“Can straight men play gay characters?"

This question does the rounds every few months, usually after a queer actor has done a brilliant job at playing a queer character. Frustratingly, the online and media discourse often overshadows their wonderful work. It also emerges from its cave every time a straight or cis actor does a particularly rubbish job in a queer role. We have seen both of these happen in recent months, with the fantastic queer cast of It’s A Sin knocking it out of the park, and with James Cordon in The Prom doing, well, the opposite. The consensus emerges that being queer helps craft a performance of a queer character that is born out of a lived experience, generating a sort of authenticity that connects the audience or viewer to the story in a more human way. The critics then always emerge. Some do so cynically, some do so with a genuine desire to understand, and others with a deliberate obtuseness. They ask, “does that mean a gay actor can never play a straight man? Does that mean a trans actor can never play a cis role?” etc. etc. etc.

Russell T. Davies spoke on this question recently:

It’s like, there’s always a presumption behind this that it’s a level playing field, that it’s 50/50, that you’re casting say 50 straight actors against 50 gay actors, and actually you’re not. There’s 90 straight actors against 10 gay actors and then you look at the parts, and say for every 100 parts there’s like 97 straight parts against three gay parts, so you’ve got 10 gay actors up for three parts while every single straight person is up for every single part. It’s not a level playing field, it’s not a see-saw.

We can see the numbers don’t add up, it’s not an even playing field. But what really is going on when it comes to questions of representation and identity? What is the rule? Are actors only ever able to work with characters that align with their identity, and their experience? Or are there only specific circumstances where this makes sense, those who experience marginalisation for example?

I have been a huge fan of the notion of strategic essentialism (stick with me) from the post-colonial philosopher Giyatri Spivak (surprise). Essentialism is the idea that identities are fixed, and innate. Your identity is an essential part of you. You are born the way you are, you can’t change, and the categories we use to define identity are a reflection of what is inside. Words like woman, man, gay, cis, trans, these are names used to describe what was always in you, and that is something that never changes. Most people can immediately recognise that is not really the case, who we are is more complicated. Sexuality can of course change across a life, as can the way you recognise your gender identity. The way identities have been described and named across history have also changed. The way we present our identities shifts, even if you aren’t aware of it. The way sexuality is described is different in different countries and different periods of history for example. Identity isn’t really a fixed thing. Our experiences of our identities, and how they are represented to the world, also differ from person to person. When we use words like gay, or cis, we are crafting a sort of umbrella term. We are saying that broadly we have something in common, but if we sat and chatted about that, we would find a million differences between our experiences of that identity, and maybe find that we don’t have as much in common through that as we thought.

That said, naming an identity is useful. It helps us call for political change in groups. It lets us form communities. It lets us consider collective histories. It helps us articulate how we see ourselves and how we connect with each other. There is also the argument that the naming and performative elements of our identities are what continually reconstitute them. That does not mean they are not real, or can be readily undone, but that they come from our interactions with ourselves and others, rather than just being in our soul somewhere. It is about seeing identities as constructions. The house that I sit in right now is a construction. It was built by people. It is still real, I can touch it. The identities I sit in right now are also constructions. They have been built through social processes. They are still real, and perhaps unlike a building, not readily demolished.

When Spivak talks about strategic essentialism, she is broadly saying that to get anything done, we need to park those ideas that complicate identity for a while, and act as though they are essential, immutable parts of our souls. Yes, sexuality and gender are fluid, and a spectrum, but when marriage was illegal for anyone other than straight couples, we ignored that for a while and marched under the banner of men marrying men and women marrying women. There is always a loss exacted when we do this. Trans people were overlooked in that movement, as we acted as though gender is essential. In the fights for trans rights we also strategically take up essentialist positions, because those who oppose rights for marginalised communities nearly always hold essentialist perspectives - that is the language they speak. A government that oppresses trans people will not be interested in the idea that gender identities are socially constructed, and that the trans community represents an irreducibly complex grouping of brilliant people. The fight asks us to forgo that (the complex bit, not the brilliant people bit) for a second, and simply fight for trans people, as a group, a banner under which to march. There will again be a loss exacted, people who don’t fit under the banner, and yet still need one to march under.

And this is where we get with the queer characters and queer roles. What we’re not doing is making a permanent rule, that this must always be the way. Nor is it a rule that goes both ways. What we’re doing, is seeing a field that excludes queer people, and often tells queer stories in fairly rubbish ways. From this, we form a strategy, that says, let’s put queer creatives and actors in positions to tell these stories. Right now, from the context we stand in, that is the strategy we think is best. The ground we stand on will continue to shift, and at points that might not be the best strategy. In particular, we should continually look to undo the losses exacted by forming a strategy, so strategy changes. What we recognise, is that we sit with a perspective of complexity when we think about who we are, and our relationships with each other and the world. Those who argue against that, “so gay men can’t play straight roles”, are instead speaking the language of essentialism. And so, we must deconstruct their positions, interrogate the complexity, and allow our own strategies to shift too. The contradiction between strategy and complex contexts will never fade, but maybe our next strategy should be to interrupt the language of essentialism. Maybe the strategic use of essentialism just won’t cut it anymore. Or maybe, it’s just what we need when we only have 240 characters to reply. The important thing, is to stay attentive to the strategy you use.