that would have been less obvious had she not looked so much like a white woman.
When “passable” people choose to just go with the flow instead of standing up alongside their peers who, because of their appearance, have no choice but to accept the discrimination and prejudice that comes with being black, it only serves to perpetuate the very system that makes passing more desirable than not passing. With homosexuality, the situation is different because the main marker for homosexuality is not appearance (like it is for race). The default assumption is that everyone is straight until proven otherwise, therefore it’s not Bass’s fault if people simply assumed the wrong thing about him. Lying is wrong, though, even if it is understandable. If he lied (and I don’t know if he did), he’s giving credence to the notion that there is something wrong with being gay. That would be the only thing unethical about his situation, IMO.
To those who thinks there is nothing unethical at all about the OP’s scenario, would your stance be different if we were talking about race during the Jim Crow era?
It would be considered perhaps lame to declare yourself heterosexual.
If you buy cds based on where some random guy inserts his penis, and cares about that, then you have bigger things to worry about.
There are what, 3 billion penises in the world, and you care where one particular one is at a given time? Hell, I’ll lie about where mine is if it gets me a double cheeseburger for 1 dollar at mcdonalds
I have even less of a problem with it, then. I might roll my eyes a little at a Lance Bass and view such deception as a neutral act that I don’t care about. But if it were magnified, something with more repercussions, it turns from a neutral act to a slight positive. Some people, some systems, deserve to be deceived.
This sounds good on paper, but just as with any ethical quandary, I don’t think its that simple. The system is being deceived, true, but not in a way that will lead to its destruction. By passing, you’re giving tacit approval for the status quo. You’re cheating the system by making it think that you’re playing by its rules, and there’s nothing positive about this unless you focus only on what the individual will get out it.
A black person who looks white enjoys the front seats on the bus, meals at the lunch counter, voting without intimidation, etc. while the browner folks are left to contend with discrimination alone, because they aren’t born as lucky. The passer is tricking the system by pretending to be white, but the only one who benefits from this subterfuge is the passer. The system of discrimination stays in place and in fact, is actually validated by this deception. Nothing says “black is bad” more than pretending not to be black.
There’s something heroic about someone who is “passable” who purposely chooses to claim an identity that is stigmatized by the greater society. Every time someone like this–especially a celebrity–goes against the grain, the stigma is chipped away just a little. It’s harder to discriminate against someone when they look just like you, and once that difficulty is appreciated, it becomes easier to appreciate the insanity of all racial discrimination. Should all these people be expected to be heroes and show themselves as they are? That’s not my place to say, since every situation is different. But I don’t think hiding one’s homosexuality or race/ethnicity is comparable to hiding one’s martial status (as was mentioned about John Lennon), either. Being married does not carry a debilitating social stigma like being gay does. It’s not the same thing as just selling an image.
My view on this is biased because of my background. My dad is a black man who could have passed but did not. He makes it a point to be upfront that he is black, and it’s taken me well into my young adult years to get why he does this.
No. Dumb white people think you’re white, and only then will they pay you money to provide a trivial diversion? And you take it? This is a problem? Why?