And on that point . . .
BLADE BLOG
The straight-washing of Luther Vandross
For two decades, Luther Vandross sang the soundtrack to America's bedrooms, but as much as he touched hearts and stirred loins with music about love and loss, his own romantic life remained mostly a mystery. The black singer who proudly declared that he would never don a "blond wig" to achieve mainstream fame among white fans, nonetheless hid his own love life to placate his heterosexual female fan base.
A famous artist whose life is such a story of contrasts would make for fascinating study, and great reading, but you wouldn't know it from the obituaries and "appreciation" stories published in the mainstream press after Vandross passed away on July 1. With rare exception, the straight press sidestepped long-standing speculation that Vandross the "lifetime bachelor" was, in fact, gay.
The de-gaying of Vandross is only the latest example of a long-standing media tradition of glossing over the personal life of anyone who does not live a publicly heterosexual life. On the obituary page, at least, homosexuality remains the love that dare not speak its name.
When novelist Susan Sontag died last December, gay author Patrick Moore joined others (including me) in criticizing the mainstream press for ignoring the "open secret" of her bisexual past and long-time relationship with famed photographer Annie Leibowitz. This despite an interview with London's Guardian newspaper in May 2000, in which Sontag spoke "openly" of her bisexuality and said she had been in love nine times in her life: five times with women and four times with men.
The straight-washing of gay artists continued in late May, when filmmaker Ismail Merchant died. Despite a 44-year relationship with James Ivory that was both professional and romantic, the mainstream press stuck to the heterosexual storyline. Does anyone doubht that this kind of epic romance that produced so many film classics would have been the subject of fawning tributes had the couple been male-female?
Criticism from this publication of the Merchant obituaries proved too much for Hank Stuever, a usually insightfully funny, very gay entertainment columnist at the Washington Post. Adopting a tone that would make an apologist blush, Stuever took shots at us "gripey gay media watchdogs" for pointing out the glaring omission in both the Sontag and Merchant posthumous coverage. And Stuever offered a piece of parting advice:
When a gay (or gayish) celebrity croaks, call your local obit desk (ours can be reached at 202-334-6000), and give the editors a big ol' gay heads up to make sure they know â?? especially if you can point them to any previously published references by the decedent about his or her extra-fabulous time on Earth.
How's that? Publications with the storied journalism chops of the Washington Post and the New York Times need us lil' folk in the queer press to let them know when someone is gay? You'd probably be surprised at how often the mainstream press calls us to do their gay homework, but it's a bit ridiculous coming from one of our own. And how is it that Stuever gets published in the Post reporting that Sontag was bi and Merchant was gay when those same facts were left out of their obits and appreciation pieces? If the evidence meets the Post's standards now, why didn't it then?
Stuever challenges the gay press to come up with "previously published references by the decedent" about being gay, as if an obituary were merely a collection of statements by the dead person about their own life. Would that famous people could so completely control their press coverage! In fact, Stuever knows all too well that the press regularly reports on speculation about the private lives of the famous, in life and death alike.
So is Stuever blushing with pride or embarrassment now? It seems his own newspaper published an obituary of Vandross that reported â?? "eleventyseven" paragraphs from the lead â?? that there were rumors not only that Vandross was gay, but that he had AIDS. Of course, the Post went on to quote a "denial" from Vandross that doesn't directly deal with his sexual orientation.
Apparently Washington Post computers don't come enabled with browsers containing the Google search engine, so here's a "big ol' gay heads up" that there's even more out there on whether Vandross was a homo. Gay columnist Keith Boykin wrote in January 2002 that Vandross was asked about being gay on the BET show "Journeys in Black," and refused to answer the question. In the history of humanity, no straight man â?? and certainly no straight African-American man â?? has ever refused to answer that question.
The less explicit clues to Vandross' sexual orientation were also there, enough to make even the least sensitive gaydar scream "BLEEEP!" Vandross counts girl groups and Dionne Warwick as his primary musical influences, and his early breaks came with gender-bender David Bowie and gay icons Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand. An early Vandross tune made into a Broadway musical ("The Wiz"), and he formed a group with semi-closet case Nile Rogers of the disco supergroup Chic before either was famous. Vandross went on to send the lead vocals in Chic's dance hit "Dance! Dance! Dance!" Hello? Hello? Hello? Anyone home in homoville?
Give the Post credit for at least mentioning the speculation, one step better than his obituary in the New York Times, which noted in the lead that Vandross "spun romance into hits" but about his own romantic life noted cryptically: "Mr. Vandross is survived by his mother." The Los Angeles Times, which published Miller's criticism about the de-gaying of Sontag, similary straight-washed Vandross.
But the F-minus goes to the Associated Press, which cheerfully reported that Vandross' weight "fluctuated so much that rumors swirled that he had more serious health problems than the hypertension and diabetes caused by his large frame." Can you say "AIDS," everyone?
What's more, AP reported about Vandross, "the lifelong bachelor never had any children, but doted on his nieces and nephews. The entertainer said his busy lifestyle made marriage difficult; besides, it wasn't what he wanted." Can you say "gay," everyone?
If AP can't, Answers.com and Wikipedia can. The exact same information â?? in the exact same words â?? is reported on that site under a section of Vandross' bio titled "Sexuality" that deals expressly with rumors that the singer was gay. Wikipedia goes on to repeat the Vandross non-denial on BET's "Journeys in Black." Craig Seymour's biography of Vandross, "Luther: The Life & Longing of Luther Vandross," also deals at length with the gay rumors and doesn't debunk them.
Does any of this "prove" Vandross was gay? Maybe not, but it's enough to make it into stories about his life. Of course Vandross is partly responsible for the lack of real evidence here, but so is the mainstream media, which interviewed Vandross countless times in his career without ever reporting (or even asking?) anything about his romantic life.
The same could be said about Sontag and Merchant, who managed public careers of almost a half-century each while dodging almost any coverage of their personal lives. Jon Thurber, executive editor of the L.A. Times, defended his paper's de-gaying of Sontag by throwing his hands up and saying the paper could only report her heterosexual marriages and divorces because they were "legal public record." Does the paper of record in Tinsel Town really expect us to believe that's ever been the standard for coverage of the famous?
The truth is that the mainstream press is afraid to ask famous people if they're gay, and even more afraid to print their responses. And when the famous person dies, the same lily-livered editors claim that the public record is, tragically, too skimpy to merit mention in post-death coverage.
Luther Vandross talked often in interviews about his failure to crossover to mainstream pop stardom, putting it down to his refusal to "buy blond wigs" and "walk differently." But he was willing to lead on his largely female fan base, wearing a "straight wig" as it were, and hiding his own romantic life.
He built his entire career "spinning romance into hits" and yet kept his own romances almost completely hidden. That storyline was surely deserving of more coverage than it got, and didn't even require answering the question that Vandross so rarely got asked.
