Photo: Courtesy Universal Pictures.
It's like, whatever, man. Recently speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Michelle Rodriguez has nonchalantly dropped the fact that she's bisexual. "I've gone both ways. I do as I please," she said. "Men are intriguing. So are chicks." She says she's been typecast as "butchy girl," and that the media simply assumes she's a lesbian. "Eh, they're not too far off," she admitted. Well, that's that then.
Except, it's a clear divergence from what Rodriguez has previously insisted, in perhaps the most horrifying way possible, that she is not attracted to women: "I'm not a lesbian....yeah. Michi likes sausage." (Well, there goes Oktoberfest.)
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But, is this really a scandal? Absolutely not. The actress is so blasé about the matter that she relates it all through the lens of her...vagina. "I don't talk about what I do with my vagina, and they're all intrigued," she tells EW, referring to mass media. "I've never walked the carpet with anyone, so they wonder: What does she go with her vagina? [sic]"
So, are we seeing a casual coming-out trend? Perhaps. Let's assume it started with Zachary Quinto, when he cooly dropped his sexuality in an embedded clause, "As a gay man, [Angels in America] made me feel like there’s still so much work to be done, and there’s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed," he told New York magazine in 2011. Wentworth Miller employed a similar tactic this year when he declined an invitation to Russia, due to its repressive attitudes toward homosexuals. Even more casual? WWE wrestler Darren Young came out to reporters while hanging around baggage claim. "Look at me," he said. "I'm a WWE superstar and to be honest with you, I'll tell you right now, I'm gay. And I'm happy. I'm very happy."
But, we're not going to include Anderson Cooper on this list, or even Jodie Foster and her recent Golden Globes speech. Sure, Foster mentioned her orientation as she spoke, but the whole affair was literally broadcast live from a stage in Hollywood. Those examples represent the fanfare-heavy, "I'm here and I'm queer" style of busting down the closet door that, while significant to the evolving status of LGBT culture, gives credence to a bogus but now-standard script for Americans who identify as queer — that there needs to be this loud occasion in which gays trade in their heterosexual shells for flamboyant new ones, because they were born this way, baby. Sorry, but we don't agree.
John Waters, patron saint of misfit gays, might side with us. Check out this interview with the Pink Flamingos director who scoffs at the very notion of coming out as "square":