Badpuppy Gay Today

Friday, 23 May 1997

The National Enquirer, scandal-news-tabloid of record, has placed itself squarely in the "outing" camp of gay-activist-strategy, taking for granted its ability to fathom and broadcast nuances in the privately-held kaleidoscopic sexual tastes of others.

The Enquirer has hidden its new and aggressive outing-magazine-status behind the recent showing of Ellen, which, it claims, has all America clamoring "to guess which leading men and women are also gay or bisexual." In its May 27 edition-- the tabloid has effectively announced through deed that it now stands proudly in the "outing" tradition of the pseudonymous Angelo d'Arcangelo (author of The Homosexual Handbook, 1968).

It was d'Arcangelo, an often penniless but loquacious gay male writer, who initiated the controversial practice now known as "outing". When his Homosexual Handbook's listings of gay males, including living Hollywood stars, appeared as an afterward in his groundbreaking advice tome (see Variety, March 5 & April 23, 1969) the book's first edition was immediately recalled. In the second edition only one living fame-name was absent, that of the FBI's foremost right-wing homophobe, J. Edgar Hoover, later outed again as "Mary."

If right-wing publishers pretend to idealize personal privacy, such pretense is lost at The National Enquirer, an often-sued right-wing tabloid. Now using homosexuality to conduct an all-out Smear-War on Hollywood, The National Enquirer follows Bob Dole's anti-Hollywood lead.

Potentially damaging rumors, lobbed by the Enquirer, drop into in a consistent right-wing pattern, using homosexuality as a threat against political foes, playing on the mainstream's nervous sexual repressions and rattling culturally-anarchistic Hollywood with sex-related speculations. The National Enquirer piously justifies its outings by insisting, like some activists, that whatever it uncovers, need not be hid, thus gladly providing yet another cheap peep hole for Big Brother.

"I hope Hollywood will retaliate against that damned Enquirer by making more romantic gay-themed movies than ever," fulminated Peter Ormond, a movie-reviewer. "I don't even think GayToday ought to dignify the Enquirer with a story.... that silly rag."

Some supporters of "outing" see the Enquirer article as a stepped-up vindication of the outing movement they revived in the early 1990's, following d'Arcangelo's 1968 lead. "This is just another example of how 'outing's' simply gone mainstream," said one. "Its taken ten years to get to the Enquirer in such a full-scale format, but better late than never." The pro's and cons of "outing" are still, on occasion, argued in lesbian and gay commentaries.

Starting with what it calls its exclusive piercing of the "veil of secrecy" the supermarket tabloid turns its attention to the inevitable Tom Cruise, impelling readers to think that Cruise is so inexplicably heterosexual that he's been married twice and even adopted kids in an ongoing effort to fulfill an ideal heterosexual lifestyle. Cruise is quoted as reacting to gay rumors by saying, "ridiculous. It pisses me off!".

To some, current Enquirer outings are already old news. More than a few of the tabloid's reports, however, suggest strong tendencies among Hollywood's elite to excell in sexual and bi-sexual adventurism.