Taking the AP Headline "Artist Robert Rauschenberg Dead at 82" and prefacing it with the word "Gay",
Advocate* paid tribute to the influential pre-pop visionary by unceremoniously -- and inaccurately--
outing him.
The problem? Throughout his life Rauschenberg actively avoided being called "gay" or "homosexual", preferring, when pressed to describe himself as "pansexual". When Rauschenberg's "Combines" show came to L.A. in 2007, I ran a story by art historian Bill Picture called "
Why Won't Robert Rauschenberg Come Out?" that covered the issue.
In the article, Picture wrote "according to [Harvey Milk Institute founder Jonathan] Katz, Rauschenberg doesn't identify as a gay man. "He considers himself pansexual," Katz explains. "You have to remember, though, that while we think of the term 'gay' today as a political identity
as well as a sexual one, during the 1950s [when the Combines series was created]
homosexuality was a pathology." Regarding the standing decision of curators and art historians to skirt the gay issue, Katz believes it has to do with more than just appeasing conservative museum-goers. "I think they're [also] opposed to the idea that there can be any kind of code that will unlock these works".
None of this was in the
Advocate piece, which was printed verbatim from the wires except for the addition of the word "Gay" to the headline. What's the big deal, right? Even if Rauschenberg isn't totally gay, he's
pretty gay. Obviously, I think a story about Rauschenberg in a gay publication is appropriate, but to tack on the label "gay" to someone on their death, when in life that person had a much more nuanced view of their sexuality is shoddy journalism.
That
Advocate makes the claim without bothering to elaborate is just frustrating in its mindless reductionism. Would they print "Eleanor Roosevelt, Gay First Lady, Dead" or "Leonard Bernstein, Gay Composer, Dead"? It would seem so. While both figures are certainly worth talking about in a gay historical context, calling them gay and leaving it at that would be irresponsible. Same goes for Rauschenberg. If you're going to eulogize someone who's sexuality is not cut and dry, you at least owe it to your readers to report on it. The utter laziness in throwing "Gay" onto an AP headline and leaving it at that is infuriating. That it's coming from a gay publication is mind-boggling.
*Full disclosure: I write for
Advocate from time to time.
Labels: gay, politics, visual art
