{"id":95121,"date":"2026-05-31T22:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=95121"},"modified":"2026-05-31T22:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T05:29:02","slug":"rami-malek-plays-gay-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/05\/31\/rami-malek-plays-gay-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Rami Malek Plays Gay Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s Ask Billy<\/em><\/strong> question comes from Jeremy <\/strong>in Arizona.  \u201cYou mentioned the <\/em>Cannes Film Festival recently.  I heard Rami Malek <\/strong>was a big hit playing someone with AIDS.  And there was also controversy.  What do you know about it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The film The Man I Love<\/em><\/strong> is about a performance artist in 1980s New York who gets HIV.  When offered the leading role, Malek expressed concern about playing another singer with AIDS since he had already won the Oscar <\/em><\/strong>for playing Freddie Mercury<\/strong>.  \u201cWhen I read the script, I said, \u2018I can\u2019t do this, there\u2019s too many similarities.  It could be problematic.\u2019\u201d  But that didn\u2019t completely deter him.  \u201cThere was a certain sense of fear.  And I started to really think about what I was afraid of.  Was it the similarities?  Was it the singing?  Was it obviously what was going on in the period?  And the fear was, I knew I had to address the fear.\u201d   While he\u2019s been applauded for his portrayal, members of the gay community are not quite so thrilled.  Johnny Sibilly <\/strong>from Hacks<\/em><\/strong> posted this: \u201cI\u2019m sorry if this sounds bitchy but something will never sit right in my spirit about straight actors playing gay men dying of aids.\u201d  Wilson Cruz <\/strong>saw this headline: \u201cRami Malek feared once again playing a gay singer with AIDS\u201d.  He responded, \u201cSome of us would have been HONORED to bring our history ALIVE, because it\u2019s OURS.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When I\u2019m not sharing my two cents on a subject, it\u2019s time for me to end yet another column.  I\u2019ll only point out that sometimes it takes an Oscar<\/em> winner to get a film made.  Now let\u2019s get back to the important issue \u2013 what was that boom in Boston?  It was…a meteor!  According to reports, when a meteor passes through the atmosphere, it breaks up and creates a sonic boom.  Perhaps, but I still need Stevie to weigh in.  While waiting, I\u2019ll be updating BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 the site that\u2019s being written from inside a bad Ben Affleck <\/strong>movie (as if there\u2019s any other kind).  If you have an opinion or a comment, send it to Billy@BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong> and I promise to get back to you before Pintauro reunites with Milano<\/strong>!  So, until next time, remember, one man\u2019s filth is another man\u2019s bible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s Ask Billy question comes from Jeremy in Arizona.  \u201cYou mentioned the Cannes Film Festival recently.  I heard Rami Malek was a big hit playing someone with AIDS.  And there was also controversy.  What do you know about it?\u201d The film The Man I Love is about a performance artist in 1980s New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95122,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95121\/revisions\/95122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}