Just a shade over a decade since his initial portrayal of the outrageously gay icon Jack McFarland on NBC’s “Will & Grace,” actor Sean Hayes has finally decided to come out of the closet about his homosexuality. In an interview with The Advocate, Sean expressed a lot of resentment toward the gay community for pressuring him to come out earlier in his career saying, “What more do you want me to do? Do you want me to stand on a float? And then what? It’s never enough.”
Look, I completely respect other people’s privacy, but once you’ve gotten the part and seven consecutive Emmy nominations and a win with your first nomination, you’re no longer auditioning. You’ve got the part. Time to be proud of who you are. And if you just so happen to be typecast… is that such an awful thing? Even if I were straight, I’d rather be the “go-to” person for playing gay than not have a fucking job… ya know, like 10% of America right now.
So the answer to the question of what more do I want, Sean, is that I want every gay kid growing up in the world right now to have a role-model to look up to. And what better role-model is there than a proud gay man playing a proud gay man on national television?
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Comments
Well stated! I also think that it’s more than just a desire to maintain privacy. Sean Hayes portrayed a character some people consider to be nothing more than gay caricature or stereotype. But when he also refused to disclose the sexual component of his identity, he seemed to create a figure that dually represented an externalized self deprecation and an internalized homophobia. Though many people have disagreed with me on this opinion, I think Sean Hayes/Jack was one of the worst things that have happened to the gay community in recent years.
I swear I thought he was out. He wasn’t!? Good for him that he his now, I’m always in favor of people being out and proud of who they are.
Oh, I agree… but from the tone of the article, he’s laying the blame on the gay community for “outing” him. I have nothing against people who’s jobs prohibit their ability to come out, but for heaven’s sake… he portrayed one of the most well-known gay characters on network television. I feel like it was a seriously missed opportunity to be a positive role-model for young gay actors all because he was afraid of being typecast as “gay best friend” for the rest of his life. I mean, he played with Cher dolls on national TV. Did he think he was going to do “MacBeth” after “Will & Grace”? Sheesh.