TONYS -- NPH ratings?

[JoeKv99]

Aasjb: Could you give an example of Harris using "the caricature the Harold and Kumar writers came up with" during the Tony awards? Have you seen the Harold & Kumar movies? Seriously. I'd really like you to try to support that absolutely beyond stupid statement.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

What Joe said.

I never got the impression during the Tonys that NPH was implying he was drug-doing poosy-hound.

[JoeKv99]

And for the record, I never got a whiff of the "I'm better and more manly than you" stink everyone seems to think he's giving off. Maybe you were smelling Hugh Jackman?

[darquegk]

Harris's persona or schtick or whatever you want to call it is less a commentary on heteronormativity than it is on "celebrity" as it is interpreted in the twenty-first century. Everything about him, even down to his iconic association with wearing suits that he takes into every role or event he does, is designed to calculate two contrasting messages: "I'm an awesome and beloved celebrity and I know it," and "I'm just a regular, down-to-earth kind of guy." You're SUPPOSED to feel both alienated and welcomed at once.

Contrast this with people like Hugh Jackman and Darren Criss, who, regardless of their sexuality (both are self-confessed heterosexuals, but Jackman at least has been in fairly constant dispute) intentionally confound and play with gender and sexual-orientation roles.

[GavestonPS]

Gaveston. I'll be devil's advocate. Are you saying he's doing his "heterosexual poking" shtick AS he's hosting the Tonys? Hmmm...then that's worse. He can't host as NPH, he has to always be "on"?

Performing "the phony confidence of traditional masculinity" Isn't that usually called "straught acting"? But when it's done by someone who's out then it's OK?

I wish he had taken a year off, as well.

Playbilly, NPH does it tongue-in-cheek. So it isn't straight-acting, it's an exaggerated version of the sillier aspects of "straight-acting". It's satire and he's made a film and TV career for himself with it.

The point is people find it amusing. He took a minor role in a minor sitcom and not only made the show a hit, made himself the star (as any glance at advertising for MOTHER shows).

As for hosting as "himself", who does that except for Angela Lansbury? Johnny Carson built a persona and played it on TV for decades. You don't really think Billy Crystal is the persona he plays when he hosts the Oscars, do you?

But see the concert of COMPANY. That is NPH simply playing a heterosexual character. Very different.

[GavestonPS]

"Harris's persona or schtick or whatever you want to call it is less a commentary on heteronormativity than it is on "celebrity" as it is interpreted in the twenty-first century."

With respect, the phrase "heteronormativity" distorts my argument (unintentionally, I'm sure). What I said was that Harris satirizes the sillier aspects of male heterosexuality as public performance, i.e., the phrases and gestures that straight men use self-consciously for fear somebody might think they are gay. Heteronormativity is a much larger concept.

And what's brilliant about NPH's schtick (even if you're tired of it at the Tony Awards) is that our culture tends to think of "masculinity" as normal/natural while "gayness" is performance/fake. Harris quite adeptly puts the lie to that fiction, and does so in a way that gets hetero men to laugh at themselves.

Does he also mock our celebrity culture, including his own fame? Sure. And who better to do so than a child star now in his "renaissance" as an adult sitcom star?

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Playbilly]

I think you're giving him a lot of credit. It's a bit sad, if true. Living as a statement. "This isn't me, it's a persona I live to mock the masculine norm."

If what you say is true, I'd doubt he'd say it in public. So, we may never know.

Your comparison to Carson, or Jackman is off. There is a big difference to the typical host who appears as themselves. Your analogy for NPH's is more akin to someone like Pee Wee Herman or Charo whose public person IS the character. Again, I think he'd disagree that he's tweaking and not himself.

Maybe what you're saying is he's sort of the anti-Paul Lynde. A gay man projecting the stereotype. Except the masculine-male gay stereotype. The only difference between that and saying he's straight-acting is that he's opening gay and not acting? Again, seems like a lot of work.

But, who really cares? It's shtick. Either you like it or it annoys you.

Like Charo.

[GavestonPS]

No, playbilly, he didn't say it in those words, but when he was outed, he described his career as "court jester". I think NPH has a heightened sense of himself as an entertainer and I've described what I think he is doing. What he does in dramatic roles is quite different, of course.

And you're kidding yourself if you think Johnny Carson and Hugh Jackman didn't/don't have personae they invoked/invoke when they were/are "hosting" as "themselves."

[defyinggravity2]

thanks for all your opinions!