SCOTUS has just ruled in favour of same sex marriage. The Hollywood Reporter posted a story yesterday about Hollywood’s “stromos”, identifying a Hollywood trend among straight actors appealing to the gay audience:
Today's stromos are the flip side of gay actors who want to read straight for their careers: They are straight actors striving to read gayish to optimize their appeal — and maximize the number of butts, gym-molded or otherwise, in movie theater seats.
Since the piece was published, several opposition articles have popped up on other sites objecting to the term and to the motivation behind the Channing Tatums and the Nick Jonases and the Chris Hemsworths of show business expanding their fanbase to include gay men. Critics are calling it reductive and pandering, accusing Hollywood of capitalising on a trend, targeting the gay community not out of respect but out of greed. Basically what we have are a bunch of straight white guys pragmatically looking out for their next meal. And the straight white guys always eat well, and they eat first.
Sure.
But at the same time…
Money is power, isn’t it? That’s how it works in politics. You can’t piss off the evangelists because they’ll pull their donations. The gun lobby flexes and nobody wants to f-ck with them, or risk significant campaign contributions.
So if what we’re seeing here is the rise of LGBT’s considerable purchasing influence, couldn’t we optimistically believe that that’s the beginning of better? Better opportunities. Better representation. Better everything.
It’s cynical, I guess, at the same time. To think that money is the driving force behind change. Money, though, has almost never been on the side of those who’ve been marginalised. Money has always been an asset of the status quo. From cynicism to naivete, is it naïve to hope that money might help establish a new status quo?
Here’s Channing Tatum and all his “stromos” at the Magic Mike XXL premiere getting that gay money last night.
