OUTRAGE
The private lives of public figures, whether actors, politicians, or even hot-shot lawyers, used to by off-limits for journalists. An understanding existed between the media and those whom they reported on that what happened off the job was nobody’s business. This vow of silence protected both philanderers and homosexuals in the public eye from any fear of exposure. This vow of silence kept both JFK and Liberace free of talk show confessions and public apologies.
The picture of persistent bachelor.
However, as the public got a thirst for sexual scandal and politicians used a growing wave of “family values” sentiments to lift them into high office, this previously off-limits part of public figures lives became the amusement park of both tabloid journalists and moral pontificators. Celebrities fell under the microscope as sexual escapades and drug binges became coffee table reading for the general public. As “alternative lifestyles” became more prevalent in pop culture, social conservatives joined forces with the Republican party in the 1980s as the perceived “poverty of values” became a staple of stump speeches. These sentiments reached their pinnacle in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal as social conservatives grandstanded against this moral decline in society until their hand-picked candidate took back the White House. But even in a climate where heterosexual sexcapades of politicians were back in-bounds for journalistic inquiry, rumored homosexuality stayed off-limits.
As moral outrage became the order of the day, the notion that gay rights was the counterpoint to social conservatism grew in prominence. In Kirby Dick’s new documentary Outrage this backlash is put against the backdrop of closeted politicians who have voted consistently against any extension of gay rights. ”The lady doth protest too much” becomes the thesis of the film as it chronicles the efforts of BlogActive’s Mike Rogers’ crusade to “out” hypocritical politicians. The most enduring statement the film makes is that anti-gay agendas become the “evidence” that rumored homosexual politicians use to “prove” that they are in fact straight. In much the same way in which children struggling with their sexual identity become the loudest homophobes in the schoolyard — a topic addressed in a story by David Sedaris from an episode of This American Life entitled “The Cruelty of Children.” The depth of this self-deception is further extrapolated in this brilliant scene from HBO’s Angels in America, citied in Outrage, in which Roy Cohn, the unabashed right-hand man of McCarthyism explains why he is not a homosexual:
It can be argued that forcing anyone to confront their sexual orientation before they are mentally prepared to do so does more harm than good. But, would systematic “outings” of hypocritical politicians do more to advance the gay rights movement than anything done to this point? Kirby Dick obviously believes it would.
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