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14 ▼ July 1. 1 0 8 3 ▼ jus« ou«
Continued from previous page
W e’re in the lobby again, and he’s asking
whether it was all right, and how did it sound, did
he make sense. I have to laugh, and I say,
“Everyone sees you as being an angry young man,
perhaps a dangerous young man, and you don’t
seem either.”
He says, “So much of it is a persona that I
created in the column [in OutWeek] two years
ago. It worked, it pushed buttons. You find this
winning formula and you go with it. I think the
media have used that to further demonize and
distort me. With another writer they would ac­
knowledge this as a persona and in the interview
would show the person for what they really are,
but not me; they make like I’m that person in the
column. Like the picture on the back of the book,
which was also used in Time. I smiled a thousand
times, and they used the attitude picture instead. I
have my angry side, but,” he adds, eyes twin­
kling, “I also have moments when I’m actually
calm and rational. I ’ve always had this sense of
right and wrong. When I think I’m doing some­
thing wrong— and that’s what I thought about my
own homosexuality— it is hard for me. In my
writing I feel I haven ’ t been sensitive enough to or
taken enough account of lesbians or people of
color, for example. I’m asking people to be
sensitive to homophobia, so I think people have
the right to ask me to be sensitive to other issues
of repression. But you have to know when to say,
‘Now wait a minute.’ People can be too PC. There
are those who are obsessed or carry a chip on their
shoulder that you can never possibly please. Then
you have to say, ‘You’re being too much here, get
outta here!’ ”
Back in the car and on our way back to lunch
at the Heathman,
S ig n o rile su d ­
denly laughs and
says, “I wonder if
that’s how I got
on the show? I ’m
just speculating,
but whoever was
whispering in my
ear [through the
ear wire], a pro­
ducer or whoever,
somewhere in that
building, said at
the end, ‘Thanks so much; I really appreciated
that. ’ I remember once on Larry King a woman—
never the person you’re actually talking to— said
to me, the voice coming in, ‘Thanks so much! I’m
a lesbian and I really appreciate that you came
here. We need more people coming on TV to do
this.’ In Washington, I did an interview on radio,
and the woman at
the end said to the
guys, ‘Look, I’ll
walk him down.’
And in the eleva­
tor she said, ‘I
need to tell you
“You have to look at outing
in the context of the times.
What we have right now is
this enormous tension on
gay issues. More people are
coming out than ever before.
world— be able to
live by the same
c ir c u m s c r ib e d
rules as the private
citizen? Given the
influence of poli­
tician s, H o lly ­
by Grant Michael Menzies
wood producers
and media czars
ichelangelo Signorile, at the end
over the mindset
of his book Queer in America,
of a nation, should
offers a “Queer Manifesto” in
the
clo seted
which he says, “We have come
among them en­
to an exciting, critical juncture,
joy the benefits of
one for which we have all worked hard.
But we
are
cushy
imprison­
fractured, split into a million factions. It is essen­
ment when their
tial that we put our differences aside, at least for
endorsem ent of
this crucial moment in our history.... Our diver­
the closet’s de­
sity is in fact our greatest weapon.”
struction, and/or
Signorile, normally known— and feared—for
admission of their
his caustic approach to the issue of outing the
own queerness,
closeted, is here pulling punches with his request
m ight not only
that differences be surmounted among the gay
dismantle that un­
and lesbian community “at least for this crucial
lovely institution
moment in our history.” We are seeing a quieter,
itself but open the
more sober side to a writer whose block-letter,
minds of those gays and straights whose self­
mad-as-hell paper persona seemed to be all there
oppression makes the closet what it is? Chances
was to know. Queer in America tells Michelangelo
are, if you’re invested to an appreciable degree in
Signorile’s own story from his unhappy Brooklyn
the closet, you will not agree with his answers.
school days to his in-your-face journalistic cru­
As the journalist who outed Pete Williams and
sade to break open the “three power structures in
Malcolm Forbes, as well as having abraded the
America, closeted societies that are uniquely in­
protective layers of others in their same unenvi­
terrelated and dependent upon each o th er.. . the
able predicament, Signorile has earned as many
Trinity of the Closet:” the media industry cen­
plaudits as remonstrances by saying No, you
tered in New York; the political system centered
don't have to vote for closeted politicians who
in Washington; and the entertainment industry
enact from their hiding-places legislation detri­
centered in Hollywood. He’s made war upon
mental to queers who have no marble columns to
unbelievers within the pages of The Advocate,
hide behind, nor do you, in Signorile’s estimation,
OutWeek, The Village Voice and other forums,
have to let them get away with it. And Yes, he
and he has also made many enemies, not least
says, you do and must stand up and speak your
among those in the gay and lesbian community
name, whether you ’re a constituent or a legislator,
who would rather preserve the status quo and
movie-goer or movie maker, news-watcher or
make like trees in the forest.
newspaper owner.
Private citizens, naturally, have the right to
So what is this book all about? It’s not just
their privacy; indeed, all citizens have this right." about fighting back after the years of name­
But Signorile asks some pertinent questions:
calling and beating and hatred. Nor is it about
Should public figures, whose influence extends
trying to destroy the lives o f those who’ve made
over a greater range of society’s varied topogra­
such comfortable houses of cards. It’s simply
phy than that of the private citizen— thanks to the
about hypocrisy and how palatable it can become
media, the political structure or the entertainment
when served up with power. Power is supposed to
Queer USA
Swimming to shore
M
something. I’m queer in America, too. Her
organization's very homophobic—she could not
come out. I felt really bad for her. We hugged. It
was very nice.” He looks at passing Portland with
less apprehension than before. ‘This seems to
happen a lot.
They’re doing
what they can.
They got me
on the show.
They’re using
whatever
pow er they
have to further
gay visibility in
the best way
»
they can.”
Q uiet m u­
sic, clicking of
fork to plate underscoring low conversing voices,
and more soaring hardwood: the Heathman tea
room. W e’re having white wine.
“Does the process of outing sometimes back­
fire?" I ask Signorile. “Can it make the fortress
even more impregnable?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “You have to look
at outing in the
context o f the
times. What we
have right now is
this enormous ten­
sion on gay issues.
More people are
a
UEER
bring freedom ,
but when you’re
closeted, in order
to enjoy it, you’ve
made your life a
police state. And
the pure freedom
which ought to be
the goal of every
individual
is
traded o ff for
som ething u lti­
mately transitory,
co u n te rp ro d u c ­
tive and sad.
Only now—
largely due to the
outing m o v e­
m ent— has that
alleged playland
of liberality, Hol­
lywood, opened
up to the potential
behind gay and
lesbian subject
matter for films and television, after years of lives
half-lived or, in many cases, destroyed by the
relentless requirement to be like all those wonder­
ful straight peopleout there in the dark. Signorile’s
virtual harassment (as he himself admits) of
multimillionaire record-producer David Geffen,
who went from being "Cher’s boyfriend” to the
openly gay man and supporter of gay rights that he
is, demonstrates both the positive power of outing
and the weakness of the walls of Hollywood’s
closet As Signorile points out, the health of the
media, living as it does off what it gets from both
Washington and Hollywood, might show change
from the improved diet he proposes: not the
eating of crow per se, but by transferring to a
simpler economy where truth is the only currency
people can deal in.
Signorile’s weak point is in his shifting style
while approaching a subject that demands com­
plete consistency. At times the book reads like so
many news briefs taped together. Then when it
flows, he’s taking you in a kayak down the Colo­
rado River; it, and he, is fun, incisive, articulate,
angry. Sometimes he seems uncertain of the
status of the United States’ enforced closeting. At
IN
A m e r ic a
S ex , thè M edia ,
AND THE
C losets of P o w er .
M ichelangelo
S ignorile
coming out than ever before. The closet is break­
ing down all over the place: in the workplace, in
people’s homes. The rules of concealment are
breaking down also. People at this point are
realizing that it’s futile to even try to go deeper
into the closet, if that’s possible. Private individu­
als might have that option— they could move to
some far-off place, or whatever. But people who
are pursuing public careers and public lives see all
this breakirg down, and they have to come to
terms with it. Going deeper is not an option for
them. Remember, people in public careers are
ambitious and smart. They were never deeply into
any closet. They just had everyone around them
‘ colluding and putting a veneer on their lives. The
closet was once an option. It is no longer that
option.”
‘‘W e’ve discussed the American take on clos­
eting,” I remark. “Europe, for example, is differ­
ent, but is it all that different?”
“The whole issue of outing, and of the closet,
plays out in every country and culture in a differ­
ent way. In the other Western countries outing
movements have developed. There’s been a
movement in England of gay journalists and ac­
tivists who’ve outed; there are movements in
France, Germany, Australia. It all depends on
what homosexuality means to each culture. Take
Italy, for example. It’s a whole different ideol­
ogy; I mean, everyone's bisexual.” We laugh; is
it the wine or is it the truth? “ You’d be outing
Continued on next page
the beginning he sizes it up as being the result of
a “carefully orchestrated” plan, which a little later
has metamorphosed into a consequence of uncon­
scious tendencies “ingrained. . .in our culture.”
Fact is, both are operating at full tilt. It is, after all,
the “American” way to take something good and
make it better. In this case, society excels at taking
something bad— intolerance— and making it
worse.
For those who fought the Oregon Citizens
Alliance in 1992, Signorile’s final chapter, “The
Oregon Nightmare,” detailing the bravery of those
who battled it and the hatred of its instigators,
takes the breath away. In the tired joy of having
(narrowly) defeated Lon Mabon and crew, it is
easy to forget what was almost lost. It is some­
times easy to forget what was salvaged. Signorile’s
interviews with members o f Portland’s “Hill
Crowd” may be somewhat generalized, or the
information insufficient to brand the Crowd pro­
closet and anti-Semitic en masse, but from these
few grains o f sand it may be possible to infer the
beachhead. His suggested strategy for dealing
with the OCA entailed mounting a visibility cam­
paign for the lesbian and gay communities, get­
ting voters educated about gays (so that, for the
isolated and/or the ignorant among us, not all
things that go bump in the night are gays and
lesbians up to no good) and fighting Mabon with
his own weapons. Signorile ran up against No on
9 ’ s conceptual approach of appealing to the larger,
more abstract notion of basic rights as a whole
being threatened by this one barbarous foot in the
door. As we all know from old cowboy movies,
this town ain’t big enough for the two of us, or in
this case, shared priorities. What emerges is that
no one particular avenue ha$ to be adhered to with
all the zeal of a religion. All avenues are invalu­
able to the ongoing effort to do more than keep
the lesbian and gay communities’ heads above
water. We need to get past the rocks and swim
ashore. The best way, as Signorile asserts, is to
educate, clear the fog and defuse the falsehood
with truth.
Michelangelo Signorile wants the hypocrisy
to come to an end. He wants the oppressed to
cease siding with their oppressors. If his cries
sometimes seem strident and fierce, just
remember the wilderness in which we all have to
live.