Joan Rivers Curses Openly Gay Celebrities?

There's no doubt that Joan Rivers has plenty of gay friends. Heck, she once joked to Larry King that legalizing gay marriage would require her to spend an arm and a leg on wedding presents. She even just wrapped up a series of special gay pride performances, and is out with a new documentary meant to appeal to LGBT audiences. She is, after all, part comedian, part gay icon.

(We're not quite sure which parts, what with all the plastic surgery.)

But there's some troubling comments coming out of Rivers' mouth when it comes to openly gay celebrities. Seems like she's taking a page from Newsweek's (well, now People Magazine's) Ramin Setoodeh, who infamously suggested earlier this Spring that gay actors can't play straight roles.

Rivers seems to take Setoodeh's comments to the next level. Rather than questioning whether gay actors should play straight roles, Rivers goes straight for the jugular: why bother to come out as gay at all if you're an actor, she says, because it will just kill your career.

"If you're going to be a romantic idol and try to get every teenage girl to love you, then you'd be an a** to come out and say you're gay," Rivers said. Then, in a very fierce capitalistic way (which might be why she won last season's Celebrity Apprentice), she points toward Ricky Martin as a celebrity who handled being gay quite well.

"Ricky Martin was so smart. He did what he did, made his millions and then he said, 'Guess what, every body? I'm gay' ... It didn't matter anymore because he didn't have to bring in 16-year-old girls," Rivers said.

Got it? Here's a recap: Joan Rivers thinks that gay actors are committing career suicide, will never be able to attract a massive following, and won't ever be believable as romantic leads.

Yeesh, and Joan Rivers is a friend to the LGBT community?

To clarify, Rivers does make a point of saying that when it comes to her encouraging gay celebs to stay in the closet, she's only referring to celebs who need sex appeal, like movie actors or rock stars. Comedians don't need to be sexy, according to Rivers, "because there’s not the same romantic thing involved there. No single guy ever had Ellen DeGeneres’s or Rosie O’Donnell’s picture up on the wall and thought, Maybe one day I’ll meet her and she’ll marry me. No one cares what a comedian is. All you’re thinking about is if they’re going to make you laugh."

True that, to some extent. Successful comedians, after all, don't have to be sexy (Gallagher, Carrot Top, Joan Rivers...). But that doesn't make Rivers' comments any less frustrating, especially at a time when openly gay celebrities are rocking Hollywood in greater numbers than ever. It's 2010, and Rivers seriously wants to maintain a Cary Grant/Rock Hudson status quo where leading gay actors hide their sexual orientation from the public?

Some will point to what Rivers said and find a kernel of truth in it, perhaps. Rivers, and Setoodeh for that matter, both are correct when they say that there's no gay George Clooney — an A-list celebrity that commands $20 million per movie. But if either Rivers or Setoodeh think they're helping pave the road for such a person with their biting and cynical commentary, they're really kidding themselves. Words matter, and like it or not, both are saying that queer folks should go back in the closet if they want to earn a paycheck.

Of course, I'm not entirely sure Rivers is right. Neil Patrick Harris is believable as a romantic lead. Cynthia Nixon, too. And one of the most popular actresses on television right now? Jane Lynch. That's not to mention Adam Lambert, who has an upcoming tour that is sold out all over the place — and you can bet that many in the audience are those same sixteen-year-old girls who Rivers believes don't want to fantasize about some gay actor or artist.

Rivers' comments came in an interview with The Advocate so that she could promote her new documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, releasing nationwide this summer. But if she was hoping to win over some LGBT fans, I'm afraid she's failed somewhere between miserably and enormously. Here's hoping her jokes in the movie are a little more cutting edge than her thoughts on being gay in Hollywood. Because the latter, it seems, is straight out of the 1960s.

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