Jared Leto, what is wrong with you?!
Jared recently announced that, after much speculation, he will in fact be playing Andy Warhol in a film about the artist’s life.
This comes seven years after Dallas Buyer’s Club, in which Jared played a trans woman. Despite the extreme negative backlash at having a cisgender man play a trans woman, Jared has decided to take yet another LGBTQ role.
This time, Jared will be playing the notorious eccentric artist who was openly gay well before the gay rights movement took hold.
So why should we care that Jared, a straight man, will be playing a gay icon?
Fellow actor Billy Porter, who himself is openly gay, described it best in a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He said,
“[When you’re gay], nobody can see you as anything else. If ‘flamboyantly . . . ‘ wasn’t in the description of the character, no one would see me ever for anything.”
So while gay actors are often denied the opportunity to play straight characters, it doesn’t work in reverse.
“But it doesn’t [happen to straight men], because straight men playing gay — everyone wants to give them an award. ‘Thank you for gracing us with your straight presence!’ That gets tiresome. So here I sit — I can’t get the gay parts, I can’t get the straight parts, I can’t get nothing.”
Jared is willfully taking away what will be an incredible role from a queer actor who is often denied roles on the basis of their sexuality.
Jared is quite literally the definition of straight white male privilege. He takes away parts from underrepresented communities and benefits from it. He’s praised and given awards. Meanwhile, gay actors can’t even get into the room to audition.
Jared should know better by now. It’s 2020 and LGBTQ representation in the media isn’t exactly a new topic. At this point, I can only assume that Jared knows what he’s doing and just doesn’t care. I can think of a whole list of gay actors who would flourish in a role like this.
Shame on you, Jared.
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