James Franco Says ‘I’m A Little Gay’ In Interview
James Franco is known for his somewhat ambiguous sexuality. There has been a lot of speculation regarding whether Franco is a dude who likes chicks, a dude who likes dudes or just a dude who likes people. Even James Franco himself speculates about his sexual orientation. The star of The Interview and Milk once famously conducted an interview between his gay and straight selves, reports DotFourTwoNine. In that interview, straight James Franco has a serious heart to heart with gay James Franco in an attempt to get to the bottom of the actor, director, producer, writer, poet, professor, social media maven, and cultural provocateur’s questionable gayness. Or straightness.
In the end, the DotFourTwoNine interview conversation between the straight and gay James Franco was intended to be a continuation of the star’s open challenge of society’s preconceived concepts of human sexuality.
“There is a bit of overfocusing on my sexuality, both by the straight press and the gay press, and so the first question is why do they care? Well, because I’m a celebrity, so I guess they care who I’m having sex with. But if your definition of gay and straight is who I sleep with, then I guess you could say I’m a gay c—k tease. It’s where my allegiance lies, where my sensibilities lie, how I define myself. Yeah, I’m a little gay, and there’s a gay James.”
There you have it.
James Franco is “a little gay.”
How little, exactly?
According to the full article, published on Vulture, James Franco has said that he is gay in his art and straight in his life. When the interviewer asks Franco whether or not he’s also, at least sometimes, gay in his life, James says that he’s been referred to as a “kind of gay c–k tease” by some gay men. He agreed with that assessment.
The Vulture interview comes as James Franco continues to pursue a life in the art world, despite critical panning of his works, works that span everything from videos of dollhouses split in half to painting obese pets. Reviews of Franco’s artistic endeavors have been almost universally critical, with art critic Jerry Saltz calling James Franco’s works displayed at the Pace Gallery in New York “silly, self-obsessed, demi-drag re-creations,” adding that “at this point, George W. Bush is actually a better artist than James Franco.”
Saltz wasn’t the only art critic with negative things to say about Franco’s artwork. His wife, art critic Roberta Smith, wrote a New York Times article begging that “someone or something, make him stop.”
It was during an almost four-hour long conversation with Jerry Saltz, his so-vocal critic, in Los Angeles that James Franco told his side of the story, discussed his seemingly indefinable sexual orientation, and explained why he’s driven to continue with his artistry despite the criticism and hostility it sometimes garners.
In addition to (kind of) answering the nagging questions about his sexuality by saying that he’s “a little gay,” James Franco answered questions about his career as an artist. According to Jerry Saltz, the conversation was his first interview. Ever. When Franco pried a little further, Saltz responded that he never did interviews, but rather “only sit[s] back in his apartment and writes things about all of you [artists].”
According to James Franco, many of the critical responses to his art are due to the fact that people get “weird” when actors go into the art world. Saltz agreed that there is a prejudice against James Franco and other celebrity artists due to the “curse of fame.”
[Image Courtesy Of Handout/Getty Images]
