It's interesting to see the way that Anderson Cooper has chosen to come out as gay. As Andrew Sullivan tells it, he and Anderson were having an email exchange about how celebrities are coming out these days, that it isn't as newsworthy as it once was and it's done in more of a muted, subdued fashion. As a matter of fact, Anderson gave Andrew permission to publish Anderson's email in his column at The Daily Beast, in essence officially "coming out." I don't think it was really a surprise to most. I think most people knew that he had a boyfriend, right? Or maybe it's just gay men who have crushes from afar and watch him get spray tans with Snooki or watch AC360 clips of him giggling over and over again who knew it? If you were genuinely surprised to hear that he was gay, you should comment and say so. I'm curious if anyone was surprised. (I also realize that it's entirely possible that you haven't even really thought about it at all and don't care whether Anderson Cooper is gay.)
I do like to see the shift in how people are coming out and how it's received by the public. I like that it is becoming less newsworthy. I remember when I first came out. If I told anyone at all, it involved a very lengthy and dramatic conversation that clarified that even though I felt that way, I was going to fix it so everything would be ok. And I never used the word gay.
It was interesting to see how that shifted as I started coming out in the young single adult ward (congregation) I attended up until a year and a half ago. I remember coming out to my friend Courtney. She had just recently moved to Portland and started attending the YSA ward. She brought me an easter treat and I invited her in and we sat on my couch and talked and in the course of the conversation I told her I was gay. I remember feeling so proud of myself because it wasn't something that I had planned to do (I usually knew well in advance when I was going to tell people and exactly how I was going to tell them.) It just happened in the normal flow of the conversation and it felt good.
For the most part now, it just comes out in casual conversation. Or as casual as the conversation can be when someone in your ward introduces himself and then insists repeatedly on setting you up with a woman he knows.
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i thought anderson cooper was already "offically" out of the closet. i know what you mean about coming out though, and moving from these dramatic planned conversations to just mentioning it, to just having it not be a big deal because its who you are. thats how i felt when i left the church. and like i had to have these big talks and "come out" to people about leaving. but its not like that anymore. its just part of who i am. and i'm glad we've been friends with eachother through both of our growing times, i guess you could say :)
ReplyDeleteLike Ariel, I assumed he already had officially come out. But I can watch that giggle video over and over again. It's almost like when babies laugh and you can't do anything but smile and laugh as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree Jon. I am so thankful that less and less the breaking news banners appear on the TV screen when a celebrity comes out. I would go one step further and say I long for the day when 1- A celebrity isn't rumored to be gay in the first place, and 2- Coming out doesn't make the news at all.
ReplyDeleteI wish we could come to a time and place in the world where we don't have to wonder and gossip that someone is gay, because no one really cares anymore. Not that we become so flippant about such people, but because it is normalized enough that it is common to have gay, famous people.
I suppose the second of my wishes would come to fruition naturally if the first wish were true.
I have noticed too, as you clearly point out, that the famous gay outings are less and less newsworthy. Don Lemon (a crush of mine), Ricky Martin, and now Anderson Cooper (another crush of mine), (I guess I have a thing for news men). I think we are coming closer and closer to the normalization of gay people in society.
I hadn't thought about it, so I was surprised at least in the sense of learning something new.
ReplyDeleteAnderson Cooper is seriously adorable, especially when giggling or getting a spray tan.
ReplyDeleteI think people will always be interested in who someone is dating, whether they're famous or not. But I do hope it continues to be less newsworthy when the person they're dating is their same gender.
I remember that conversation. It went so smoothly. It was such a contrast to the first time I remember a friend coming out to me at BYU, through an email. He'd really been struggling, because BYU is a hard place to be when you're gay, and I can remember crying for hours after reading that email. I was so upset that he was struggling so much.
But I didn't feel sad when you told me and didn't worry about how hard this must be for you. It just seemed like one more thing to learn about you. More interesting than your love of step aerobics, and less interesting than your love of grocery shopping on a Saturday night.
I had many of those deep conversations too when I came out to family and friends. Funny some friends were so upset about it and others were made that I'd made it a 'big deal' when it was nothing for them... Oh well. :-)
ReplyDeleteRon