things kevin hates

Earlier today as I was browsing facebook instead of working (which is what I should be doing right now), I saw a link to an article about Kelsey Grammer, who is currently starring as the less-flamboyant half of a gay couple in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles. The story* is that Grammer is investing in and appearing in a promotional campaign for a new right-wing website called RightNetwork despite starring in a musical known for its sympathetic depiction of its leading gay couple—a show most famous for the defiantly proud song “I Am What I Am”:

(Skip to 3:01 to see the song; the first half is the similar “We Are What We Are.” That part is included for the many of my readers who enjoy drag queens and fancy costumes.)

So certainly, there’s a bit of irony that a noted conservative is starring in one of theatre’s most first and most prominent cries for gay rights. (Note: I have no idea whatsoever what Grammer’s specific views are on gay rights, gay marriage, or any other particular issue, but he’s made his support for the Republican Party quite well known.) But he’s an actor, isn’t he? That’s his job.

If you’re a conservative, you could take two views: you’re fine with it (he’s got a right to make money and play whatever role he wants) or you’re not (starring in a play with such a sympathetic depiction of homosexuals makes him a traitor). If you’re a liberal, you also have two choices: either you’re fine with it (how well he plays the role is important—his political beliefs shouldn’t matter) or you’re not (it’s despicable for an outspoken conservative to be appearing as a gay character in such a prominently pro-gay play).

Now, I’ve yet to see any conservatives bash Grammer for taking a gay role, though it wouldn’t surprise me if such people were out there. But when this popped up on my newsfeed, the person who posted it and the friends of his who responded to it took a negative view. One (perhaps tongue in cheek, perhaps not) suggested that Grammer is actually a repressed homosexual. Another said that “Kelsey Grammer is your typical Republican Right Winger. They will DO or SAY anything to make money. They will contradict their own beliefs to win hearts, fool minds, and pretend to be open minded….Often the hypocrisy is stunning to behold.” I can also presume the author of that comment (I don’t know him, I just see a name and a profile picture) is a liberal who takes issue with Grammer’s failure to adhere to standards of ideological purity (regardless of the fact that Grammer and the commenter are on different sides of the aisle). In other words: stay on your own damn side of the political aisle and never engage in any sort of behavior that deviates from your own political views. I for one think it would be pretty silly to demand that every actor must share the political views of the character he portrays, but I guess some people feel differently.

What this story reminds me of is the controversy that surrounded Prop 8 in California. Prop 8 would have restricted “marriage” to opposite-sex couples, while still allowing same-sex couples to have almost-equivalent domestic partnerships. One of the donors on the anti-gay marriage side was Scott Eckern. He just happened to be the artistic director of California Musical Theatre, a theatre company in Sacramento. When word got out to the theatre community that Eckern had backed Prop 8, a firestorm of rage erupted from plenty of notable gays and supporters of gay rights in the theatre community, including Marc Shaiman, Susan Egan, Jeff Whitty, and others. Various people called for boycotts, protests, and so forth, and given the controversy, Eckern resigned. After his resignation, a number of the people who had been critical of him backpedaled somewhat, especially since Eckern was hardly the extremist that many of the right-wingers are: he said that he supported domestic partnerships (just not gay marriages—in other words, his position was roughly the same as Obama’s was at the time), he had a lesbian sister, he was troubled by the hate-mongering the right had stirred up in the Prop 8 campaign. Time Out NY theatre critic Adam Feldman had two articles on the controversy; Feldman noted his liberal sympathies but also had problems with any calls for a blacklist, and pointed out the problems of a theatre community that is too far tilted to the left.

On the one hand, I can see where the hardline pro-gay rights people are coming from. They believe that people who oppose gay marriage now are just as wrong as the people who supported segregated water fountains and lunch counters in the 1950s. Why shouldn’t those people be berated, blacklisted, and boycotted?

Now, anyone in the theatre (or in other arts, or journalism, or whatever) should be pretty damn supportive of free speech. I’m sure that none of Eckern’s detractors would argue that he doesn’t have a right to his views. The wonderful thing about America is that even the total fringe lunatic extremist hateful bastards—the white supremacist neo-Nazis, the terrorists, anyone—have a right to voice their opinions. The good thing is that the rest of us don’t have to listen to them. I think most of us would agree with the quotation, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”** Certainly we must support everyone’s right to free speech (and we must also support that anyone has a right to criticize, boycott, or protest anyone else’s speech). But where do we draw the line to say, “I don’t agree with you, but I’m not going to demonize you and do everything I legally can to attack your position”? I probably wouldn’t want to work with or for a member of the KKK who made his political views quite well known, but does that mean I shouldn’t want to work with or for someone who disagrees with me on health care reform? Abortion? Whether to increase local sales taxes a half-percent? It seems to me that blacklisting a theatre’s artistic director for having a different view on gay marriage crosses the line. If you want to disagree, that’s fine; but clearly, that line has to be drawn somewhere unless you are only going to associate with people who think the exact same way as you do and share all of the exact same opinions.

I see this as a symptom of a larger societal problem: thanks to FOX News, left-wing blogs, talk shows on both sides of the spectrum, and so forth, the public is becoming more and more fractured. Paul Starr provided some good commentary on the subject a few months back in The Atlantic. He focused mainly on the media, but I’d like to look at the average citizen. It seems like more and more people associate only with like-minded people. And this is true on both sides of the spectrum. When that happens, when people start to demonize the people who don’t think the same way, our country is torn apart. People make it into “us” versus “them.” They fail to see the common humanity that they share with their political adversaries. It just leads to reinforcing unchecked stupidity and irrational extremism.

A while back signs started popping up around New Orleans with a simple message: “Think that you might be wrong.” Implicit in that message is the concept that the people you disagree with might be right. It’s a message that deserves our attention.

* Why does Variety insist on calling musicals “tuners”? Seriously, WTF.

** This is often attributed to Voltaire but, according to Wikipedia, was coined by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.