COUNTERPUNCH LETTERS : On Actors in Drag vs. Actresses in Need of Jobs

I found the conflicting assessments of “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” by Michael Kearns and Donald MacKechnie to be so very male (“ ‘Julie Newmar’: Disguised Gay-Bashing or Artful Story?” Calendar, Sept. 25). Since the film was also reviewed by your male film critic Kenneth Turan, perhaps what we need is a female perspective.

Kearns wondered how Wesley Snipes and “Today” show host Bryant Gumbel, on whose show Snipes appeared, “would respond to a white actor, pulling out all the stereotypes, pretending to be African American.” Where is his concern for how females must feel when males pretending to be females are considered to be oh-so-amusing?

MacKechnie found these actors in women’s attire “elevating, enlightening and wondrous to behold in this city.”

I beg your pardon. Women are desperate for film roles in this city. Most roles they are handed require them to be in various states of undress, while men are given an opportunity to perfect their brilliant craft in elaborate female costumes.

Just because Larry Olivier did it doesn’t make it right.

Fellas, we are almost on the eve of the year 2000. I realize that men in women’s roles came along with the dawn of theater. But as we’ve become more civilized, we’ve had to cast off many old traditions best laid to rest.

I suggest that actors in drag will come to be found about acceptable as whites in blackface.

MOLLY PARADISO

Redondo Beach

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In the last couple of years, Hollywood seems to have begun to move away from depicting gay people as weak, evil stereotypes to sympathetic transvestites and AIDS victims. This is a step in the right direction but far short of the whole truth.

Where are the stories of gay people simply discovering their homosexuality and dealing with it: realizing their sexual identity, trying to hide their sexuality, being put down by others, accepting themselves, coming out to parents, children and friends, reconciling their sexual identities with their careers and spiritual lives, dating and settling into relationships as adults?

It’s extraordinarily rare for mainstream entertainment not to ignore the realities of the gay experience. Many parents of gay and lesbian people will concur that their kids are not being portrayed accurately in the media. And all of us gay people at one time or another have been told: “Oh, you’re not like them.” Wrong. I am them.

But what would they know when honest information about the lives of gay and lesbian people is so scarce in our society? It’s way past time that Hollywood took the big step and told the truth.

JOSEPH TAYLOR

Los Angeles