Don't Act, Don't Tell!: Discrimination Based on Gender Nonconformity in the Entertainment Industry and the Clinical Setting

Published in the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health Vol. 16 Issue (3)

ABSTRACT
The author describes anti-homosexual attitudes in the entertainment industry. Effeminate male actors generally have a hard time being cast, whether for gay or straight roles. Attitudes in the performing arts mirror those in society as a whole. Case reports are interspersed in the discussion to illustrate the points.

INTRODUCTION
There is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” practice in the hiring of actors for film, theater, and television—but it is certainly as ubiquitous in casting for the world’s stage as well. Here is how it works: actors can avoid discrimination so long as they do not disclose being homosexual. What is considered to be a disclosure in this case can be verbal, but is more often non-verbal, and merely a casting director’s perception or interpretation of the actor’s sexuality based on their gender presentation. This practice limits work for out and “seemingly gay” actors, and also severely limits audience perceptions of both homosexuality and gender. A simple example of this can be found in the film Brokeback Mountain, for which straight, masculine movie stars were hired to play gay men. By restricting the presence of gender-nonconforming people in film, television, and theater, the message, “you are permitted to be gay, just don’t flaunt your identity” (Yoshino, 2006), reverberates like an earthquake and without anyone having to claim responsibility or fix the problem. Until this phenomenon is brought to the surface – by naming and aggressively discussing it – homophobic discrimination will continue on and below the surface. Specifically we can expect to see more job discrimination, bullying, suicides, and hate crimes against gender-nonconforming people (both gay and straight)……

ACTING OUT

by Mark O'Connell

The following short film is a collection of interviews with lesbian and gay self identified actors. The actors discuss the pressure they often feel, to modify their instinctive gender presentations in order to appeal to casting directors, producers and directors. Casting director Brette Goldstein very honestly and eloquently shares her experiences working with gender nonconforming actors, and the way the business responds to them.

Containers and Pinatas

We can all identify with the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. At some point in our lives we’ve unwittingly sat on the wrong wall (some taller than others), fallen (some more disastrously than others), and broken into so many pieces we feel beyond repair. Whether our breaking has taken the form of a simple blow to the ego (i.e., not getting cast as the Jolly Green Giant in the school play—because you’re four feet tall), or severe trauma, abuse, or loss, each of us has felt broken, disconnected, and fragmented.

Recognizing that all the king’s horses and men can’t put us back together, we try to reassemble ourselves, or at least attempt to contain our broken bits – as if temporarily storing them in an urn - until we figure out how to heal, and to feel whole again.

Here are a few ways we try to contain our feelings of brokenness:

1) We seek mastery over our great fall by overcompensating. Not only are we determined NEVER to fall again, but we are also determined to become absolutely UNBREAKABLE. For example, if as a little girl you were cruelly criticized for your inadequate tennis skills, you might attempt to contain your feelings of incompetence through the single-minded goal of becoming the next Serena Williams.

2) We might use the creative arts to express our brokenness. The parameters that surround a work of art might allow us freedom to express ourselves. By directing the focus off of us and onto our creation, we contain our fragmented feelings within the part we play, the dance we choreograph, the picture we paint, or the book we write.

3) We seek guidance in the form of a therapist, counselor, or spiritual advisor - Psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion used the term “container” to describe a process where a psychotherapist holds, and reflects back a client’s thoughts and feelings for the client, until the client is ready to identify with those thoughts and feelings and possess them as their very own.

Containing our shattered emotions can be the beginning of great healing, but it only works if the container is secure. If it leaks, breaks or combusts, then it is no longer a container, but rather a piñata instead. When the walls of our containers crack, this can re-stimulate the experience of our original fall, leaving us once again feeling vulnerable, weak, broken, and hopeless. Here are some examples of the containers that I described above, becoming piñatas:

1) We are simply unable to overcompensate for the damage caused by our shattering fall – overcompensation being a precarious goal/container to begin with. If the little girl who was criticized for her inadequacies as a tennis player, fails to become the next Serena Williams, her debilitating feelings of inadequacy will inevitably become re-stimulated.

2) The work of art we create, in order to hold our broken feelings becomes too revealing, too unfocused - a scattered expose. If the parameters of the character we play, the story we’re trying to tell, or picture we’re trying to create, are not clear and appropriately observed, the work could potentially become too unnecessarily personal and exposing, leaving us vulnerable to harsh rejection and judgment by our peers and audiences that is directed at us and not our creation.

3) If our therapists, counselors, or spiritual advisors, take on more personal roles in our lives (friends, peers, co-workers, lovers, companions), or freely expel information we give them in confidence to anyone who will listen, we are being compromised, and will likely become less trustful, less hopeful, and more broken then we were when we sought help.

It is far easier to freely discharge our broken fragments into piñatas, rather than endure the discipline of keeping them contained. However, by respecting the solid parameters of a container, particularly in terms of a psychotherapeutic relationship with clear and agreed upon boundaries, much progress can be made. Emotional healing takes time, it is a process, and it is hard work, but respecting and accepting the limitations of a container can result in great liberation—and with time, you may even feel “back together again.”

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...YOU!

Face it, mid-winter is not your finest hour. Many of us are putting off our vows and ambitions for the new year. Some of us are unhappy with our bodies (holiday over-eating, relentless blizzards limiting effective gym time), and some just burying our heads like ostriches, in order to avoid the winter blues—or what some call Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). We hibernate, isolate, avoid invitations - preferring the couch to the concourse - all because right now you just don’t feel like being “you” and certainly don’t want to expose your sorry state to anyone else. Fortunately television producers know exactly how you’re feeling, and obligingly offer you a buffet of exciting special events - in order to lose your blues in someone else’s excitement - including the Super Bowl, the Grammy’s and the Oscars.

The Oscars are perhaps the most alluring spectator sport of all, since we get to observe our beautiful heroines and heroes of the screen as they enjoy a surprise moment of unequivocal attention and lauds. Witnessing the Oscar winner seize this moment of grand deference, in a speech of three minutes or less - speaking from the heart as she expresses gratitude, shares her passions, and takes a moment to mention the ideals and social issues which are important to her – transports us from our SAD obscurity into a thrilling moment of receiving vicarious reverence. Of course the big hangover comes when the show is over, you return to your own life…and realize that it’s very late, on a very cold Sunday night.

For those of you who connect with the above experience, here’s what I suggest: give your own Oscar acceptance speech to the bathroom mirror. In three minutes or less, tell your looking glass how grateful you are, why it is so meaningful to win an award for “this” particular project, thank all of the people to whom you are indebted, blow kisses to all those who enrich your life, share what you value most about the work you do, and emphasize one or two important issues to which you’d like to bring international attention. If you feel it wanders or bombs the first time, take advantage of the fact that there is no orchestra to bully you off the stage (or out of the powder room) and give it another go until it feels right.

I know what you’re thinking: (1) “Isn’t this behavior Narcissistic?”; (2) “Isn’t this behavior Psychotic?”; and (3) “How can this be healthy?” My answers to these are: (1) “Yes, but there is such a thing as healthy narcissism. If you repeatedly thank yourself, as opposed to other people, in your “loo” speech, that would be the unhealthy kind.” (2) “Only if you do it every day, and at the exclusion of conversations with other people.” (3) “Because we all need our emotions, urges, and creative desires mirrored back to us, in order to feel secure, integrated, and motivated. If we’re not getting this mirroring from our relationships, we can at least imagine how we would express ourselves if given the opportunity to be showered with infinite positive attention. Besides, most of you have done this already anyway, so...”

The goal of this exercise is certainly not to replace social relationships with a reflective surface – the literally fatal moment of the Narcissus myth – but rather to motivate you to get off the couch and engage with others more purposefully, meaningfully, and effectively. We can’t really see other people and offer them generosity, love, and support if we’re not feeling seen, loved, and supported in our own skins. Perhaps your private Oscar moment will inspire you to surround yourself with people who are better reflectors than your current friends, or maybe it could open up significant topics to be discussed in your therapy. Whatever the outcome, at least you will have given yourself a moment to reflect on your potential as an individual and as part of a community. Just take it easy at any imagined “Oscar after parties” after you’ve finished your “speech.”