Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has joined a growing list of stars who have slammed editors at Newsweek magazine after a popular columnist criticised gay actors Jonathan Groff and Sean Hayes for portraying straight men.The openly-gay moviemaker won an Oscar for the 2008 film, starring Sean Penn as homosexual politician Harvey Milk, and he's fuming over the controversial piece, which saw columnist Ramin Setoodeh single out Glee star Groff and Hayes, who is currently appearing on Broadway in Promises, Promises.
He's joined forces with Jarrett Barrios, the president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), to pen a letter to The Hollywood Reporter expressing his anger over the article, which was published last month.
They write, "Sadly, he (Setoodeh) seems to raise more questions about his own internalised biases than what the 'public' actually perceives. The public is thrilled with Jonathan Groff's turn as a leading man on Glee... (and) while Setoodeh zeroes in on Sean Hayes on Broadway, he refuses to mention how Americans have embraced the openly gay current and past leading men.
"America is starting to embrace open gay and lesbian actors in heterosexual roles on stage and screen and Setoodeh himself is not yet ready to.
"Maybe Setoodeh can't see Glee and Promises, Promises except through a lens of dark stereotypes he's inherited. Maybe he's got some axe to grind. But whatever the reason, with the stakes so high for gay Americans at this moment, it is no excuse for his editors inflicting such hurtful - and baseless - musings on the readers of Newsweek. We'd all have been better off leaving Setoodeh's tortured thoughts on his therapist's couch and leaving baseless stories like this one on the editor's desk."
Kristin Chenoweth and Glee creator Ryan Murphy have also blasted the article, with Murphy urging Americans not to buy the magazine until editors apologise for the piece.
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