Posted: 1/30/18 at 6:12pm
Last week, when the new Broadway production of The Boys In The Band posted their first promotional video, I (as a biracial gay man living in Trump's America) was disappointed to see my heroes and men I admired claiming "inclusion" and "diversity," speaking out for the gay community in dangerous times when everyone is under attack. I immediately called it out on social media and was almost instantly blocked by the Boys in the Band social media account - I assume for want of avoiding negative press.
I took the time to educate myself about the play. I've read the play and watched the movie a few times now. Despite the time period and despite the one plot point in the play where a specific race is required, I see absolutely no reason for an almost identical looking cast. In this day and age, I think it's a dangerous message to show young gay men that there is only way to look when you are gay.
I've continued to speak out on social media and have since been blocked from following Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannels, and Jim Parsons on Instagram. I've decided to not give up and I'd like to share my story. Here's a little bit about me, my history and why I have a problem with this revival.
Last year I did what I now lovingly refer to as a "Reverse Wizard of Oz." After 8 years of living in New York City, I decided to go back to my small hometown of Johnson City, TN to do some digging. I had lost my way in New York. I moved here to perform in 2009 and found my love of songwriting while touring but after a ****ty breakup and Trump, I found my drive to create completely gone.
Meanwhile back on the ranch in Tennessee, I took the much-needed time to go back home and review my childhood but this time, through an adult lens. I lived in the room I grew up in. I worked down the street from my high school. I reminded myself what it was like to be 16 in the conservative south but this time, in Trump’s America - grappling with my race and my sexuality. I realized just how hard it actually was and how strong I actually am.
I first knew I was gay when I opened a letter from my Grandma who had sent me her Playbill from The Lion King on Broadway. She had just taken a trip to New York City and since I'm adopted and the only person of color in my family, she was always looking for ways to show me successful people who looked like me. She loved the musical and couldn't believe how diverse the cast was and I couldn’t believe that I was holding a real life program from Broadway. I had begun acting in local theater when I was eight and quickly became enamored with life on the stage.
I excitedly flipped through the magazine and came to the page with the pictures of the ensemble cast and a certain gazelle or bird or something caught my eye. “Wow, he’s cute,” I thought. Followed quickly by, “Oh my gosh - what did I just think?” I was ten years old.
I came out to my parents four years later after getting a computer in my room for the first time. That night I was googling (or Asking Jeeves more likely) “How to tell your mom that you’re gay.” I quickly shut the screen when she walked in the room but she insisted I reopen the screen and show her what I had been looking at. Fearing, no doubt, that I had discovered car washing and boobs - what I assume my straight counterparts were asking the butler to deliver.
That night, we sat on my bedroom floor and reflected on all the red flags. The worn out Annie soundtrack, my lack of interest in a pop gun she had gotten me when I was two, my obsession with Baby Spice, singing show tunes in the driveway while twirling an umbrella - maybe it did actually all add up.
I felt validated and secure in myself for a few years then. I had a boyfriend at fourteen and my parents would drive us to the movies and we would make out in the seats and write each other notes in class. Everything was normal. I had conquered being gay. I didn’t understand older characters like Will Truman who struggled with their sexuality. I knew friends who were kicked out of their homes but I was safe. My parents loved me - they even loved my boyfriends!
It was Junior year when I realized that I hadn’t learned everything about being Different in America yet. I had just won my high school student government Vice Presidential race (third year in a row) and my opponent was not pleased. One afternoon on the computer in my room, I found a Xanga entry she had written online calling me a sissy faggot n*. I didn’t tell anyone. I kept it to myself and spent the summer thinking about what that meant. How was I supposed to suddenly be a **** faggot n* when all my life I thought I had just been Matthew? I drove my new car and smoked weed for the first time. I went to a college party and drank for the first time. I broke up and fell in love and had a crush on a douchey straight guy. I tried doing everything my peers were doing but suddenly I felt deeply alone in my experiences. I didn’t have any black friends. The black kids I knew said I wasn’t black enough and the white kids that didn’t like me thought I was too black. No matter what I did - I wasn’t pleasing anybody.
A week into my junior year I decided that I couldn’t take the stress and I asked my mom if I could homeschool for my last two years of high school and I let the bullies win. I got to go to four days of my junior year. I never went to prom. I didn't get to walk the stage at graduation. This spring, I probably won’t go to my ten year reunion. There’s Facebook now, so I’m sure I’ll be aware of it - but I remember at the time thinking, “I won’t graduate - they won’t have my contact information. I’ll never see my friends again.”
Moving to New York in 2009 was truly like stepping into a Technicolor world for the first time. I went to theatre school and cried about my exes in front of the class. I got drunk and lost downtown. I made out with an old cast member from Cats. I was living my wildest dreams. I watched the landscape of the gay community change. I watched shows like Noah’s Arc, Looking, Glee, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt show a diverse group of gay men that weren’t defined by their sexuality, color, or body type.
I would venture to guess that the production working on the Broadway revival of The Boys in the Band will say that I’m missing the point. That my argument is the reason why they’re mounting the production and the reason for their casting decisions. To them, I would quote a line said to Michael, the protagonist of the play:
I am a sad, pathetic gay man. I am a homosexual and there’s nothing I can do about it.
When I was fourteen I begged my mother to let me go to conversion therapy. When I was sixteen I tried to bleach my hair to play Rolf in community theatre production of The Sound of Music and then was completely humiliated when I realized that my half whiteness had a limit. I spent so much of my life begging to be something I'm just not. I lived mostly in their world - but there was a point where the line had to be drawn. And like yeah, I get it, I probably wouldn’t cast me as a Nazi youth either - but The Boys in the Band has no race limitations. It has no size limitations.
We have set the race limitations by continuing to have a narrow view. We have to get woke. I am a modern day Michael. I am the hostile fag. I’ve struggled with self acceptance. Just last year, I exiled myself to my hometown - calling myself a failure, a loser, a nobody. I had to finally click my heels together three times and realize that the answer was there along.
My name is Matthew. I am who I am. The gay community is diverse. I don't understand how this group of men could honestly stand around and congratulate themselves on a job well done when I feel as if this production is sending a very dangerous message to all the ten-year-old gay boys growing up in small towns that are brown or Asian or overweight or maybe not the perfect model image of a tall, athletic, white man. It just holds us back.
The play's history is undeniably historic and I am so inspired and in awe of the work that Marty Crowley was able to accomplish at the time. However, I think the play has not aged well and is almost a minstrel show of the gay community. A show that should be remembered for his legacy but treated cautiously when trying to execute.
I normally am not a vocal person about things like this- but I have really taken this matter to heart and will be organizing a peaceful protest on opening night. Check this post for updates.
Updated On: 1/30/18 at 06:12 PM
