By Mark Marchillo Odd Man Out
Theo is a big Hollywood producer. His boyfriend? A young 21-year-old heart patterer named Kevin. Anybody would like to land Kevin. And I mean, anybody. But of course, not just anybody does — a 43-year-old million dollar blockbuster does. An E! True Hollywood Story, my friends. It’s the DVD on every gay man’s shelf in L.A.
Money = Success = boy toy. Not necessarily in that order. You can interchange the money and success as you like. All in all, that’s how the pages turn. You may think, uh-huh. Heard it. ‘Nuff said. But that’s just the beginning of the tall tales of The Pink Mafia here in Hollywoodland. Oh, and FYI … Pink Mafia = gay + powerful.
Theo and Kevin have been together for almost three years. Lucky, yes. Happy, sure. Content, never! The conversation at East West: “Theo’s just biding his time until he breaks up with Kevin,” another Pink Mafia colleague notes. To which Theo promptly exclaims, “I’m not biding my time!”
“Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life with this guy?”
Shock and an all too quick reply explode out of Theo,“The rest of my life? Of course not!”
Of course not? Theo has a guy most of us would kill to be with. Now, granted, who knows what the kid is like behind the safe parameters of the mansion walls — or between the silk sheets. But one thing looms for me … why on Earth would you spend three years with someone you have no intention of living happily ever after with?
Ahh, yes. The Pink Mafia and their boy toys. Living in relationships of shallow sex and twinked-out eye candy. Surely there’s nothing wrong with this gay old cliché. Afterall, hot will always be in, and if you’ve got it, flaunt it! But what about truth, honor and true love? I know romance is dead and all, but this is the 21st century. Gay men, who can typically act very romantically at times, seem to throw boys away like wrapping paper. But what happens when we’ve opened all our presents and wind up 50 and alone, reduced to buying love from the-younger-the-better?
Perhaps it is that age-old problem of Old Age. Hollywooders being so convinced that keeping youth in the trophy case makes them appear younger to everyone else. Or to themselves. Maybe it’s that we’ve made a choice never to settle. Never settle down, that is. Hey, we’re guys. Who needs the long term when we’ve got Abercrombie in bed? Afterall, when you’re gay, college never ends.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 9, 2007. Read the original PDF.