Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)
Sept 17, 2002

Good work, fairies: it hasn't been easy for us in the Gay Mafia to dress up as straight people and drive to Denny's just to have a quiet place to plan Mike Ovitz's downfall.
Author/s: Bruce Vilanch

Will this meeting of the Gay Mafia please come to order? Thank you. As the minutes of the last meeting have been shredded, salted, and fed to the Fire Island blowfish, we will proceed to the treasurer's report. It seems that we are now the richest, most powerful entity in the history of show business, faster than a speeding rumor, more powerful than a search engine, able to leap tall tales at a single bound. We are holding up our end of the homosexual agenda ("World Domination by 2003"), and from a fiscal perspective, we have a mighty fist.

Now then, on to old business. Finishing off the career of Mike Ovitz. Good work, fairies. All committees have reported in, and it looks like the job was accomplished in record time. This just shows what can happen when a dedicated group of gay people, only two or three of whom are actually homosexual, put their heads together. It makes all this cloak-and-dagger stuff worthwhile.

I tell you, it hasn't been easy for many of us to dress up as straight people, drive to the Denny's in Glendale, and order the Kermit and Miss Piggy 25th anniversary special just so we could have a quiet, inobtrusive place to plan this man's downfall. Many's the night I know I have had to turn to my significant other and say, "Shane, or Rex, or whatever your name is, I can't stay home tonight and help you make your Shakira costume for the Hispanic Transgendered Pride Parade. I have to go visit a sick friend in Glendale." If your Shane is as clever as mine, he knows that people in Glendale don't stay sick forever. All right, maybe in Glendale they do, but you get my point.

We've all had hardships to endure. We've all wanted those Sunday morning Team O meetings to be over so we could watch George Stephanopoulos blather on about--whatever--on TV while we try to figure out exactly what shade of musky auburn his hair is this week. We've all suffered the ring of the phone just as Simon Cowell is about to paste some poor, unsuspecting chorus boy with a ripe Addison De Witt-worthy bon mot on American Idol. God knows how many circuit parties we've missed while feverishly passing notes to each other through the anorexic mannequins on the fourth floor of Barneys in Beverly Hills.

No one said it was going to be easy to run Hollywood, and if we can't completely control a provincial, parochial, and paranoid place like Hollywood, how can we expect to take charge of the world and make mincemeat of that cute Vladimir Putin, even if he is kind of short and looks a little like Ed Harris if he'd done time running the KGB? You knew the first time you tried on Mommy's high heels, the first time you played doctor with your dumb cousin, the first time you saw Batman slide down a pole with Robin--you knew it was going to be tough to finish this campaign. But we're in it for the long haul. And the jewelry.

So don't be dissuaded by our cover being blown. As Lee Strasberg said to Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II, "This is the business we have chosen, Michael." Or was that Tommy Mottola to Michael Jackson at the Soul Train Music Awards. No matter. Choice is the important thing.


We all chose to be here. Even the straight guys with kids. We chose to be Gay Mafia. We are made men. We give new meaning to the term rub you out. So let's get one thing clear. We're all in this Ya-Ya Brotherhood together. When a desperate individual clearly in distress starts publicly blaming us for his problems, let's take a bow! We're all about power, after all, and here is a guy giving us some! Don't run around town dispelling the myth. Bask in it. We've spent centuries being the victim. Suddenly we're the hunter. Doesn't it feel good? Pound your chest and bellow. If you don't know how, ask your personal trainer to show you.

We are strong, we are invincible, occasionally we are woman. Vanity Fair will learn that all they have done is to awaken a sleeping drag queen and fill her with a terrible resolve. And now, if there's no new business, I must leave the meeting. It's time for me to drive Liza's husband to the gynecologist for his lesson.