Sunday, Jan 12, 2014 11:20 PM EST
Jared Leto and Michael Douglas's homophobic Golden Globes speeches show the worst of Hollywood
The "Dallas Buyers Club" and "Behind the Candelabra" stars get awkward laughs at gay folks' expense
Daniel D'Addario
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/13/jared_leto_and_michael_douglass_homophobic_golden_globes_speeches_show_the_worst_of_hollywood/In 2013, the actors Jared Leto and Michael Douglas, two men who date women, played, respectively, a transgender woman in the film "Dallas Buyers Club" and a gay man in the TV movie "Behind the Candelabra." And tonight they were honored for their efforts at the Golden Globes — where both men managed to, purposefully or not, insult the very communities they were representing on film.
Leto's speech managed to pat Leto on his own back while trivializing actual transgender people — he played a trans woman with AIDS, at the height of America's AIDS crisis. He began by mocking expectations about his anatomy. "I did not ever use any prosthetics in this film. That tiny little Brazilian bubble butt was all mine." This was all in good fun, but Leto's playing for laughs the process by which he prepared for the role of a person who felt uncomfortable in her body was not, really: "It was a very transformative role. I had to do a lot of things to prepare. One of the things I did was wax my entire body, including my eyebrows," Leto said to the audience's laughter.
It's an actor's job to prepare for a role in whatever way the script demands; it may have been difficult for Leto to wax his entire body, but it's sort of a weird punchline for a person whose entire role was about body discomfort and the painful modifications one must make to feel okay with oneself. Leto got money and at least one award for playing his part in "Dallas Buyers Club"; it's strange that he didn't take into account the notion that his struggle was not, in fact, the most important one involved in his role.
