Newsweek’s Ramin Setoodeh Defends Retrograde Gay Actors Cannot Play Straight Piece Claiming He Is A Victim, Cheyenne Jackson And Michael Urie Retort Ramin’s Ridiculous Thesis

The dreadful Ramin Setoodeh, Newsweek columnist and self-loathing gay, has authored a follow up to an initial article penned by Ramin, Straight Jacket, the posited (to paraphrase) that straight actors can play gay, but gay actors cannot play straight. Setoodeh, like other empty vessels of hate who parrot inflammatory rhetoric and then hides behind a declaration that they are articulating an obvious, but unpopular truth, insists he is a victim. Titled Out Of Focus, contends since the piece was published he has been the victim of angry e-mails, letter, and phone calls, criticising his ethic background and mocking his haircut, and that the internet is attacking him. Moreover, Setoodeh suggests that “all this scrutiny seemed to miss was my essay’s point: if an actor of the stature of George Clooney came out of the closet today, would we still accept him as a heterosexual leading man? It’s hard to say, because no actor like that exists. I meant to open a debate – why is that? And what does it say about our notions about sexuality? For all the talk about progress in the gay community in Hollywood, has enough really changed? The answer seems obvious to me: no, it has not.” Setoodeh ends the rebuttal repeating that he had hoped “to start a dialogue that would be thoughtful – not to become a target for people who twisted my words. I’m not a conservative writer with an anti-gay agenda. I don’t hate people or myself. As for my haircut, I don’t know what to say. Should I change it?”

Monday night, meanwhile, AfterElton.com reports that two of the actors Setoodeh singled out in his original entry, Cheyenne Jackson and Michael Urie, seen below at last week’s 2010 Drama Desk Nominee reception, speaking as a part of post-performance panel discussion of The Temperamentals, which Urie stars for which he has won an award, took aim at the Newsweek writer. “It was infuriating on so many levels,” said Jackson, “not only does (Setoodeh) say that a gay man can’t play straight, he got personal, picking on Sean Haynes in Promises, Promises, (pointing out) certain scenes where he thinks (Sean) is stiff and uncomfortable. And then he picks on Jonathon Groff, who just came out. He’s a young teen heartthrob (in Glee). He’s so talented and so delicious and needs our love and support. Instead, (Setoodeh) says he’s not believable at all. It was very veiled self-loathing. Really upsetting.”

Urie – unsinkable as always – said “Look, I’m not from fucking Vienna. We’re all actors, and the audience get it. When I saw Sean Haynes in Promises, Promises, it was a full house and everyone was completely in love with him. And I saw it at a Wednesday matinee full of tourists. They’ve all seen Sean in Will and Grace, and they loved him and believed in his relationship with Kristen. It worked. And to attack, to quote Ugly Betty, someone (like Groff) recently ‘hatched from the gay egg’ is unconscionable and he should be strung up. (Groff) made everyone want him in Spring Awakening. And Cheyenne was fucking Elvis in All Shook Up. He was sexy and hot. He’s always playing straight. And people buy tickets to see him. No straight critics accuse Sean Penn of not being able to play Harvey Milk or (criticise) Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.”