Is Adam Lambert The Victim Of A Double Standard?
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
entertainment, video
8:00AM, Wednesday November 25th 2009
As we mentioned yesterday, after his AMA performance in which he kissed a guy and simulated oral sex, Adam Lambert‘s performance on “Good Morning America” this morning was swiftly canceled. Instead, Lambert was interviewed on the CBS morning show, “The Early Show” (who scooped him up to perform after ABC gave him the boot) where he talked about the “double whammy” of being a gay man in show business. Lambert said that with his “background in theater,” he just got “carried away” with his sexually-explicit performance, but he didn’t feel he owed anyone an apology. “I’m a performer, not a babysitter,” Lambert said as he explained it was never his intention to offend anyone.
Lambert feels the backlash he’s getting now isn’t so much about pushing the boundaries of live television — after all, we’ve seen plenty of women and straight men push boundaries — it’s that he dared to be explicit as a gay man. “If it had been a female performer doing those things up on the stage I don’t think there would be nearly as much outrage,” he said, pointing out that Eminem bragged of 17 rapes in the song he performed at the awards show, and that Janet Jackson grabbed the crotch of one of her dancers, both of which no one seems to be talking about. So, what do you guys think? Is there a double- standard? Are people upset by Lambert’s performance simply because he’s a gay man?
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bre
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 09:32 am: [report]
I understand why they blurred the “simulated oral sex” but does anyone know why they had to blur out the kiss? I am pretty sure that daytime tv has many make out scenes etc. Seems pretty homophobic to me.
cali_candy
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 10:14 am: [report]
I tend to agree with Adam…I was watching the interview this morning and CBS blurred out the part where he kissed the guy as well as the fellatio part, then immediately after that (or maybe just prior, but it was definitely in the same segment) they showed the Britney/Madonna/Christina kiss WITHOUT the censor. Both clips showed same-sex shmooches but why censor only the male one? The fellatio thing may have been going too far but ABC has been showing lots of straight couples in bed lately on their shows which air way earlier that Adam’s segment aired. I specifically remember a scene from Flashforward with Dominic Monaghan and some chick in missionary position for what seemed like 20 minutes.
peacock
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 10:28 am: [report]
Seriously? The “double whammy” of being a gay man in show business? Don’t people stereotypically associate gay men with show business?
bogart4017
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 10:43 am: [report]
Of course he was. But so what. Women have been living under double standards since the beginning of time. Man up while you still have at least 12 minutes left.
dizzy
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 11:12 am: [report]
Does he naturally have orange skin? His makeup always looks weird to me.
Also @cali_candy: David Bowie did guitar fellatio back in the 70s, and I bet it wasn’t blurred out. I think the reason people flipped over this is that fake gay is okay, but real gay is not okay. Straight girls are allowed to kiss on TV and it’s hot, but guys actually being gay is not okay.
spatula
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 11:17 am: [report]
I TOTALLY agree with the “performer not a babysitter” thing. I absolutely hate it when people attack celebs for not being a ‘good role model’. These people don’t OWE you or your children anything, it’s up to you (parents) to censor/monitor what they have access to.
OK I’m done.
dizzy
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 11:21 am: [report]
@spatula: This reminds me of “This Film is Not Yet Rated”. Movies with ANY gay scenes are usually rated R or even NC-17. Yet you show straight simulated sex without any problems at all, it happens all the time even on family channels. It isn’t that his performance was sexually explicit, it is that it was gay. And it is okay for kids to see something explicit that is straight, but heaven forbid you teach your kids to be gay.
MarieMacCee
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 11:49 am: [report]
@Dizzy
My mom said the same thing when I pointed out that Brit/Madge/X-Tina did the exact same thing: “They’re not actually gay women, so it didn’t bother people as much.” Shouldn’t it bother people more? Mimicking a sexual orientation to simply get noticed when other people really live it?
@Spatula
SO RIGHT! If you market yourself as a child entertainer, then by all means strip your show of dildo props. I get that it was on ABC and a ‘family-friendly’ show so yes, performers should be held to the standard of that show they’re on, but in general they can do whatever the hell they want and if we don’t like it, we don’t have to watch it as long as its the proper venue.
happypants
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 02:41 pm: [report]
Sure, it’s a double standard. What confuses me is how people were outraged by all the sexual stuff, yet managed to look past the fact that it was a ridiculously awful performance. There’s the real travesty!
ChoJinn
wrote on November 25 2009 @ 05:36 pm: [report]
As if he is genuinely concerned. I am quite sure his agent/manager/promoter new he’d take some heat for it. And no, celebrities cannot simply wash their hands of the responsibility they have to the idiots of the population - about 25%, and when you factor in people who were spending their lives watching the AMA, 99% - with trite phrases.
While I personally could not care what goes in and out of Bad Skin Lambert’s orifices, he cannot presume the general population would find the performance acceptable.