Showing up at gay pride? Dodging questions about your sexuality? Showing wee wees in your student film? Making out with dudes on SNL? To say nothing of Milk. And now your art project The Dangerous Book Four Boys, which finally goes on display after months of taunting your publics with bizarre career moves, “addresses boyhood and the ‘sexual confusion’ of adolescence”?
Mr. Franco is either a closet sociologist, or orchestrating an even more buzzed-about coming out than Chely Wright. I’ll take either.
[WSJ]
Jack
Mr. Franco, I’ll plug into your socket any day. 🙂
Mike
James Franco is the star of Crotch-Uh-Lastic. Google it.
GEW
Hmmmm… I wonder if he’s into older chubs?
Bobert
James Franco coming out would be a big deal! I hope so!
SSCHIEFRSHA
@Jack: “Mr. Franco, I’ll plug into your socket any day.” Eh Yo! That’s REAL ‘mo.
jason
Why does Franco have to come out? He’s done so much to show us how much he is interested in issues to do with human sexuality, I think it’s pointless to make a statement. Statements can also be restricting and self-branding. I would hate to be branded.
An acquaintance once said to me “I’m not straight, I’m not gay, I’m not bi…I’m a personality”. I loved that comment of his.
alan brickman
He’s gay friendly….don’t mess this up!!
ossurworld
All his sexuality goes into his art. Nothing left after that…
hephaestion
I’m sure he’s straight. Why does Queerty assume that any hetero who is gay-friendly is gay? Absurd. Every straight male friend I have is like Franco.
jason
Without straights, it would have been difficult to achieve gay rights progress.
In any case, straight and gay are polarizing notions based on the petty desire to politicize everything. We should be the last people pushing ideas and people into boxes. After all, we fought for the right to come out of our boxes.
jason
Also, keep in mind that James Franco is of Italian background. Men of Italian background have a relaxed self-opinion without the defensive hang-ups of white Anglo males. They often kiss other men, for instance. I’ve been told, also, that, in Italy, most men are bisexual and don’t think it’s strange at all.
Justin O
@hephaestion: Every straight male friend you have engages in complex artistic deconstructions of homosexuality? I wish I had your straight friends!
David Ehrenstein
No conclusions should be drawn about James Franco’s sexuality until I have personally examined the matter in detail.
Long, hard, steamily intense detail.
Michael
Why does Queerty continue to hound James Franco because he has a great attitude towards gay men? Queerty is making it out to be a crime for a straight man to be AOK with homosexuals.
Get off of it already. Queerty is quickly becoming the bitchy old queen no one wants to be around.
Shawn
@jason: Sorry, no! I’m Italian-American, and I have to say that some of the MOST homophobic guys I’ve ever known are Italian-Americans. Think about those guido-types you’ve seen on shows like “The Jersey Shore.” These guys are often very macho and very put off by anything that deviates from accepted male behavior.
D'oh, The Magnificent
@David Ehrenstein: Back off bitch! I saw him first.
D'oh, The Magnificent
@David Ehrenstein: PS, said while pulling off heels, ear rings and wig- just to let you know that I am not playin’
Hilarious
@Shawn: Thank you. Don’t forget racist to boot.
They’re not just in Jersey either, parts of New York, and all over the strip in Vegas.
Lucius vorenus
I would like to make love with him, yes. I think he is incredibly hot.
ossurworld
Comments on Americans of Italian descent are prejudiced and disgraceful. So, apparently it’s okay to stereotype others, but it’s bad when others do it to gay people.
SSCHIEFRSHA
@Justin O: “complex artistic deconstructions of homosexuality?”
It’s all part of the New York avant garde artistic scene which he has grown fond of apparently. Doesn’t make him gay. Wishful thinking has become an epidermic within our ranks. Doesn’t make your wet dreams about him anymore real…get over it already!
Pip
@jason: The rejection of orientation “labels” in the gay community, and elsewhere is cowardly. Its a way of deflecting attention from one’s behavior, and not having to accept one’s identity. Its pretty simple: either men give you boners, women give you boners, or men and women give you boners.
Hilarious
@hephaestion: Now, now. You can’t be any more sure he’s straight than Queerty can be sure he’s gay unless you know him personally.
All I’m sure of is he’s hot and doing good things for us without any sort of publicity stunt attached.
So lets just say “Thank you!” instead of worrying about his sexuality one way or the other.
jimmy
@jason: let me bring you to the jersey shore
D'oh, The Magnificent
@Pip: Its also emotionally and intellectually lazy since language is the basis of how humans communicate, and labels are a big part of that.
Hilarious
@ossurworld: Nope.
One trip to Jersey and you’ll change your tune. It’s not a stereotype, it’s reality.
My opinions didn’t come from Jersey Shore(which I’ve never watched in the first place), they came from first hand accounts of a trip I had.
I too would’ve shared your opinion had I not seen these things with my own eyes.
I didn’t experience racism in Jersey though, that was reserved for Vegas, but either way a guido is a guido is a guido. No amount of sympathetic boohoos is gonna change that.
Go see what your defending then come back and call us liars. They do exist.
ossurworld
James Franco: the new Cary Grant?
Greg
@jason:
Your ignorance of Italian culture is staggering. Two men air kissing on the cheek isn’t considered any more sexual than shaking hands.
______
As for Franco, it’s a bit much that people continue to be hung up on trying to label people to fit their needs. How often are told that straight men should befriend gays and appreciate gay culture? But when they do so, they’re quickly labeled as gay or closeted by gay men!
Pathetic.
@ Get Equal 'Why the h8 on Obamz but not the Repubs who ALWAYS vote against you? (John from England)
@SSCHIEFRSHA:
Hey, saw your comment on towleroad re this..why are you so hang up on him being str8?
@hephaestion:
Really? You have str8 friends who did short films about naked men from a gay poem? AND also just gay films AND their first exhibition is about sexual confusion?
Yeah. Right.
You can have gay friendly mates, the ones who sleep or snog guys-are pretty much str8 but think it’s all rock n roll and arty…but NONE of my str8 frends have done what Franco does.
John (CA)
Basing one’s opinions of Italian Americans on an MTV reality show is a bit premature.
They don’t all come from working class families in the Northeast.
There’s a fairly large community of them in Northern California. They dominate the wine and hospitality industries there. Italian names -Pelosi, Garamendi, Alioto, Veronese, Moscone, Leno, and Ammiano – are pretty much ubiquitous in San Francisco political circles as well.
Remember, MTV casted a reality show in Hawaii without a single Asian-Pacific Islander because they wanted the fantasy Baywatch version of it. They wanted some Italian buffoons for “Jersey Shore” and that’s what they got.
Ruddigore
You know the gay pride appearance and art installation were just being done for his stint on General Hospital, right? http://www.tvguide.com/News/General-Hospital-Franco-1019732.aspx
John (CA)
Not that any of this matters to James Franco.
He’s Portuguese.
In terms of gay rights, Portugal has left Italy far back in the dust. In fact, one can make a strong argument that Italy is the most backward state in all of Western Europe. It is completely stagnant in terms of social development. The Catholic Church still has a stranglehold on family life. Unemployment has been high for decades. And the government is so dysfunctional that criminal organizations are literally running much of the country.
@ Get Equal 'Why the h8 on Obamz but not the Repubs who ALWAYS vote against you? (John from England)
@Ruddigore:
Yessss…
Ron
James Franco was a San Francisco Peninsula boy who graduated from Palo Alto High School, the home of Stanford University. I don’t get all the Jersey Shore business.
The only other famous Franco I know of was Spanish. And Franco-American means French. So leave it alone.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
The guy is on our side, he is a very popular and talanted actor. Why must we always look the gift horse in the mouth just like Scott Heman………Take the support and be grateful. If he is a Gay and wants to come out fine, I will be the first on line to welcome him……… :-p
Jack Scribe
The only labels for Franco are – cool, liberated, free spirit, accepting…etc. The guy is in two separate master degree programs – Columbia and NYU. He’ll be in Palm Springs this coming for our Short Fest (film, not…) and be on hand for discussion. I’m definately going.
Ric
I’m sure he’s gay. I can break out my friend of a friend story, but who’d believe me. Didn’t he also play Ginsberg recently?
Joey
@Ric — please do break it out, I’d believe you, and I’d love to hear it. We need something to make up for the utter waste of space that was the Italian-American debate in this thread.
Marcus
@Ric:
I have a few of those, don’t bother. You and I know. (Wink)
Joey
Oh, come on.
@ Get Equal 'Why the h8 on Obamz but not the Repubs who ALWAYS vote against you? (John from England)
I can’t believe ANYONE can get away doing what he’s doing and just be called a str8 ally?!!
Not even Gus Van Sant has done THAT gay themed stuff lol!
I mean, it’s mind bogling! He did a short story of naked men with LOTS of penis. LOT of penis. Which straight person do you know had done that???!!
Nick
I don’t blame gay people for being excited at the prospect of a famous male celebrity being gay. Our community is incredibly underrepresented, and we know that statistically there should be dozens more gay celebrities, who in their secrecy, are unintentionally though I’m sure, making progress that extra bit harder. However, we have to be careful! The “straight world” has created terrible preconceptions about us, and whilst we shouldn’t be apologetic, we also shouldn’t live up to those preconceptions just because they’re imposed on us. Discussing celebritys’ sexualities is fun with friends and in that sort of situation, but like this, it’s only damaging really.
M
@Nick:
I see what you’re saying, but discussing sexuality in celebrities has been going on forever–why is it a problem when it suddenly turns gay? Sexuality is everywhere–it sells EVERYTHING. It involves a lot of our conversations. It effects our priorities.
Do you actually think this is hurting the gay movement or James Franco? Franco is very smart and he knows EXACTLY what he’s doing.
My grandmother has boxes of old magazines about what celebrity is sleeping with now, whose spouse did what to whom and this child isn’t there’s but his…
It wasn’t damaging then, and it’s certainly not damaging now.
There are countless forums online about what celebrity does what to whom, and I never read many complaints as I do here. It’s a gossip story, what did you think was going to happen?
Jim
I’m pretty sure Franco American means Spaghettios.