Category: brett easton ellis

Rose McGowan Slams Gay Men; WTF Are Man Crushes;Male Full Frontal Nudity in Fifty Shades Movie; Penis Stories Randal Keiser

Rose McGowan Slams Gay Men

I’m going to try to write this part of the post without getting too angry…even though that’s how I felt when I read about what Rose McGowan said about gay men…again. And while I think her comments are disingenuous, I can’t fault her for being dumb. She clearly knows little about gay men, at least if this is what she thinks. Note: Mr. 1980’s, Brett Easton Ellis, does not identify as gay, as suggested in the quote below. We’re not sure what he is, because he’s, you know, such a rare creative and you-neeeek chucklefuck.

The actress recently sounded off during a conversation with gay author Brett Easton Ellis in his weekly podcast as the two were discussing the boycott the Brunei-owned Dorchester Hotel collection

Owned by the Sultan of Brunei, the Dorchester Collection came under fire shortly after the Sultan implemented a change to the country’s penal code that was scheduled to come into effect on April 22, 2014 and could make homosexuality punishable by stoning to death.

Ellis kicked off the conversation by claiming the boycott only harmed “the people who simply work at the hotel” and was based on “illusionary and tenuous” reports about the Sharia law. He also categorized the boycott as a “form of narcissistic, self-victimisation, gay insanity.”

McGowan added that those who boycotted were “delusional idiots” and criticized them for failing to campaign against the abuse of women in Arab states as well.

“Gay men are as misogynistic as straight men, if not more so,” she said. “I have an indictment of the gay community right now, I’m actually really upset with them.”

I posted about The Beverly Hills Hotel and McGowan’s party last summer, when she was slamming gay men for standing up for something in which they believed. You can read that here. In full disclosure, I don’t believe boycotts work either. As a general rule I don’t waste my time with them. However, I do support those who believe they work because I think that’s the right thing to do. Plain and simple.

But what really bothers me the most is that Easton and McGowan make assumptions about all gay men that are by no means accurate. First, I don’t know one gay man who doesn’t support women. I’m sure there are some out there, but the ones I know all care. Second, Rose McGowan seems to believe that all gay men have the privilege she has to be activists and to fight for equal rights. It’s a huge misconception many who know nothing about gays make all the time. The truth is that the wonderful, dedicated gay activists you see all the time are only a small segment of the gay community. The majority still can’t afford to come out and fight this way because there are still too many obstacles and shames associated with being gay. Third, Rose McGowan is a woman of privilege who cannot and will never understand what any gay man has ever gone through…from birth. The same way I can never understand what women have gone through. Fourth, gay men are still trying to get women to stop exploiting them and treating them as if they are science experiments.

I could continue with this, but I don’t think it’s worth my time. Frankly, I still think McGowan is an idiot and I think her cohort, Easton, would do anything to get some free publicity for that tired pod cast he’s doing online. But they are good examples of a different kind of homophobia.

You can read more here. This link has more links. I tweeted a few things to McGowan but I’m sure it fell on deaf ears. More than a few gay men replied to her and she said nothing of any significance. Her apology was a waste of time, too.

WTF Are Man Crushes

I have to admit that I’ve never really understood the term “man crush.” When I try to relate to it by thinking about whether or not I’ve ever had a “woman crush” I come up with nothing. It’s a complete blank…even though I admire and respect many women. Earlier this week I spotted a guy on Twitter tweet something to a male celebrity C-lister that I follow and I was curious so I went to this guy’s home page and read his Twitter bio. This is what it said:

Current High School Baseball Player & Future Pro. I love girls, pizza & baseball. I’m confident enough in my sexuality to admit my Man crush is…XXXOOO

Clearly, there’s no need for me to mention names and I don’t want to embarrass anyone. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s hard for some of us to understand what a man crush is. The guys loves girls but he’s crushing on a guy. ???? I once read a blog post by a straight male literary agent who isn’t blogging anymore and that literary agent claimed he had a man crush on a famous male chef who has his own TV show. It didn’t get it then, and still don’t get it now. But I think this article at least explains it better than most I’ve seen.

I like to describe the term as a deep interest in the work of a man, that sometimes borders on fanaticism or obsession.

From what I gather it’s not sexual? I’m putting a question mark there because I’m still not certain.

In any event, the guy who wrote this article has more than one man crush and here’s just one a few he mentioned.

Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections and Freedom are arguably the two best novels written so far this century. He has a pair of signature glasses that were once stolen and offered back for a ransom fee. I love his glasses so much that when I went to get a new pair, I found the closest model to “The Franzen.” He is the only novelist to appear on the cover of Time in the 21st century, and he was best friends with David Foster Wallace. His words flow seamlessly together creating a symphony in the form of beautifully crafted prose. Plus he blocks off his Internet connection when he writes. Mr. Franzen means business and I envy that. His essays are fantastic as well. I could go on and on about my crush on Franzen, but I have to leave some space for my other man crushes.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that doesn’t sound like a crush to me. It sounds more like a fascination, or a huge admiration and respect for Franzen. I get that part of it. I feel that way about Franzen, too. But in my “man crush” fantasy about Franzen his pants are definitely coming down and he’s going to wind up dropping those bird watching binoculars in the wildflowers.

You can read the rest here. Unfortunately, I still don’t get what a “man crush” actually is. Maybe it’s the word crush that’s throwing me off.

I just can’t help this feeling that these straight guys with man crushes aren’t telling the complete truth. But again, I could be wrong about that.

Male Full Frontal Nudity in Fifty Shades Movie

The guy who finally landed the lead part in the film adaptation of the mega book, Fifty Shades of Grey, is talking about whether or not there will be full frontal male nudity in the film. For those who haven’t been following this saga, his name is Jamie Dornan, and I think he looks about as much like Christian as my mailman. However, he might do a fantastic job and I hate to speculate right now. I hope his performance is a little better than this interview, though.

Despite the highly sexual content in the movie, the 32-year-old actor admitted to The Guardian that he will NOT be showing his “todger” on screen. That’s right, Dornan will not have any full frontal scenes in the film. “You want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible without grossing them out,” he defended the decision. “You don’t want to make something gratuitous, and ugly, and graphic. There were contracts in place that said that viewers wouldn’t be seeing my …todger.”

Well. It doesn’t sound as if Mr. Dornan read the books. And why would anyone assume that because there’s a male full frontal nude scene in a film it would be considered gratuitous, graphic, and ugly…or that people would be grossed out. Does he think people will be running to the theater because they liked the way FS was so well written? The penis is not the entire point in an erotic romance of any kind, but the penis usually plays a significant role and I just don’t see why it should be looked upon as ugly.

I’m curious to see if they show any full frontal female nudity in the film. We all know how Hollywood puts a spin on THAT sexist double standard where they objectify women but not men. There you go, Rose McGowan, I just commented about women and offered my support the way I always do.

The rest of this is here. I left a comment, and mine was tame compared to the others. I think they should keep Dornan hidden from the press until after this film’s released. Clearly, #interviewfail.

Penis Stories Randal Kleiser

For many years, 68 year old director Randal Kleiser has been creating male sex symbols in that old time Hollywood way. This article is really an interview with Kleiser, but the beginning lists a few of the famous male sex symbols he’s created, from Christopher Atkins to John Travolta. I know it’s hard to imagine John Travolta as a sex symbol now, but when I was a kid I actually remember him being hot.

Readers should be glad I’m condensing this one, because it’s so hard to get to the point of the article you almost want to give up. And even when you get to the point, you wonder why you bothered. In short, Kleiser wrote a stage play called The Penis Chronicles, and here are a few things (very few things) he had to say about it.

What’s the show about specifically?

The subtitle is “Every Man’s Journey.” There’s a song for the play that opens and closes it and the lyrics are “every man’s journey begins with a cry” and then “every man’s journey ends with a sigh,” which is when you die. We have characters ranging from a 16-year-old who’s being teased in the showers at the gym because he hasn’t gone through puberty and has a tiny dick and is using a penis pump to try to grow up. There’s a farm boy alone on the farm coming out and revealing how hard it is. There’s a guy who got HIV from his girlfriend and a male prostitute who was a Wall Street banker who decided it was more interesting to do that work. There’s a drag queen who uses money from tricks to send her little brother to summer camp. There’s just all kinds of drama and interesting stuff. There’s a thread running through it. They’re all connected in some way.

You can read the rest here, which is basically a long version of Kleiser’s previous credits. I’m not so sure about this one. They lost me with the male sex worker who left his job on Wall Street because he found that blowing other guys for money was more interesting. Seriously? Maybe it’s alternate universe?

Chase of a Lifetime

.99 Kindle E-book

Amazon Link

Nude Davey Wavey; OUT List 100; Don’t Over Edit

Nude Davey Wavey

For anyone who’s curious, I’m linking to a web site where you can view full frontal nude pics of gay youtube performer, Davey Wavey. As usual, the comment thread is entertaining…trust me on this.

And the mystery is over.

Read More Here…

OUT List 100

Out Magazine does a list each year mentioning 100 people. Some are significant, others questionable. But that depends on personal taste.

Marriage equality advocate Edie Windsor, director Lee Daniels and out actors Wentworth Miller and Jim Parsons take top honors on Out Magazine’s OUT 100 list for 2013.

I think when you read the back story behind some of them it’s even more interesting because it shows how deeply intense it still is for most gay men and women to actually accept being gay, and even talk about it openly. The list is long, but most are worth reading.

Others surprise me, like Brett Easton Ellis. He was banned from GLAAD awards for tweets he made. But I don’t follow much of what Ellis does, so I rarely link to anything Ellis related.

Read more here, or check out the list itself, here.

Don’t Over Edit

By over edit I mean don’t over criticize another author’s work without taking certain aspects of style and poetic license into consideration. The article I’m linking to now that was posted on Lit Agent Janet Reid’s blog seems to nail this topic in a few lines.

At the start of my career I was guilty of some of that thinking to be sure. I assumed that words or sentences that were “wrong” were mistakes. So I “fixed” them. It took me a while to realize that sometimes those weren’t mistakes, those were style.

This seems to be something novices do more than seasoned critics. I’ve done it, I’ve seen new copy editors do it, and if you’re unlucky enough to get a new copy editor who doesn’t know what he or she is doing it can really fuck up a manuscript and ruin the style and content as a result. I actually once had a copy editor “correct” dialogue…dialogue I’d written on purpose that gave one character a distinct voice. Let’s just say I didn’t back down that time, and one new copy editor received a crash course in how not to edit an author’s style.

In the same respect, there’s one newer m/m author out there who makes almost every mistake in the proverbial book, but his voice and style are both so great it doesn’t really matter because in his case it’s more about the story than a lesson in English. I’m not linking to him because it sounds more like a left-handed compliment and I don’t want anyone to misinterpret that. No one can do what he does, quite the way he does it.

In other words, things like common usage are important to take into consideration, and don’t assume that because your seventh grade English teacher said it was right makes it standard in all fiction.

The Brett Easton Ellis Firestorm Continues…

Although you will see nothing about this in the mainstream, especially with all the news going on with regard to Paul Ryan being chosen to run alongside Mitt Romney, the firestorm that Brett Easton Ellis has created continues to blossom…and with a very interesting remarks by Ellis.

In this article Ellis makes comments about Hollywood and gays:

“Hollywood is the most homophobic place in the entire world,” he tweeted early Wednesday. “Why Brokeback Mountain was a hit was because it starred two beautiful actors instead of two real ugly characters from the story. Producers.”

Ellis added, “I think Matt Bomer is incredibly handsome and a good actor but I think he comes off totally gay in White Collar. And that is why no to CG.”

I didn’t see White Collar yet so I can’t comment in that. But I can’t help thinking about how many films I’ve seen where I wondered if the actor was gay or straight. My point being is that it’s getting harder and harder to tell who is gay or straight these days. Which means we’re *caring* a lot less about who is gay or straight. The only thing we care about is whether or not the actor did a good job. Unfortunately, those in Hollywood don’t seem to be getting the message.

I wasn’t a fan of “Brokeback Mountain” for many reasons, one of which had to do with the fact that I saw serious fundamental flaws in the story and the film that should not have happened…and would have been very simple to fix. But I do think that both actors in the lead roles did a wonderful job. In fact, they were so good in the film it compensated for the fundamental flaws in the script and basic story.

It’s also interesting to note that according to this article, the film version of 50 Shades isn’t even happening at this point.

The screenwritier, best known for—wait for it—controversial films like American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction, took to Twitter to vent about Matt Bomer possibly being cast in the upcoming film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, which, at this point, is just wishful thinking by fans.

It’s difficult to argue with some of the points that Brett Ellis makes, with regard to how Hollywood treats gays. I often feel as if we’re at the point now with the LGBT community where Hollywood (and publishing) was back in the 1940’s when all characters and actors of African descent were portrayed in stereotypical ways. It might not be as bad, but it’s just as insulting and I often see things that make me cringe with regard to how gay men are represented, not to mention the lack of authenticity.

But the only way that’s going to change is to let someone like Matt Bomer play a lead role in something like a possible film version of 50 Shades. Now that’s what I would call breaking the mold and moving forward.

More on the Matt Bomer/Brett Easton Ellis 50 Shades Deal…

In a way, following what’s been happening with author Brett Easton Ellis and what appears to be his obsession with who is right (or not right) for the lead role in the movie adaptation of the novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, has almost been entertaining. It seems the more Ellis tweets about the topic the more of an asshat he becomes.

To refresh everyone’s memory, Brett Ellis Easton was a boy wonder author who got lucky with “Less Than Zero.” It was a breakout novel in the 1980’s that I read simply because of all the hype I’d heard. At the time, there were far better books out and far more talented authors. I wouldn’t say he was the Snookie of the 80’s, but I wouldn’t exactly put him in the same literary category as Jonathan Franzen. One thing I’ve learned in publishing is that luck has a lot to do with success.

Evidently, the same luck that brought him the huge success with “Less Than Zero,” hasn’t helped him much with his wrecked Twitter Feed. According to this piece, this is what Easton Tweeted when J.D.Dalinger died:

Mind you, this is the man who Tweeted, when J.D. Salinger died in 2010, “Yeah!!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-f*****-ever. Party tonight!!!” He was rightly condemned for that tweet, but somehow didn’t get the greater message.

Brett Easton Ellis also “knew” that gem of a woman, Rielle Hunter, and we all know what SHE’S famous for doing in life. He even Tweeted this once, in spite of the fact that it turned more than half the stomachs on his Twitter feed.

Somewhere in the late 1980’s I almost found myself in a coked-up threesome with Rielle Hunter in my condo on 13th Street in New York.

Now, if that’s not enough to make you cross your legs, his thoughts on the Tyler Clementi case proves just how lucky he got with “Less Than Zero.”

Worst of all, I think, is his odd obsession with the Tyler Clementi suicide case. Ellis seems to have decided that his Rutgers roommate Dharun Ravi was simply not guilty of bullying or intimidation, and thus railed against the verdict rendered in the case last month in the most uninformed way possible. One is entitled to opinions, but not to stupidity.

You can read more here.

The problem with pop culture icons like Easton is that everyone is always so afraid to be honest and say what they really think. I’m just a small genre author writing books that I hope will entertain people for a while and no one cares what I have to say. But just once I’d like to see someone like Barbara Walters tell someone like Brett Ellis Easton what a douchebag he really is, in person, face to face. It might just shut his big misanthrope (Who speaks that way?) mouth for a while.

One of the drawbacks of social media like Twitter is that we are often subjected to the likes of Brett Ellis Easton. The good thing is you don’t have to follow him either…and I don’t.

In this article, you can read Easton’s Tweets from August 9th about Matt Bomer.

(10:09 pm) Reading all of these articles about Matt Bomer: I NEVER said gay actors can’t play straight roles, or straight actors can’t play gay roles.

(10:11 pm) However: in the VERY specific case of trophy-husband Matt Bomer playing Christian Grey then it makes things problematic. That’s the truth…

(10:12 pm) To reiterate I NEVER said gay actors can’t play straight roles. If that were true my entire generation of male movie stars would be jobless.

Apparently something ignited his Grey fervor again and Ellis felt the need to vent:

(4:37 am) Scene in Fifty Shades of Grey I’m most looking forward to: Matt Bomer as CG: “Are you gay, Mr. Grey?” Matt sighs: “No, Anastasia, I’m not.”

(4:55 am) After Anastasia asks the gay question Matt Bomer as Christian “raises his eyebrows, a cool gleam in his eyes. He does not look pleased.”

(5:11 am) Feel complicated about Neil Patrick Harris on How I Met Your Mother: central joke being that he’s a gay actor playing a het womanizer. Um…

(5:18 am) Then why not cast Jason Segal in the Neil Patrick Harris role in How I Met Your Mother? The meta-joke is that Harris is openly gay. Lame…

(5:30 am) Look, I like Neil Patrick Harris especially when he’s hosting The Tonys but “How I Met Your Mother” is like all CBS sitcoms a piece of crap.

(5:38 am) You don’t think the makers of How I Met Your Mother didn’t KNOW that Neil Patrick Harris was gay and that would be part of the joke? Really?

(5:43 am) And please don’t get me started on the gay The Big Bang Theory. I’m too tired to go there. Gayness personified. Another terrible CBS sitcom.

(5:53 am) You’re missing the point. I’m not a homophobe. I’m a misanthrope. I hate the way homosexuality is presented in our entertainment culture.

(6:13 am) If you think Modern Family has a progressive attitude about gayness then you’re a retrograde tool. The fact that it’s being lauded: a joke.

Frankly, the odd thing is that I do think Easton makes one or two interesting points. I’ve often said that I don’t think the lgbt community is being represented well in our entertainment culture or our mainstream media. And I don’t think TV shows like Modern Family are representing the lgbt community very well either. But when he makes other statements that counterbalance the interesting points it’s hard to take him seriously. And he clearly does not know the amount of courage it took for men like Matt Bomer and Neil Patrick Harris to come out in an industry that praises gay men on one hand and then shuns them privately on the other. But more than that, Ellis is not even connected to the film, Fifty Shades of Grey.

From Twitter:

It’s a very major disappointment to announce that I’ve somehow been taken off the list of possible screenwriters for Fifty Shades of Grey…

And in the words of a very loud drag queen I once knew, “Get her!”

Brett Easton Ellis Doesn’t Think Matt Bomer Can Star in 50 Shades Movie; And Lit Agent Simon Lipskar’s Letter to the DOJ on E-Book Pricing…

This seems like the week of asshatery, and Brett Easton Ellis tops the list of asshats by saying this:

Okay I’ll say it. Matt Bomer isn’t right for Christian Grey because he is openly gay. He’s great for other roles but this is too big a game.

In more asshatery, he then said this:

I am NOT discriminating Matt Bomer because of his sexuality. Fifty Shades of Grey demands an actor that is genuinely into women. Get it?!?

Evidently, Mr. Ellis doesn’t know about all the women loving and reading m/m romance and m/m fiction. And once again we have Hollywood fail because they hired someone to produce a film who knows nothing about why the book sold millions of copies.

I didn’t love “Brokeback Mountain” the way so many other people loved it. As a gay man, I found fundamental flaws in both the book and the film. I didn’t like the fact that straight male actors were hired to play gay men when there are so many gay actors out there that could have played the parts just as well. I didn’t even know there was such a huge fandom for Brokeback until recently when I discovered that allegedly m/m romance as a sub-genre can be traced directly back to Brokeback. I’ve heard that all this fandom began as fanfic, much in the same way 50 Shades originated in an ironic twist. Yet I do think the straight actors played the parts well in Brokeback.

And now there’s an interesting turn of events with regard to the film version of 50 Shades. It’s been rumored that openly gay actor Matt Bomer is in the running for the lead role in the film version of 50 Shades only there are some who aren’t sure he’ll be able to pull it off because he is openly gay, Brett Easton Ellis being one of them. I find that interesting, insulting, and absolutely wrong in so many ways I could write endlessly about it. The people who don’t think Bomer can play the part because he’s gay are basically saying that two straight actors can play gay parts without any issues, but gay men can’t play straight parts and be believable.

And once again the gay community gets a kick in the ass, from an asshat. I guess Hollywood forgot all about Rock Hudson, and how he played nothing but straight parts all his life. Oh, yeah. He wasn’t openly gay so that was okay. And what about all the other closeted gay actors out there right now who are playing straight men? They are there, you’d better believe it. They are terrified to come out because they know they won’t get anymore straight parts if they do come out because of asshats like Brett Easton Ellis.

It should be interesting to see how this all plays out in the future, and I’m not just talking about the 50 Shades movie. I’m talking about the way all openly gay men are treated when it comes to getting straight parts. I got slammed in more than a few places when I criticized the Brokeback film because I didn’t like the fact that two straight me were playing gay men. People told me there’s nothing wrong with that as long as the actors can act…and I knew they were right. But if that’s the case there should be nothing wrong with Matt Bomer playing a straight man. We already know he can act. Let’s see how Hollywood handles it this time. I would be willing to bet that Matt Bomer WON’T get the part, and we’ll still be worrying about those fucking chicken sandwiches over at Chick-fil-a when the real injustice is happening in far more important places than a fast food restaurant no one really cares about anyway.

Simon Lipskar Addresses the DOJ on E-book Pricing:

The settlement with three major publishers recently announced by the Department of Justice demonstrates that the government has a fatally flawed understanding of the economics and history of the emerging ebook industry and, as such, has constructed a settlement that undermines a healthy market defined by robust competition. It is my obligation as the president of one of the industry’s leading literary agencies to write and try to persuade the court not to approve this ill-conceived settlement.

It’s a painfully long letter that basically says what most literary agents have been saying all along. There’s no mention about the legal issues in Lipskar’s letter with regard to alleged conspiracy and doing business in an unfair and dishonest way. It’s more emotional than practical. And the law isn’t about emotions. The reason why there are laws is to protect consumers from conspiracies.

I. Did the Alleged Collusion Cause Consumer Harm?

The government’s investigation into agency pricing springs from a flawed premise. On Page 8 of the Competitive Impact Statement, the United States makes a claim that is wholly unsupported by fact: “As a result of Defendants’ illegal agreement, consumers have paid higher prices for e-books than they would have paid in a market free of collusion.”

In the most basic sense, I’m taking this to mean that if I speed down the highway at 100 miles per hour in a sixty-five mile per hour zone and I don’t have and accident and I don’t kill anyone, it’s okay to break the law. Maybe I’m misreading this…but it’s not something I would have written and released in public if I’d been Lipskar.

What also concerns me is that I’ve always been taught that agents represent authors, not publishers or book sellers. So why would a literary agent even get involved in something like this? And I’m putting aside all the flaws I saw in Lipskar’s letter to the DOJ when I ask this question.

You can read more about it here.