Plot
Guy Stone (Matt Letscher) is blissfully closeted, picking up tricks for one-night-stands, while capturing the country's heart as "America's most eligible bachelor" (starring in such films as The Love Barrel and I Married the Ghost). However, Guy's carefully managed façade collapses when he comes up for the lead in S.R.O. studio's version of Ben-Hur . Things turn sour for the film idol when a fellow actor, Freddie Stevens (Jack Plotnick) (famous in the film for portraying "Captain Astro" in a succession of Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon-type serial films), decides to steal the lead in Ben-Hur from Guy by taking a picture of Guy exiting a gay bar. Freddie plans to out Guy to the world and ruin his career. Jerry (Veronica Cartwright), Guy's repressed lesbian ball-bustingly ambitious agent, connives to cover up the impending outing and ensure Guy the role in Ben-Hur by marrying her client off with great fanfare to the studio head's secretary, Sally (Carrie Preston), who just happens to also be a slavishly devoted Guy Stone fan. However, Sally isn't aware the marriage is a sham.
To avoid his adoring new bride as much as possible, Guy has Jerry sign him onto the next available film, which turns out to be 'Blood Mine' — a disastrously arch pro-union film about the corrupt goings on at a coal mine (with lines like 'how can they call this a MINE when everything is THEIRS!?!'). The studio head, in fear of the red-baiting going on in Hollywood at the time, decides — true to Hollywood stereotype — rather than stop production on the film to instead water down the pro-union content wherever possible. The young, idealistic, and terribly handsome writer of the novel that the film is based on, Rick Foster, quickly gets roped into convoluting the plot of this already-bad adaptation of his heartfelt book largely because of a chance meeting between him and the film's star, Guy. The attraction the two men feel for one another is instantaneous and propels the rest of the plot forward.
Rock Hudson was an American actor. One of the most popular movie stars of his time, he had a screen career spanning more than three decades. A prominent heartthrob in the Golden Age of Hollywood, he achieved stardom with his role in Magnificent Obsession (1954), followed by All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Giant (1956), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hudson also found continued success with a string of romantic comedies co-starring Doris Day: Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964). During the late 1960s, his films included Seconds (1966), Tobruk (1967), and Ice Station Zebra (1968). Unhappy with the film scripts he was offered, Hudson turned to television and was a hit, starring in the popular mystery series McMillan & Wife (1971–1977). His last role was as a guest star on the fifth season (1984–1985) of the primetime ABC soap opera Dynasty, until an AIDS-related illness made it impossible for him to continue.
Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic religious film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title, it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry.
Veronica Cartwright is a British-born American actress. She is known for appearing in science fiction and horror films, and has earned numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Her younger sister is actress Angela Cartwright.
Gay-for-pay describes male or female actors, pornographic stars, or sex workers who identify as heterosexual but who are paid to act or perform as homosexual professionally. The term has also applied to other professions and even companies trying to appeal to a gay demographic. The stigma of being gay or labeled as such has steadily eroded since the Stonewall riots began the modern American gay rights movement in 1969. Through the 1990s, mainstream movie and television actors have been more willing to portray homosexuality, as the threat of any backlash against their careers has lessened and society's acceptance of gay and lesbian people has increased.
The Celluloid Closet is a 1995 American documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on Vito Russo's 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, and on lecture and film clip presentations he gave in 1972–1982. Russo had researched the history of how motion pictures, especially Hollywood films, had portrayed gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters.
Boze Hadleigh, sometimes writing as George Hadley-Garcia, is an author. Several of his books cover LGBT culture, popular culture, and show business. His 22 books have been translated into 14 languages.
James Wallace Langham II is an American actor. He is best known for playing the role of Phil the Head Writer on The Larry Sanders Show. He has also played the roles of David Hodges on the crime drama television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its sequel, CSI: Vegas and NASA Administrator Harold Weisner in the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series For All Mankind. In the 1990s, he was well-known for playing Josh in the NBC sitcom Veronica's Closet (1997-2000), which was a Top 10 hit in its first couple of seasons.
Jack Stuart Plotnick is an American film and television actor, writer, and producer.
Carrie Preston is an American actress known for her work on the television series True Blood, Person of Interest, Crowded, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Claws. Preston received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Elsbeth Tascioni on CBS's drama series The Good Wife and The Good Fight. For her work on The Good Wife, Preston received two nominations for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, winning once.
Henry Leroy Willson was an American Hollywood talent agent who played a large role in developing the beefcake craze of the 1950s.
"The Outing" is the 57th episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. First aired on February 11, 1993 on NBC, it is the 17th episode of the fourth season. In this episode, a reporter publicly "outs" Jerry and George as a homosexual couple, and they struggle to convince the rest of the world of their heterosexuality. The line "... not that there's anything wrong with that"—as a reference to homosexuality—has become a popular catchphrase among fans.
Matthew Letscher is an American actor, director and playwright, known for his roles as Captain Harrison Love in the 1998 American swashbuckler film The Mask of Zorro and as Colonel Adelbert Ames in the 2003 American film Gods and Generals. He co-starred in the 2016 Michael Bay film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, playing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. He has also portrayed Eobard Thawne / Reverse-Flash in The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.
Sally Miller Gearhart was an American teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist. In 1973, she became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country. She later became a nationally known gay rights activist.
FAQs is a 2005 LGBT-themed independent film written and directed by Everett Lewis. The film tells the story of a group of young queer kids who have been discarded by straight society. They come together to form a de facto family under the wing of an African American vigilante drag queen named Destiny.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male and bisexual audiences of any gender.
Diane "Dee" Mosbacher is an American filmmaker, lesbian feminist activist, and practicing psychiatrist. In 1993, she founded Woman Vision, a nonprofit organization.
The Newsweek gay actor controversy refers to the reaction to a piece written in 2010 by Newsweek magazine writer Ramin Setoodeh in which he asserts that openly gay actors are not capable of convincingly playing straight characters. Setoodeh's article provoked strong reactions from both within and outside the entertainment industry.
Space Station 76 is a 2014 American parody science fiction film, directed by Jack Plotnick, and co-written by Plotnick, Jennifer Elise Cox, Sam Pancake, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov.
When We Rise is an eight-part American docudrama miniseries about the history of LGBT rights advocacy in the United States from the 1970s to the 2010s. It was created by Dustin Lance Black and stars Guy Pearce, Rachel Griffiths, Mary-Louise Parker, Michael Kenneth Williams, Austin P. McKenzie, Emily Skeggs, Jonathan Majors, Fiona Dourif, and Sam Jaeger among 30 others. The miniseries premiered on ABC on February 27, 2017, with the rest of its episodes airing March 1 to 3.
Straightwashing is portraying LGB or otherwise queer characters in fiction as heterosexual (straight), making LGB people appear heterosexual, or altering information about historical figures to make their representation comply with heteronormativity.
