Queer Elder Roy Cohn
Go off Roy, yaaas - boots the haus down Communists
I read an interview with Jeremy Strong (Kendall Roy in Succession), talking about how he believed that arguments against him playing a gay man in his latest film were ‘valid’. It caught my eye, because it’s an important discussion to have - the levels of authenticity that straight actors can bring to such a role is debatable, and how there is still a preference in the industry for studios to hire straight actors to play the majority of LGBTQ roles (which I think is ultimately because people love to see a ‘transformation’) is a massive problem. It’s great that he’s at least acknowledging his awareness of such an issue, I thought. It’s nice that, even though he has chosen to take on the role, it’s something that has penetrated his consciousness and he will be sensitive to going forward, I thought. Then I read who the ‘gay man’ he was playing was - Roy Cohn. Roy Fucking Cohn. Roy Marcus McCarthyism Donald Trump Lawyer Cohn. Arguably one of the most toxic, deranged, anti-lgbt, Reaganite, fascist cocksuckers to walk to the earth. Hold on, we’re considering Roy Cohn an official member of the LGBTQIA community now? I guess I didn’t get the fax through. I missed the phone call. I’ll fire my assistant.
I’m fine with Jeremy Strong portraying Roy Cohn. Strong has a good reputation for reliably portraying deluded corporate loons, and Roy Cohn fits that description far better than he ever did ‘gay man’. Yes, Roy Cohn died of aids. Yes, he contracted it through having sex with men. But Roy Cohn was no ‘gay man’. I’d like to point you in the direction of the play ‘Angels in America’ for proof, but we don’t have 6 hours. Instead, here’s a quote from everyone’s favourite puffy MAGA freak (and Cohn associate) Roger Stone:
“Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access.”
The thing I like most about the times we live in now, is that self-identification and autonomy are staples of the modern LGBT movement. We define, and make ourselves. That is powerful. Roy Cohn didn’t consider himself a ‘gay man’ so why should we consider him one? Do homosexual experiences / actions define you? Do they cement you forever into a category you didn’t choose? That sounds sort of regressive to me.
Here’s my grandfather, Al Pacino, as Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries version of Angels in America (based on the play written by Tony Kuschner) which, if you haven’t seen, you are not gay.
“AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that… like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anit-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout.”
I have a simple outlook on this, which is - if someone hates the gay community, and doesn’t want to be a part of it, and actively damages it - then they can’t come in. Sorry, you’re not in the club. There has to be a line somewhere, and for me - that’s it. Someone like Roy Cohn is fair game for ‘inauthentic portrayals by a straight actor’ and he’s fair game for being burned in effigy at a fireworks night bonfire. I want to see this new film ‘The Apprentice’ starring Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, and I want to laugh at it and I want it to be goofy and camp and a celebration of the fact that a bad man is no longer around to have any say about how bad he’s made to look on the big screen.
Let straight actors have these roles. Let us have the actual members of our community who deserve to be represented well and sensitively.
And when they make the inevitable Caitlyn Jenner biopic, let her be played by a snarling jackal, or some kind of hideous reptile or a stretched out balloon over a mannequins head spun around on an office chair - because that is all someone like her, or Roy deserves.
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