[OutVoice] Jade mention in the LA Times

[TheChorusBoy at aol.com]

Los  Angeles Times 
CLAY AIKEN SAID ‘YES’ INSTEAD OF ‘YEP’:  GAY PRIDE IN CELEB-SPEAK 
By CHRIS LEE 
September 24, 2008 
Read it online: 
_http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/soundboard/2008/09/yep-or-yes-gay.html_ 
(http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/soundboard/2008/09/yep-or-yes-gay.html)  
When “American Idol” * runner-up Clay  Aiken decided to come out of the 
closet this week, announcing his homosexuality  in the latest issue of People 
magazine, celebrity watchers and etymologists  alike sat up and took notice -– but 
for vastly different  reasons. 
Dogged by rumors since entering the  public consciousness in 2003, Aiken 
confirmed widely held suspicions regarding  his sexual orientation in an interview 
with the magazine. Its cover features a  photo of the fleet-voiced, elf-like 
singer hugging his newborn son accompanied  by the headline: “Yes, I’m gay.” 
Crystallizing the general reaction from  the celebrity press, a blog post 
yesterday from the self-declared “Queen of all  media” Perez Hilton blares “
Finally!!!!!” 
But for word lovers, close readers and  celebrity obsessives, the “Yes, I’m 
gay” headline exists as a subtle tweak on  the way mainstream media has 
historically handled celebrity  self-outing. 
In 1997, comedian Ellen DeGeneres  similarly came out by appearing on the 
cover of Time magazine. Her headline:  “Yep, I’m gay.” The magazine was 
presumably quoting DeGeneres, then a sitcom  star. Nonetheless, such a subtle 
gradation of language sounds downright folksy  contrasted against Aiken’s highly 
starched “Yes, I’m gay.” (That year “Yep, I’m  gay” began to appear on keychains 
and was memorialized in a song by Jade  Esteban Estrada.) 
The headline accompanying sitcom star  Neil Patrick Harris’ self-outing 
article in People in 2006 was comparatively  verbose: “I am a very content gay man.”
 
But for former N’Sync member Lance Bass,  who revealed his sexual orientation 
on the cover of People in 2006, less is  apparently more. Unlike Aiken, 
Harris and DeGeneres, his headline dispensed with  any sort of qualifiers or 
subtle, conversational cues and cut directly to the  chase, flatly declaring: “I’m 
gay.” 
www.getjaded.com



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