by Orrin Konheim

Created on: December 08, 2008

There is a certain perception in Hollywood, popularized by crusaders such as Ian McKellan, that say Hollywood is currently unaccepting of gays which I view as inaccurate. On Ian McKellan's own blog, he recalls his joyous experience working on the sets of X-Men, the Da Vinci Code, and Lord of the Rings where it seems like he was friends with everyone on the set and there is little evidence of homophobia. In addition, many prominent gay directors such as Bill Condon, Joel Schumaker, Pedro Almodovar and Bryan Singer have been able to be successful and attract pretty much any actor they want to star in their films.

Actors such as T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris have come out of the closet and there doesn't appear to be any significant slowdown in their careers and they tended to be applaued for their decisions. If anything, Isiah Washington, the actor who called Knight by an inappropriate gay slur, was the one who suffered from the incident. I also am not aware of a single Hollywood actor or actress who has refused to be on Ellen when doing movie promotional tours because they dissaprove of her lifestyle. The worst someone could say about gay discrimination in Hollywood is that it's reported that casting directors don't usually select effiminate gay men for parts in heterosexual romances, but that's sort of like having Richard Kiel (a very tall guy) protest the fact that he wasn't cast as Napoleon.

There might be some perception that Hollywood was anti-gay historically, and the answer to that is yes and no. Hollywood has always been a fairly progressive place, especially in relation to mainstream America and gay stars and directors, ranging from George Cuckor to Jerome Robbins to Montgomery Clift to Cesar Romero, have been able to find work and be accepted for who they are.

At the same time, in its first 50 years of existence when it was trying to prove itself as the dominant force in American entertainment, Hollywood has always been afraid of how mainstream America would react to its content. Under pressure from various religious groups, women's groups, congress, etc., Hollywood was incredibly hesitant in its early days of success to produce pictures with messages that were too radical or taboo and gay society fell under that category. Images of homosexual acts or suggestions of homosexuality were among the things banned by the Hayes Code along and studio heads were very careful to cover up the lifestyles of their homosexual stars, seeing it as somewhat of a

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