If someone sucessfully “passes” for a while and then “outs” later it might serve to underscore the irrationality of bigotry. Such as “hey, I liked him…his music (acting…whatever) was great! But now I don’t because he’s gay” (black…whatever).
Wow. Talk about “good on paper.”
So . . . you’re going to demand that everyone must be a hero, and whoever chooses just to live his life without heroics is unethical?
It’s that binary?
What about the fact that Lance Bass DID, in fact, come out of the closet? What about all the huge percentage of gay people in the entertainment industry that remain in the closet? Isn’t Bass more “heroic” than Jody Foster and Tom Cruise or whoever the rumors label this week?
Um, no, I’m not demanding anything. In fact, I specifically said this:
Nonetheless, it’s clear what your expectations are.
It’s easy to demand heroism of our role-models/celebrities/whatever. It’s harder to really know what we would do ourselves in their position.
I’m no celebrity, but I’ve chosen the passing route in many situations. Employment, family, personal; it’s not always immediately appropriate to go, “Hi, I’m lissener, and I’m gay!” Sometimes the appropriate moment presents itself, or sometimes you read clues that to “reveal” yourself might count against you in whatever situation. If I chose to be a “hero” in all such situations, I would be an insufferable, self-righteous ass. It’s not always about me.
Granted, a celebrity’s situation is different, but he must still choose when he will be a hero, and what he’s prepared to sacrifice to such heroism. I, for one, will never blame him (or her) for taking the easy route.
I’ll respect them more, of course, if they don’t take the easy route, but I won’t demand it of them.
I don’t demand anything from anyone and I even said that I see nothing wrong with simply letting people believe what they assume is true, as in the case Lance Bass.
But just because I don’t fault them, doesn’t mean that the OP’s question has an easy answer. When you look at it from the larger perspective of what it means to be a stigmatized minority, the question gets stickier. People who pass shouldn’t be judged on an individual basis because every situation is different, but we certainly should be able to talk about what passing means generally and how it is an action that is not entirely free of ethical considerations.
I agree that openly confronting prejudice is more admirable than trying to hide from it, but that doesn’t make hiding from it unethical. We’re none of us in a position to demand that someone be a hero, as you acknowledge, but that is the practical outcome of saying that it’s unethical to hide your orientation. You can’t have it both ways: if it’s unethical to hide your orientation, it can’t be heroic to be openly gay, unless you define “heroic” as “being ethical,” which is too low a standard for heroism. On the other hand, if openly defying prejudice is heroic, then it can’t be unethical to hide your orientation, unless you demand that people be heroic at every opportunity, thus debasing the meaning of the term. The only logical conclusion is that there’s nothing wrong with passing. Some people choose to fight, some people choose to survive. It would be unethical to demand that someone in that dilemma make the choice we want them to make. It’s not our lives or livlihoods that are on the line.
Say a person who is an A is thinking about passing as a B. There are ethical considerations owed to him, and to his audience. For him, the fact that he feels obliged to pass indicates that some group of peoople is being unethical with respect to him. I doubt anyone will disagree about that. It might hurt the person to have to pass, but since only he is involved, you can’t complain about his decision with respect to how it affects him. My great aunt had to pretend to be Christian to get a job (in New York!) during the 30s. I’m not about to condemn her for this.
We can split the audience into three groups:
1: Couldn’t care less. Will treat the person the same no matter what - which might mean ignoring him, of course.
2: Would get some benefit from the person being an A, perhaps as a role model.
3: Would reject the person because he is an A, but will accept the person if seen as a B.
For group 1 the passing is ethically neutral. They are evaluating the person based on other characteristics. I don’t think the person owes group 3 anything. If you disagree, we can talk about lying to slave hunters or Nazis. (Not to say these people are like that - just that bigots don’t have to be given true information to help them practice their bigotry.)
Group 2 is the interesting one. Perhaps some kid who is A might be insprired by seeing that an entertainer is A also. On the other hand, if the person never gets to be an entertainer because he identifies as an A, then the value is lost. By passing, and then later coming out like Bass did, he could give value to group 2 more effectively. (Assuming he has the guts to do it at the right time.)
So, yeah, the decision is individual, but the people to think about are those in group 2 who might be affected by it.
It’s easy to wish that people could always take the noblest route, instead of the easiest. But none of us is a character in a novel, where we’ve got some kind of character-growth arc to fulfill.
Of course, its interesting that we expect noble behavior from Lance Bass, and I always feel disappointed in myself if I choose my battles and decide not to confront every single bigot I encounter in day to day life. Why aren’t we demanding “noble” behavior from the bigots? We should remain more aware, those of us who criticize the less heroic among us that the force they’re fighting is not a force of nature: it’s the prejudices of men.
I don’t think “lying by omission” is unethical, and this is precisely why I used the word heroic to describe those who choose not to pass. As I stated, it would only be unethical if you actively lied about who you are, but only because by lying you’re actually validating the stigma you’re running away from.
Again, this is ivory-tower bullshit. You can’t approach this as if it’s a math problem; a logic exercise. You’re a person, confronted with a situation fraught with real emotional and practical consequences. You can’t choose how to behave based solely on how it looks on paper, which is all you’re considering.
Just because something is unethical doesn’t mean its practical or not understandable. There’s a whole branch of philosophy concerned with tackling these kind of questions, so yes, you can approach this logically and rationally. What may seem like “ivory-tower bullshit” to you looks to me like an opportunity to explore the many ways a seemingly inconsequential action can affect other people.
And I don’t know why you’re insisting I’m only looking at how it “looks on paper”, when I already told you about my father. Hearing about his experiences makes me appreciate all the more the difficulties inherent to not passing. They also make me respect him for chosing not to do so.
I’d add another group: Those who aren’t bigots, but don’t have a strong opinion one way or another about discrimination or prejudice. For example, all the gay marriage fence-sitters who don’t care about the issue because they personally don’t know anyone who is affected by it and thus feel remote from the whole injustice of it all. They’re ignorant, in other words. Not bigoted.
This is an important group, too.
We’re splitting groups based on reaction to the entertainer. If someone in that group didn’t care if the person was A or B, despite being bigoted, they’d be in group 1. If they did care, despite claiming not to be bigoted, they’d be in group 3. I’m sure plenty of bigots bought records by black entertainers. I guess by bigoted I mean bigoted in terms of the specific act of not supporting an entertainer because of him being an A, not bigotry in general.
It would be different for a solo act, like Clay, as opposed to a member of a group (like Lance) or a movie star (let’s say Gandalf). Those people who hate gays might still be into NSync for the other four (straight) guys, and thus concert and cd sales might not drop at all. And with a movie, you have the other actors, the plot, the director, which contribute to the whole experience, so the backlash against again would be minimal at best.
With Clay, a solo artist with a 99.9% female audience, many of which I would guess are also hard core Christians, sales would suffer. I don’t know how much, but I would think a decent amount.
Is it deceitful? If he’s just up there singing and not making any statements about his sexuality, then I say no. But if he’s writing on his blog or whatever how he’s looking for a girlfriend, and YOU might be that special someone- i.e. blatantly misleading young girls or whatever, or talking about how much he loves poontang, then yeah, that’s wrong.
A case of it being wrong and misleading is what Grossie O’Donnell did- acting like she has the hots for Tom Cruise or George Clooney or whoever, to trick the Christian housewives who made up her core audience into thinking she was straight so they would keep watching, and keep lining her fat pockets. She wisely abandoned the solo show for a ensemble cast so that if you don’t like her gayness, you may still watch for the other hosts.
Serious question: have you read this entire thread?
Wow.
Just, wow.
lissener, actually no, I had only skimmed it, but after your query I went and read the entire thread but don’t see where any of my posts (save the one about Grossie who I depise and could have been colored as a result) were any different from other posted observations. I agree for any person, the decision to come out must be unbearably difficult and don’t envy anyone facing that dilemma in today’s society, so if you took any of my comments as being inflammatory or offensive, which I don’t see, save the one about Grossie, then I apologize…unless you meant “Wow” as in “wow, what a great post” and not “wow what an idiot” 
Gee, what do you think? :dubious:
Lance Bass pretending to be straight is on a par with a cute 19 year old waitress flirting with flabby, 45 year old me. Phony, but not really immoral- just a sound business decision.