Sean Penn Slams “Timid and Artless” Idea That Straight Actors Shouldn’t Play Gay

Oh yes, we wouldn't want those minorities to overreach. Massa knows best, after all.

I agree. It’s a false overcorrection to Hollywood stars playing socially underrepresented and powerless characters (which, in the 1990s and previously, they did quite seriously as a form of activism).

The best thing to do is stop ghettoising gay and lesbian actors in the closet for the sake of their careers, to let them come out and be ordinary people, and allow them to go for any roles that they are physically suitable for. Cinema-going audiences (such as they are, these days) don’t care nearly as much as the pencil pushers at the studios think provided the movie they are watching is a good one.

I would argue that if the story was written well enough, and the actor performed transcendently- it wouldn’t honestly matter.

R2, except straight actors play gay characters all the time. That's why Penn's comments are moronic

Penn should shut up. He portrayed Harvey Milk as a man with a lisp, something the real Harvey Milk never had; Milk spoke with a pleasant baritone - surviving footage of Mr. Milk is on YouTube - that Sean Penn simply can't replicate so he apparently decided to stereotype the character he played in Milk.

TL;DR: Shove it, Sean.

I can't watch anything with Sean Penn. He grosses me out.

[quote] I can't watch anything with Sean Penn. He grosses me out.

Same.

He is 1000 percent correct. Ugly sexy ass.

R8, no, he isn't

Straight actors still play most gay characters

[quote]except straight actors play gay characters all the time.

*sigh* That's exactly my point. And closeted gay actor olay straight characters all the time.

There is an over correction of “lived experience” being the most important casting note in cinema today (it’s largely nonsense), after decades of Daniel Day-Lewis in a Very Special Role as a homosexual or a disabled person, and Ava Gardner playing every combination of biracial under the sun.

This is because for decades upon decades TPTB, and by extension the studios, do not believe audiences can handle actual homosexuals, disabled people and (most obvious among the ethnicities) black people in their public life, and by extension in their movies, unless they fit into very specific kinds of stereotypes or very particular kinds of roles.

The problem starts with how people are viewed in society. The best way to change that is with honesty. Remove closets for PR purposes, disavow the absurd notion that the very vast majority of audiences will not accept gay and lesbian actors playing standard straight heroic or villainous or romantic roles, and hire the best people for the job.

Not by doubling down quotas and tokenism.

And I agree than Penn sucked as Milk.

He is absolutely right. As somebody said you don't have to be psychopatic murderer to play Hannibal Lecter. The only limit in playing someone should be physical appearance when needed to be convincing, age, sex and race if it is necessary to portray a certain role.

Besides, God knows how many gay as the picnic basket closet cases played straight pussy hounds over the years.

Sean is too fucking to play gay these days.

Oh dear, fugly got autocorrected to fucking.

[quote]The best thing to do is stop ghettoising gay and lesbian actors in the closet for the sake of their careers, to let them come out and be ordinary people, and allow them to go for any roles that they are physically suitable for

But until that happens there's a perfectly reasonable argument that gay roles should go to openly gay actors. Not for artistic reasons but for simple reasons of fairness.

Funny how all these straight actors who whine about how straight actors should be able to play gay roles never also say "and openly gay actors should be able to play straight roles"

It's called 'acting' for a reason.

Can't we send him back to Ukraine?

[quote] But until that happens there's a perfectly reasonable argument that gay roles should go to openly gay actors. Not for artistic reasons but for simple reasons of fairness.

Because it’s the opposite of perfectly reasonable, it’s not fair, it’s idiotic.

Because casting non entities like Billy Eichner and Wentworth Miller in every gay role going does so much to make up for unfairness of the past.

The only thing that will change the past is opening up the roles gay and bisexual people and play and normalising to the general public that we are part of society in all regards.

[quote] Funny how all these straight actors who whine about how straight actors should be able to play gay roles never also say "and openly gay actors should be able to play straight roles.

They don’t say it, because no one is arguing that openly gay actors be cancelled for playing straight roles, dumbass.

[quote]Because casting non entities like Billy Eichner and Wentworth Miller in every gay role going does so much to make up for unfairness of the past.

Because those are the only two openly gay actors. And no-one said anything about making up for the unfairness of the past. It's fairer now, in the present, that if openly gay actors aren't going to be considered for straight roles that they get the gay ones.

[quote]They don’t say it, because no one is arguing that openly gay actors be cancelled for playing straight roles, dumbass.

And yet they do pretend that straight actors aren't allowed to play gay, despite massive amounts of evidence otherwise.

This asshole needs to shut his mouth and stop speaking for the LGBT community.

And he shouldn’t have been cast as Milk. But Hollywood was going through a period of straight men wanting to play gay for career boosts, so there u go,

I have found you can’t act like you have a big divk unless you really have a big dick.

Who any actor really is should have NOTHING to do with the characters they play! How childish! Artistic fascism pushed by phony, dim-witted fauxgressives!

They hire actors to PRETEND to be the character, and if the person paying the bills feel they'd be good for the job, that's all it takes!

For-profit filmed entertainment is NOT Brown v. Board of Ed!

[quote] Sean Penn Says He ‘Went 15 Years Miserable on Sets’ After ‘Milk’ and Could Not Play Gay Role Today Due to a ‘Timid and Artless Policy Toward the Human Imagination’

Gee.

Wouldn't have guessed.

The only clue being the fact that every performance he gave after "Milk" and the films he directed after "Into the Wild" were uniformly awful.

I wouldn't even say that Penn cashed in.

More like gave up.

My theory?

Robin Wright publicly announcing that Ben Foster (aka French Legionnaire Sean Penn) was better in bed destroyed him.

Poor Penis-Face.

I'm reading the Evan Osnos New Yorker article on Zach Horwitz so the idea that Hollywood is fair or casts solely on talent is particularly laughable to me this morning.