That's So Gay

Okay, explain this one to me, God:

The image to rhe right is the cover of a recent issue of an American entertainment magazine that is actually published and then read by many, many readers who clearly have far too much time on their hands.

As I'm sure you're probably aware, the man on the cover is Lance Bass, a former member of the boy band *NSYNC, which broke up so the commercial whores involved could presumably pursue opportunities to suck individually rather than continue sucking collectively. They were popular among young girls who were just learning to masturbate and record company executives who realized that you don't need talent to appear on MTV. It's hardly a coincidence that the group's rise to stardom came at a time when the flagship show was hosted by certified tool Carson Daly (whose own admission of homosexuality is surely imminent).

Now, we've gotten into this habit as a society of applauding people of such high profile for their courage in "coming out." But when I first read about this on the internet—actually listed as a "news" item—my immediate reaction to the two word title of "I'm Gay" was another two words: "Yeah," and "So?"

Why would anybody find this the least bit surprising? Or interesting? Did People really uncover something here? It seems like a pretty clear-cut case of restating the obvious. Perhaps Lee Greenwood will appear on the cover in a few weeks to admit, "I'm untalented."

It's not as though I ever really held People magazine up to particularly high standards (Jesus, I could finish their crosswords when I was five at the dentist's office), but it's amazing how pivotal a role the publication plays in furthering the circular nature of celebrity life: get famous, suffer backlash, go away for a while, and come back with some sort of new quality (i.e. "I stopped doing drugs," "I overcame my eating disorder," "I had children," etc.).

My guess is that Bass has one terrific publicist for some sort of forthcoming project who placed the call to People, offered an exclusive, and knew all along that now this skidmark of recent pop culture can now be sold to the public on similar entertainment "news" outlets with the standard line of, "Lance Bass, who recently admitted that he is gay ..."

So the pathetic attempt to earn a few more bucks by disclosing what was an already widely held assumption isn't what really has me holding back from a violent stream of projectile puking of blood. No, it's the fact that so many people are actually following right in line with it.

I've had the misfortune of working in a restaurant that doesn't get cable, which makes channel choices rather limited during daytime hours. In the morning, the news is on and that works for a while. Around 1:00, you're really kinda fucked. Soap operas, numerous Judge Fill-in-the-blank shows, and of course, daytime talk shows. That last category is what really proves my point: I saw Martha Stewart standing next to a chalkboard on her show trying to speak to her homies about ghetto slang with P. Diddy ... or Diddy ... or whatever the hell his name is (if a giant light fixture had come crashing down on them, killing both, I would have wanted to declare the day a national holiday). A couple weeks later, Tony Danza, also having convinced somebody that having his own talk show was a good idea, was talking to a parrot. Women in the audience hooted and applauded.

It's hardly any surprise that on some days, I actually prefer Sesame Street and the Teletubbies. "It's for the kids in the place," I tell myself.

Sure enough, a new issue of People on the newsstands this week. And yet, there's Barbara Walters on that great bastion of power to feminism, The View, still holding up a copy of the People issue with Bass on the cover. Make matters worse, you say? I actually overhear a young girl ask her three friends, "Did you see Lance Bass is gay?"

I wanted to chime in, right there. "Yes, we always saw it. Do you want proof?" And then I would have shown her a picture like this one:







But I didn't do that because I work for tips. And if you offend somebody, even by being honest, you're penalized. So instead I'm forced to silently cater to their misguided concerns about completely irrelevant matters by saying nothing. They're products, after all, of a culture celebrities and items like People magazine have created. And in doing so, I've ultimately become one of the victims as well.