In case you hadn’t heard (and we must admit it didn’t exactly cause the earthquake in Hollywood that Ellen’s famous outing did back in 1997), Jim Parsons, star of the CBS mega hit The Big Bang Theory, officially came out in an article in the New York Times last week.
But unlike Ellen’s multi-page spread and Time magazine cover where she announced that “Yep, I’m Gay”, the profile on Parsons in the Times buries the fact about his sexual identity at the tail end of the article - and it doesn’t even contain a direct quote from the actor. It merely states, matter-of-factly, that Parsons is starring in a new play and is gay. That’s it.
It might be that the outings of famous people has become an almost daily occurrence and are now typically greeted by the public with a collective yawn, shrug, or “duh, we already knew that.” But more to the point is the fact that the cultural landscape has shifted so dramatically and so essentially on the question of sexuality (and all that means morally, ethically, and yes, even commercially) that many people who watch The Big Bang Theory will now find Parsons even more admirable for his (should we even call it ‘gutsy’ anymore?) revelation. The fact that he plays the part of Sheldon with such utter kooky abandon should be the main focus of his fans - and it seems tellingly so that it is.
Parsons likely also came out now because his career is a raging success, the show he’s on has a massive following and nothing is going to change that, and the Most Powerful Man in the World recently came out in support of Marriage Equality. As Sheldon himself one said, “Sex works even better than chocolate to modify behavior. I wonder if anyone else has stumbled onto that.”
Apparently, America has.
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