The argument is: why not reward those who are brave enough to live their life without shame with roles that should be played by no others? Or, at the very least, there is the perceived fear that certain gay actors, based on the types of roles they have built their success on, would best serve their career by staying in the closet. The argument is: why should a straight actor profit professionally from a role depicting someone of an oppressed sexuality, when there is a stigmatization which still exists that persuades some to remain in the closet. The argument is that a gay role should be played by a gay actor, as gay actors are an oppressed sexual identity in the film industry they're type-cast out of straight roles by the meer fact that they're gay, so there should be a reverse-discrimination process against straight actors to even the playing field. With respect to The Normal Heart, there are many in the LGBT community who refer to straight actors playing roles such as Weeks as "faggot face," to put it bluntly, the gay equivalent of "blackface." The recent release of Cloud Atlas, which portrays of all kinds of -face, has helped spark such discussions, for better or worse (with Atlas, since just about every race is portrayed by someone of another, and both genders are sometimes represented by someone of the opposite gender, I've had no trouble assuming the best intentions of the directors, one of whom had a nontraditional journey to her true gender).
Also, please note, both Ruffalo and McConaughey are straight. I can't think of any actors of their generation with more of such films under their belt. Ruffalo: View from the Top, My Life Without Me, In the Cut, 13 Going on 30, Just Like Heaven, Rumor Has It, The Kids Are All Right.
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McConaughey: Boys on the Side, A Time to Kill, Contact, The Wedding Planner, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Yet, interestingly enough, in the initial phases of their respective careers, both men have taken on second billing in a variety of movies with female costars who arguably were the bigger star. McConaughey has had more success at the box-office, with help or otherwise. Ruffalo has developed a strong resume over the last decade since You Can Count On Me skyrocketed his career and has one nomination under his belt for playing a sperm-donating chef in The Kids Are All Right. Who knows when filming is going to start, but new cast members are getting added as we speak, so it could be anytime in the next couple months. Brad Pitt was once attached to the project WAY back. He looks horrible, so I'm hoping that filming will get underway soon for his role as Ron Woodroof, the real-life straight homophobic HIV-pioneer in The Dallas Buyer's Club, who dealt with the disease during a decade when it was largely known as The Gay Plague. Matthew McConaughey has been making news lately for his recent incredible weight loss. Though the film is fictitious, it's largely based on the life of playwright and activist Larry Kramer. Mark Ruffalo will play Ned Weeks in Ryan Murphy's The Normal Heart from Plan B Productions opposite Julia Roberts in a film that will lens the beginning of next year, but won't reportedly release until 2014 (once upon a time, Barbra Streisand tried to get the film version off the ground as director). Both actors will play characters who were HIV-positive during the 1980s.
However, in the next year or two, we will likely see a pair of sought-after gay/gay-adjacent roles that are either going to get tons of pre-press and/or carry with it Great Oscar Expectations. Now that three years have passed, there hasn't been a gay role in sight for the male lead category (although we did see Annette Bening as a successful doctor who happened to be lesbian Glenn Close as a butler who lived her life as a man and if it's even worth mentioning, Natalie Portman's Black Swan for that one scene that I'm sure lives on in the minds of young men and otherwise everywhere) and this year's race will be no different. Also, please note that Hoffman, the departed Ledger, Penn, and Firth are all straight. In that space of four years, gay-for-pay was good (for men) at the AMPAS. And, a year after that, Colin Firth played A Single Man, but would end up winning a year later for The King's Speech (trading Oscars with Jeff Bridges). Three years later, Sean Penn won for Milk. Philip Seymour Hoffman ended up taking Oscar home for Capote over Heath Ledger's Brokeback Mountain. In 2005, we had two actors duke it for Best Actor who were both playing gay characters.