The gay connection to theater?

I'm a straight guy who has long been involved with both community, amateur and professional theater, and have worked with a fairly evenly-mixed group of gay and straight male actors. However, one cannot deny an indelible link between theater and the homosexual community. What is the link uniting gays and the theater? How did it begin? Why do they, at least according to tradition, stereotype or generalization, belong onstage more than straight men?

I ask this not because I seek to judge, but because I genuinely perceive, but do not understand the nature or origin, a link between one's choice of profession as an actor and one's sexual preference- at least on one level.

Many Broadway shows cater to this, producing gay-friendly programming or adding "eye candy" fodder to otherwise heterosexually-oriented shows, such as Aaron Tveit's frankly perplexing underwear scenes in Next to Normal. Is this part and parcel of the gay-theater experience, or does one lead to the other?

Gays and straights alike, feel free to share your understanding of how gender or sexual orientation actually affects the theater.

oh boy

This is bound to end with someone getting offended. Should be fun.

I'm not saying your post is offensive...

I'm just saying in general. Someone is bound to make a comment that will offend someone else. Isn't that usually how these threads end that aren't about what time to line up for student rush or where the best seats in the Gershwin are? Whenever something personal (or even potentially personal) like this is brought up, it never ends well.

haha, rOcKs, I really meant the thread in general. =P

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The most interesting theory I've heard, but one I don't actually believe, is that it all dates back to Shakespeare's time, in which all roles, male and female, were played by men and boys, and "fluffers," much like those in the porn industry, were used to keep the, um, dead giveaways of the male performers under control while they were playing women.

It sounds a little too sensational to be true, as far as I know. Still, this discussion does come down, in a way, to the line between stereotype and cultural trait. For instance, Fred Astaire, Bob Fosse and Justin Timberlake are all extremely high-profile mainstream stars of their day, and all of them are white heterosexuals, at least according to common knowledge. And yet, whites, as a supposed "cultural group" are not associated with dancing prowess or grace, while these two traits, arguably positive ones, are commonly attributed to blacks and gays. When I pointed it out to family as an anomaly, my aunt said "It's not a stereotype- every group is different. Whites can swim, blacks can dance, gays have the best fashion sense and artistic taste."

I guess there are two questions here. One- how are sexuality and theater linked, if at all? And two- are all cultural traits stereotypes, even positive ones? And where does one draw the line?

Please be sensitive, people. Don't let your prejudices or your mindset, whatever it is, lead you to attack anyone else. Let's just let this be a forum for honest discussion and debate.

I'm sure a lot of fun, unintelligent comments will follow, but this is actually a valid question and I like the way you approached in asking it.

Of course, no one knows for sure and it is different for every person - this is very obvious but must be stated because one will quickly get criticized for any kind of reasoning that one comes up with.

I think the link is due to many reasons, but the major ones being 1) genes, 2) history/tradition, 3) following your own kind.

GENES
Based solely on my experience with people and not including any research or having read any studies, I notice that homosexual men are more artistically-inclined. This has to do, I think, with us wanting to detach any sort of association with what "straight" people do. The "gay connection to theater" could also been seen as "the straight connection to construction." In both cases, straight men do theater and gay men do construction, but one can't deny the majority of men in theater are homo and the majority of men in construction are hetero. Again, not based on statistics but personal observation. This ties in with:

HISTORY/TRADITION
The theater, and the arts in general, have always been a venue for freedom of speech and social commentary. Books, radio, television, film, theater, poetry, music, and performance art have always been a platform for artists to "change the world." (And with that also a history of censorship, yes.) But in a world where you couldn't be gay, it can be more acceptable on stage. In a world where you couldn't be black, it was acceptable on stage. The theater has always been kind of groundbreaking in that you could break social boundaries there before you could in other areas of life.

FOLLOWING YOUR OWN KIND
But for whatever reasons gay men flock to the theater, I think many get into it because they grow up realizing that gay men do theater. Again, speaking of personal reflection and observation of the world, I noticed that gay men go where gay men can be found and straight men go where straight men can be found. We are drawn to each other for all the reasons there are to be drawn to another (security, attraction, society structure). Have you ever noticed during the first day of school that the white girls usually sit in one corner of the classroom, the white guys in another, and the blacks in another? It's just our natural tendency.


I got into theatre because I enjoyed watching it and wanted to be a part of creating it. For me, it was all personal reasons. So if I would have to ask what the connection is between me being gay and my profession, I could only imagine attributing it to genes.

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Many Broadway shows cater to this, producing gay-friendly programming or adding "eye candy" fodder to otherwise heterosexually-oriented shows, such as Aaron Tveit's frankly perplexing underwear scenes in Next to Normal. Is this part and parcel of the gay-theater experience, or does one lead to the other?

Scenes? There is only brief scene, maybe 15 seconds long, when his character has ostentatiously just gotten up. Not sure what's perplexing about that.

If they were using Aaron's sex appeal to cater to anyone, I think it was women, not gay men.

Washing, I don't know why you have a "But" in front of your second sentence. Even though many wish they didn't exist, I don't think anyone denies that they do.

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CapnHook, the "following your own kind" reminds me a lot of theories of religion. that the communal ecstasy people feel when part of a religious experience are what keep the religions alive.

it's been a while since I've really thought and talked about sociology of religion, but Durkheim especially talked about the importance of the group in religion. gathered together, we see something greater than ourself as an individual, which we treat as supernatural. expressing your religion in a group makes everything feel more powerful, and the collective consciousness creates a reality of its own.

anyway, that can be said of any fans of theater, but CapnHook made me reach into the recesses of my sociology addled brain.

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Oh, I changed my post before I actually posted it and must have left that in, sorry. It's gone!

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Oooh! I love RedVines!

Thanks, I was actually wondering this the other day. I mean, musicals tend to feature attractive women dancing, so you'd think straight men would like it just as much.

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