What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Monday, November 06, 2006

   DOOGIE!

But enough about Ted Haggard. Or Mark Foley. Or Ken Mehlman. Or Charlie Crist. Or any other of the seemingly-endless parade of right-wing anti-gay closet-cases (as comedian Bill Maher joked last week, if any more Republicans come out of the closet, they'll have to change their symbol from an elephant to a moth!).

I come not to bury cowards, but to praise Doogie, as actor Neil Patrick Harris came out on Friday. I phoned my friend Tara on Saturday to say hello and see if she'd heard. Before I could say a thing, she said, "Did you hear about Doogie?!" We're fans.

Long ago, Tara and I worked at a movie theatre in Hamilton with a boy named Darryl, of whom Tara was fond and I was...fonder. He was a fantastic guy -- funny and overly-confident but just decent enough to keep from being an outright jerk. It helped that we all thought he looked like Neil Patrick Harris' TV character so the name 'Doogie' stuck to him like glue. Doogie Howser MD was by means great TV but we liked Darryl and became fond of the show by extension (there's a soft spot even now -- Doogie was the first blogger, after all).

It helped that Harris was a wonderful kid actor and, by all accounts, a good guy. After the show ended, he got stuck in that image but, even so, he didn't go bad like the Diff'rent Strokes gang or the Coreys. He did a lot of theatre and later appeared in Starship Troopers, wearing a long black coat and looking like the leader of the Hitler Youth. There, I thought, is an actor desperate to get un-typecast!

Sure enough, he did it, by developing a Shatneresque sense of humour about himself. He first tweaked his image, playing the "white culture" expert in Undercover Brother ("I owe all of you a huge apology. I just watched this show...Roots? Maybe you've heard of it?"); he then destroyed his image, playing a horny, drugged-out asshole named Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle ("Yeah, I've been craving burgers, too. Furburgers. Come on, dudes, let's pick up some trim at a strip club. The Doogie line always works on strippers!"). The producers of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother were looking for a Jack Black-type actor to play Barney, a disturbingly-cheerful womanizer, but they liked the 'White Castle' bit enough to audition Harris and he won them over. Barney's a jerk but Harris' dorky charm makes him funny and oddly endearing.

I'm whittering on like a fan but here's the point: Neil Patrick Harris has paid his dues and has a solid career. He's only 33 and he's on his second hit TV show, making lots of money and playing a wildly-popular ladies' man. Actors, singers, athletes (anyone making money, really) are only allowed to come out after their careers have run dry, not right in the middle, so following some press speculation (you just can't trust those Canadians), his publicist issued the usual weird Hollywood non-denial: "Neil Patrick Harris is not of that persuasion."

I saw that in the paper last week and was disappointed. I prefer it when actors just avoid the question rather than lie -- kind of like how Ricky Martin was interesting when people wondered if he was gay, as opposed to how boring he became when he kept going on about the ladies in that completely hypothetical 'who are you kidding?' way. It's sad. In Harris' case, the denial was especially pointless, considering how people had been commenting for a while now on the guy he keeps being seen with around New York. I could understand why the publicist would try to suppress the story but it irritated me that, in 2006, a TV actor still can't say he's gay.

Happily, it seems that Harris was annoyed, too. Rather than start playing that fame game -- hiding his boyfriend, showing up at parties with random women, jumping on sofas and yelling about his lady love -- he silenced his handlers and simply issued the briefest, classiest statement possible:

The public eye has always been kind to me, and until recently I have been able to live a pretty normal life. Now it seems there is speculation and interest in my private life and relationships.

So, rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. I can only hope the Republican party is paying attention. Bravo, Doog!

Labels: back in the day, evolution, friends, homo-a-go-go, movies, the 80s, tributes, TV