Cruising out of control.

Recently I appeared on Bill O'Reilly's cable talk show to talk about a piece I'd published in this magazine on gay celebrities and why they have an obligation to come out of the closet. O'Reilly and I disagreed amicably enough. But after the show, I felt the inevitable esprit de l'escalier and kept kicking myself for not making the retorts that came to me in droves after the fact. There was one in particular that, in light of an event since the show, I most wish I'd made.

The event is this: Tom Cruise has filed a defamation lawsuit in Los Angeles superior court against porn star Chad Slater, also known as Kyle Bradford, who, according to a French magazine, claimed to have had an ongoing sexual affair with Cruise. Seeking $100 million in damages, Cruise's lawyers said that "because Cruise is a motion picture actor, he is dependent upon worldwide public acceptance of his films. Losing the respect and enthusiasm of a substantial segment of the movie-going public would cost Cruise very substantial sums. While the plaintiff believes in the right of others to follow their own sexual preference, vast numbers of the public throughout the world do not share that view and, believing that he had a homosexual affair and did so during his marriage, they will be less inclined to patronize Cruise's films, particularly since he tends to play parts calling for heterosexual romance and action adventure."

Now, this argument sounds strikingly similar to one O'Reilly made to me on his show. "I know five big, big-name actors," he said, "who get romantic leading roles. I don't know them personally, but I'm pretty sure they're homosexuals--just based on eyewitness things that have come to me over the years. If any of these five men came out and said they were gay, those roles would dry up immediately ... because Americans are judgmental, and the majority of American people, when they're seeing some guy kiss some girl or in bed with some girl, they want to believe that it's true. It's part of the fantasy. And if the guy is going out with somebody named Lenny, it ain't going to be the same."

At the time, I said that this was precisely the reason gay celebrities should come out. Doing so would shatter stereotypes about gays as freaks and force the public to see that some of the most revered mainstream stars being held up to them as icons of heterosexuality are in fact gay. What could be more effective?

But reading about Cruise and Slater has convinced me that I should have said the following instead: Why is it acceptable--believable--for a heterosexual actor to play a gay person but not for a homosexual actor to play a straight person? Examples of straights playing gays abound in Hollywood. To name only a few, there were Campbell Scott in Longtime Companion, Helen Mirren in Losing Chase, Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Jude Law in Wilde.

Yet somehow, O'Reilly and Cruise's lawyers maintain, it wouldn't be believable if an openly gay actor played a straight character? But this is absurd. It's no less believable than a sane actor playing a psycho, a sighted actor playing a blind person, a flesh-and-blood actor playing a robot, or a living actor playing a ghost. Movies ask us to suspend our disbelief all the time. That is, in fact, the essence of dramatic art. Pretending that this rule somehow does not hold when it comes to gays is prejudice, pure and simple. And it needs to stop.

But as long as Hollywood stars hide their homosexuality in shame, they will only more firmly reinforce the commonly held belief that homosexuality is something to be ashamed of. And what, I ask you, could possibly heap more ignominy on homosexuality than suing somebody for $100 million in damages because they spread a rumor that you might be gay? As in Oscar Wilde's time, homosexuality is apparently still a crime in Hollywood, and the mere suggestion that one has committed it still amounts to slander. After all, would Cruise really bother to sue someone who claimed he carried a handbag or that he didn't brush his teeth? Hardly. Tabloids tell lies about celebrities, including Cruise, every day. Most of the time, such canards don't even evoke a response from the star in question, much less a lawsuit. So in this case, you have to wonder: Doth the lady protest too much?