Straight Talk

Kristin Chenoweth Slams Newsweek

Article says gays can’t play straight roles.

Actress Kristin Chenoweth is attacking Newsweek for an article the magazine published arguing that gay actors can’t convincingly play straight characters because they are too feminine. Article author Ramin Setoodeh says that Chenoweth’s Broadway co-star Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises is unconvincing as her infatuated lover, because of his famously “queeny” performance as Jack on Will & Grace. “He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is,” Setoodeh writes, and then criticizes another gay actor who stars in Glee. Taking on Setoodeh’s assertion that “as viewers, we are molded by a society obsessed with dissecting sexuality, starting with the locker room torture in junior high school,” Chenoweth says the essay is homophobic, and we shouldn’t want to maintain the kind of bullying that makes life so hard for many teens. The actress notes that Jewish actors once had to change their names to sound more gentile. “No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams,” Chenoweth writes.