It’s rare for “American Idol” to make news anymore. I used to watch it regularly, even after it stopped being a watercooler talking point and we no longer had office pools with everyone selecting a different contestant to back. (Did anyone ever bet on Sanjaya?) I’d probably tune in a little this season, background fodder as I clean the kitchen or work my way through the Sunday New York Times crossword, but my 55” flatscreen leapt off my living room hutch back in July and could not be resuscitated. Maybe it fretted I’d start watching some incarnation of “Real Housewives” or discover “Wings” in syndication. (I haven’t ogled Tim Daly in ages.) I can’t seem to watch American networks on my laptop and I feel no sense of urgency to get another TV. (I took my flatlined flatscreen to an electronics recycling depot, but I still shake my head over all the plastic and whatnot that goes into those monstrosities.) Has the television gone the way of the VCR and the answering machine?
“American Idol” gained some attention over a week ago when Katy Perry broke down and ranted about the insanity of school shootings in the U.S. after one country singer trying out mentioned living through a shooting in Santa Fe, Texas—May 18, 2018; ten dead. How many of us had forgotten. They blur together. Insanity, indeed. I’m sure her diatribe wasn’t welcome in the living rooms of country music fans who seem to have stuck with the show in disproportionate numbers, but all the better. As incalcitrant as so many Americans are about their beloved right to bear arms, there need to be new forums for trying to shake them up.
But I stumbled on another moment from that week’s show, thanks to a filler article on Yahoo. It related to another male country singer hoping for a gold ticket to Hollywood. His name: Jon Wayne Hatfield, to which “Idol” judge Luke Bryan responded, “There’s no doubt, you’re from the country.” He’d traveled from Goshen, Ohio (population 652), arriving with his guitar and his own sad story, both essential items to get TV time during tryouts. The singer stated he’d been raised by his grandparents and, after his grandmother died, his grandfather, who’d “lost his best friend of fifty years,” shut out the world, including his grandson for a year and a half. Being a man of an older generation, it seems he internalized his grief.
I was unfazed. “American Idol” has done deceased grannies to death. But there was more. Presumably primed by producers, Katy Perry told Jon Wayne to bring his grandfather in for the audition and in walked a thin man with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, a tattoo showing on one hand, dressed smartly in jeans, a jean jacket and a simple gray fitted t-shirt.
The grandparents met when Ray was sixteen. He explains, cryptically enough to add television drama, “I told her about myself and she said, ‘I love you’ and that ‘It’s okay.’” Cue role reversal, with separate clips of grandfather and grandson: Ray comes out as gay; Jon says it doesn’t change a damn thing. Back to Ray: “It’s a big relief to stand here and be proud and and say I’m gay and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
As a cynic, which I often am, I might shrug and note how I’ve heard hundreds of coming out stories in my life. “Idol” aimed to draw viewers in, to get them to choke up. Mighty me, prone to crying over elephant documentaries and a certain version of a particular Joni Mitchell song—yes, cynics have an Achilles’ heel—did not tear up. Nontheless, I realized the moment was still important, for general viewers, especially those in red states where gays might be less inclined to make their presence known, for obvious reasons. Here, invading their living rooms, was a smiley, sweet soul, a man’s man who, like the odd cowboy, could get weepy…about his journey and about his love for his grandson. In spaces where the word gay is never spoken unless as with disparaging, mocking twist, a bit of sympathetic queer content got through the barricades, the word broadcast not once but twice in the segment. (Here's the full "Idol" clip.)
I suppose a Republican-run state legislature that’s already checked off banning drag queen story times and gender-ambiguous restrooms will take the lead in drafting something to strengthen television content warnings. “The following program makes gays seem all right or contains woke crap. Viewer discretion is advised.” Perhaps a dude stormed out of the family den or grabbed the remote—presumably he’s the commander-in-chief of that contraption—and switched stations to basketball highlights which is, sadly, all there is in the low season when there isn’t any baseball or football. Figure skating and “sports” with ski jackets don’t count. “American Idol” may have lost a viewing family, for the week or forever, but the kids still saw and heard a gay grandfather and heard a straight grandson say it’s all okay. Well done, ABC!
Let me pause to repeat Ray’s words again: “I’m gay and there’s nothing wrong with it.” High fives, fingers snaps, back slaps and all that. By gosh, I’d almost forgotten that Katy Perry’s breakthrough song was “I Kissed a Girl.”
I can’t help but brush my cynicism aside and feel for Ray. The man is still adjusting. His speech is as much for himself as for anyone else. He’s building himself up after a lifetime of hearing people disparage gays.
For the record, I'm partial to
Steven #1 (left).
Just like every person who has had to come out as something on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, I clearly recall the pain, self-hate and angst within me while I kept a major part of my identity secret, fearing rejection and revulsion from people who mattered to me. For the most part, that dark chapter ended in my twenties as dramatic reveals became, if not old hat, safer as I’d by then connected with gay and lesbian friends and found varying levels of support from straight people who, if they didn’t suddenly share Bronski Beat mix tapes and ask me which actor I thought was the better Steven Carrington on “Dynasty,” still seemed content to join me for dinner at Chili’s or to play tennis. Gay was okay, even if it didn’t come up much in conversation.
Breathe now, Ray. The man delayed this coming out process for half a century. I’m not going to speculate about his marriage or gay dalliances—isn’t that a lovely word?—but there’s no doubt being some degree of closeted weighed on him. There’s a degree of guardedness that comes when you’re not out. Letting people in risks having them intuit what you’re working so hard to deny, cover or ignore. Going on national television, his story used by producers in an attempt to get people to talk about a show regarded as passé, is quite a way to finally come out, once and for all.
It’s done now, Ray. No more secrets.
May this man now lead a fuller life. He can’t make up for lost time—those decades are gone—but let him live out his years feeling free, no longer worried about what a relative or neighbor might think.
If it matters, which to me it really doesn’t, Jon Wayne Hatfield, done grandpa proud. He sang and strummed proficiently to a tune he penned himself, “Tell Me, Ray.” Good enough for a ticket to Hollywood.
Tell it all, Ray. Only maybe just to your grandson and people who care about you. Your moment as a public service announcement is behind you.
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