Joel Grey Comes Out Publicly: 'I'm a Gay Man'- Page 2

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 3:38pm

I'm pretty sure newintown is "anti-PC," whatever that means.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 3:42pm

Maybe so, Phyllis, but he seems to be inventing his own version in this thread.

I don't even see where Miss Grey commits the error of which Newintown accuses her. Her father says he isn't comfortable with labels--and one interpretation of that is that he doesn't see people as strictly gay or straight--but that if he has to pick one, he picks "gay".

Her remark on people's natures appears to respond to her father's definition of his own.

I am missing the problem here, but whatever it is, I think a daughter (including mine) who is questioned about her father's sexuality should be allowed the terms with which she feels most comfortable.

When Newintown starts on our culture's increasing prurience and the like, I think it isn't the Grey family who has a problem with the subject.


Updated On: 1/28/15 at 03:42 PM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 3:54pm

"I feel very happy for my dad that he has come to a point in his life where he feels safe and comfortable enough to declare himself in a public way as a gay man," Jennifer tells PEOPLE. "Mostly because the more people are free to own their true nature and can hopefully come closer to love and accept themselves as they really are, no matter what age, no matter how long it takes, to finally be free of the lies or half truths, it is freedom." - Jennifer Grey

That is supportive and kind, not "immature and unsophisticated."

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 4:06pm

Newintown--as a heterosexual woman, you should be a little more careful about criticizing the daughter of a man like Joel Grey. Especially in an arena with so many gay men.

I would think that gay men and Jennifer Grey know a lot more about "concepts of sexual identity" than you do.

[Robbie2]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 4:20pm

I am what I am
I am my own special creation
So come take a look
Give me the hook
Or the ovation
It's my world
That I want to have a little pride in
My world
And it's not a place I have to hide in
Life's not worth a damn
'Til you can say
I am what I am

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 4:21pm

Exactly, PJ!

Or as a wise man once said, "NOBODY puts Baby in the corner!"

Updated On: 1/28/15 at 04:21 PM

[newintown]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 4:28pm

That all certainly took a strange and nasty turn. Let's let it lie, rather than getting lost in a morass of trying to straighten out all the jumped-to conclusions and misunderstandings (some of which may even have been mine)...

I do sometimes forget that this isn't a so much a site for discussion, but something more of a chicken run.

Updated On: 1/28/15 at 04:28 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 4:45pm

lol

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 5:57pm

newintown, I'm always up for discussion and I certainly didn't mean to be unkind.

I'm just not reading the statement as you are AND I think family members who stand by their gay relations ought to get a break from the rest of us.

The next time *I* use "nature" in a problematic way (it's not a word I use often, but the time will come), feel free to fire away with both barrels!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 6:01pm

And on that subject, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Grey. I think labels ARE important, sometimes even though they aren't a perfect fit.

If many millions aren't willing to wear the "gay label", then there's no reason for a court to consider gay marriage as an important civil right or for a government agency to spend money trying to cure a "gay" disease; 'cause, like, there are no gay people, just an entire population of polymorphously perverse human beings, so no need to spend money on a disease that affects people who don't exist.

The above oversimplifies the issue, I realize, but I don't think it's too far from the thinking of some officials in the 1980s.

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 6:16pm

"I'm pretty sure newintown is "anti-PC," whatever that means."

That means he's a Mac user.

[SweetLips]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 7:03pm

If it weren't for the [male] 'I not gay' brigade-I would never have sex [I am male].

Labels.

[lovebwy]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 7:47pm

Listen, I'm thrilled for her but I don't imagine anyone needed smelling salts after hearing the news. I mean, lets face it...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 7:49pm

k

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 8:40pm

Wait. Newintown is a heterosexual woman? Like a Nancy "Patti posed naked in Playboy but to my generation that's just something that isn't DONE!" Reagan heterosexual woman? Like a heterosexual woman Julia Duffy would currently play?

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 8:43pm

Along with the joy we get in reading about anyone's publicly coming out, does anyone else on here feel a certain sadness that Mr. Grey felt he had to wait till his 82nd year to actually make the coming out official?

Please don't misunderstand me-- I'm delighted that he's happy and secure enough to come out. I'm delighted that his daughter shows such support and love for him in his journey. I'm delighted that I know Joel Grey in a deeper way today than I did when I was enjoying his performances so much in Goodtime Charley, The Grand Tour, Cabaret, Chicago, Wicked and Anything Goes. (Well, ok, maybe not the last one so much...)

But when I think that even now in 2015, it takes a hugely loved star 82 years to feel comfortable enough to come out publicly-- well, that just seems ineffably sad to me. However far we've come, news like this reminds me how far we still have to go, I guess.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 8:45pm

I'm guessing Grey doesn't like labels about sexuality because he is all-to-aware that sexual orientation is on a spectrum. He is quoted as saying he was attracted as young man to BOTH men and women. He was married to Jo Wilder for 24 years. It sounds like he is technically bisexual, but chooses to identify as gay, while admitting that that "label" might be imperfect.

I'm straight, so correct me if I'm wrong, but many of the self-labeled gay men and women I know are sometimes attracted to and "get with" members of the opposite gender, even if they are mostly attracted to and date members of their own gender. And of course, lots of "straight" people aren't 100% straight.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 8:53pm

They're the people you know, so I don't think anyone could know if you're wrong. I personally don't know any self-identified gay men who "get with" women, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. I do believe that sexuality is a spectrum but it seems to me that most people tend gravitate strongly to one end of it or the other.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 9:51pm

In my experience, what Stone says is generally true for men. Women seem more comfortable with sensuality in general and fluid definitions of sexuality.

I agree with Someone that it's sad Mr. Grey had to wait until he was 82 to be candid. I suspect Grey knows the general public doesn't think of people in their 80s as sexual in any sense, so, career-wise, it no longer matters whether he is gay or straight.

(BTW, put me in the camp who never gave Grey's sexual orientation a thought.)

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 10:05pm

I have two rules of thumb about performers coming out.

I give a pass to anybody who was working in showbiz before the Stonewall riots in '69, as well as any young performers whose careers were ascending in the early years of the AIDS epidemic.

I generally do not believe that men of Joel Grey's generation think about fluid continua of sexuality. I think they "don't like labels" because they were told over and over again that the labels that would apply to them would kill their careers.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 10:14pm

Someoneinatree2.... who cares? If the people in his life knew and were supportive, he was content and happy, why would it matter? It is none of "The Public's" damned business!

ETA: I have never seen ET following Joel around to see what babe was on his arm. He has not publicly presented any other persona but his own.

Updated On: 1/28/15 at 10:14 PM

[acekatherineplumber2]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 10:37pm

The Distinctive Baritone: I mean no ill will in saying this, but I thought it apt to inform you that there are more than two genders--and thus there is no such thing as an "opposite gender." Sorry if this is really off-topic....

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 10:59pm

#SocialJusticeWarrior!!!

Without them I might never have unlearned to love The Vagina Monologues because it is oppressive.

[acekatherineplumber2]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 11:02pm

I'm not a "social justice warrior" or anything. I was merely pointing out a fallacy.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/28/15 at 11:09pm

I feel wounded by your use of the word phallusy.