'lucytor' date='Nov 17th 2009, 5:15 PM'
Here's the article:
Response to "Open Letter to Adam"
11/17/09 12:14PM by rowenaaine
After reading Adam Lambert’s candid and revealing interview on the Out website (published in conjunction with their Out 100 print edition) I was disheartened to read an open letter to Adam from Out’s editor-in-chief, Aaron Hicklin, in Out Magazine.
In the letter, Hicklin calls out 19 Entertainment and RCA Records (Adam’s management team and record label respectively) for attempting to “neutralize” Adam’s sexuality and keep his appearances in LGBT publications toned down for fear of his appearing “too gay.” Hicklin expresses frustration that Out was denied a cover during Adam’s American Idol run, and not a little jealousy at the recent Details Magazine cover and photo spread. But further, he criticizes Adam’s management team for heavy-handedness in skewing perceptions in order to not lose potential record sales.
Today, Hicklin's letter is on the Out website, with supporting commentary by the female journalist who interviewed Adam, Shana Naomi Krochmal. I suspect we may never know both sides if 19/RCA ignores what amounts to a school yard challenge over which team gets bragging rights.
Is Hicklin telling the truth? I don’t know. I suspect we may never know if 19/RCA ignores what amounts to a school yard challenge over which team gets bragging rights.
But is Adam Lambert a prize over which sides need scuffle? That’s where I’m coming up empty.
From what I read in print publications and websites, there seem to be at least two factions in the war over Adam Lambert’s image. On the right, we have the conservative heterosexuals who fear that Adam is too gay for mainstream. On the left are members of the gay community, who accuse Adam of not being gay enough. Somewhere in the middle is Adam, his fanbase…and the truth.
I’d like to clarify and refute some of Aaron Hicklin’s claims. Others have already done so on blogs, forums, and the mother of all communication vehicles, twitter. But, indulge me.
Hicklin asserts that Adam and team (because the open letter seems to lump Adam in as one of the bad guys) refused an Out cover early on in the Idol competition.
Likely true. But not at all surprising or problematic. Why? Idol contestants are barred from communicating with the press during the show's run. Entertainment Weekly may have put Adam on their cover before the competition ended, but they used stock photos and existing quotes. No other magazine got a cover story early on except for Rolling Stone, which published their issue two weeks after the show’s conclusion. And based on Adam’s assertion that he is a musician that happens to be gay, rather than a gay that happens to be a musician, most would agree Rolling Stone was the best place for his “outing” after the show’s finale. That’s just good business. Sorry, Hicklin.
1 point to Team Lambert.
19 and RCA insisted that Adam not look “too gay” on the Out 100 cover.
I have a tough time buying this one. Adam’s album cover is one of the most androgynous-leaning-toward-feminine photos I’ve ever seen of a man. If management were worried, the cover would never have been approved. Surely if the cover of Adam’s own CD portrays him as obviously gay, it would have more effect on his record sales than the cover of a magazine normally only read by the LGBT community.
1 point to Team Lambert.
Hicklin claims that Adam’s sexuality was neutralized in the Details cover shoot.
Possibly. Certainly, the gay community could see it that way. What turned out to be a series of beautiful, artsy photographs caused some dismay; people saw Adam as manipulating his female fan base into having “hope” that he will someday participate in heterosexual activities. Others, and I’m in this camp, saw the photos as daring (for a gay man) and fun. Adam was playing with gender roles, looking hot, and stressing in the interview his absolute gayness. Looking closely at the pictures, he does not emotionally connect with the model: his eyes are closed in the shots. And the photo where he is supposedly “suckling a female breast” actually shows him with her thumb in his mouth, not her nipple. Details, unlike Out, is not an overtly LGBT publication; it is a men’s magazine – targeting “metrosexuals” though clearly with a heavy gay readership. It is not atypical for Details to have photographs of men with women. Adam could have (and would have, I’m sure) refused the shoot if he felt compromised. Lots of debate on either side but I’ll narrowly give this one to Hicklin.
1 point to Team Out.
Adam’s management team thwarted Out’s true purpose:
“If the Out 100 has a purpose it’s to challenge the kind of apartheid that lays down one rule for gay mags and one for all others. We think you probably feel the same way—you even say as much—so we don’t mean to diminish your achievements this year. That’s why you’re in this issue.”
Well, here’s where we fall down the slippery slope and into dangerous territory. Apartheid? Not the word I would have chosen. I’m a vocal supporter of gay rights and marriage equality, but never would I say that the struggle for those rights is akin to apartheid. Aaron, ever been to South Africa ? Your ignorance is showing. Stop being dramatic and focus.
What is your real complaint here? Rolling Stone got the big story, Details got the big photoshoot…and Out is left holding a group photo for their cover? You had a group photo for last year’s Out 100 as well. So, I’m not sure what the concern is. That 19/RCA didn’t want Adam to be the poster child for LGBT rights by being alone on the cover? I can’t argue with their thinking. Adam has said numerous times in countless interviews that he is not taking up the cause at this stage in his career. He feels his being proudly out is statement enough right now. I agree.
1 point to Team Lambert.
Most troubling is the Hicklin’s assertion that:
“You’re a pioneer, an out gay pop idol at the start of his career. Someone has to be first, and we’re all counting on you not to mess this up.”
And so at last we get to the crux of the matter. Hicklin, as editor-in-chief of one of the most visible LGBT publications in the US has arrogantly draped the mantle of Gay Rights over Adam’s broad shoulders. To hell with what Adam wants; it’s not about his career or his life, it’s all about what he can do for the gay community.
Well, I have yet to see the gay community stand up to unequivocally support Adam Lambert. Time after time I read assertions that they “voted for the other guy,” Michael Musto of the Village Voice being just one of the more vocal homosexuals in the entertainment industry to trumpet that – even tossing the remark into his lead-in to Hicklin’s letter. Blog after blog, comment after comment, I read gay men tear Adam down for his looks, his body type, his choice of clothing and makeup. Not much about the music, I’m afraid. That the most important thing Adam Lambert brings to the table gets swept aside in a debacle to see who can hurl the wittiest and cattiest insults is an egregious and, yes, bigoted, injustice.
1 Point to Team Lambert for even having to read Hicklin’s outlandish quote in print.
Mr. Hicklin, your letter does not vindicate you, your publication, or your cause; it makes you appear petty and bitter. And I'm at a loss for why it was necessary. I’m surprised that you would take this young man and his team to task just as your magazine hits the stands. Since when does a celebrity (and Adam *is* one, whether he chose it or not) get interviewed without certain stipulations from his management?
Surely you’ve considered that a great many Adam Lambert fans were planning to purchase this issue – that’s a whole new segment of the market that would read the magazine and perhaps learn more about homosexuality and the LGBT struggle for equality. You had a unique opportunity to show how we’re not so very different from one another after all. And instead, you squander that opportunity to launch a personal vendetta – to rage against the machine and burn the bridge between Out and 19 Entertainment. You’ve effectively alienated a portion of Adam Lambert’s fan base. You may have lost sales. And you put undo pressure on a young man that has said time and again that all he wants to do is make music. All this under the guise of “sacrificing the one for the many.”
This mentality (punish those that don’t conform to a hypothetical “ideal”) is part of why the LGBT struggle is not taken seriously by mainstream America . You do not need to eat your young nor throw your most visible proponents under the proverbial bus. I hope that your tasteless diatribe serves only to bring your hypocrisy to the forefront – garnering more compassion and support for Adam Lambert than your precious mantle of Gay Rights ever would.
Today, however, we all lose.
Score
Team Lambert: 4
Team Out: 1
Progress: 0
and Paul McGill is beyond cute
