Sexuality is a spectrum—and according to Darren Criss, culture can be as well. While appearing at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), Criss, who identifies as straight and cisgendered, described himself as “culturally queer,” causing some on the internet to raise their eyebrows and others to celebrate his appreciation for queer culture.
Criss launched into this topic after fielding a question about playing out and proud Blaine Anderson, boyfriend to Chris Colfer‘s Kurt Hummel, on Glee—a groundbreaking queer teenage couple on primetime television. “It was fucking awesome,” said Criss. ”Nowadays, we just call it a relationship on TV. But to contextualize it, a gay relationship on mainstream Fox, that’s a pretty cool thing to be a part of.”
Criss went on to speak about the influence of queerness on his life. “I have been so culturally queer my whole life,” said Criss. “Not because I’m trying—you know, actually, I was gonna say, ‘not because I’m trying to be cool.’ But I’m gonna erase that, because I am trying to be cool. The things in my life that I have tried to emulate, learn from, and be inspired by are 100 percent queer as fuck.”
Cool or not, Criss has often played queer characters. After breaking through as teenage dream Blaine, he starred as title character in the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He later won an Emmy for playing the gay spree killer Andrew Cunanan in another Ryan Murphy series, American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. In fact, he’s played so many queer characters that in 2018, he vowed to stop taking queer roles from actors. “I want to make sure I won’t be another straight boy taking a gay man’s role,” said Criss at the time. He’s seemed to stick to that promise, most recently appearing as the nerdy and straight Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway opposite Evan Rachel Wood.
Criss attributed his appreciation for queer culture to growing up in San Francisco. “It was in queer communities that I’ve found people that I idolize, that I want to learn something from,” he said. “And I’d say that’s a gross generalization, that’s a lot of things and a lot of people. But I grew up in San Francisco in the ’90s. I watched men die. There was an awareness of the gay experience that was not a foreign concept to me. So, it was a narrative that I cared deeply about.”
“Culturally queer” is a label that could fairly be used for several things. Take Challengers, for instance—the way Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist ate churros and that head-scratcher of an ending notch it as a 5 on the Kinsey scale. Julie Jordan, the ingenue from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel? There’s a whole song about her queerness! A straight cis-gendered man who grew up in San Francisco? That… might not be a shining example of cultural queerness. But at the end of the day, Criss can identify however he wants—that’s the beauty of queerness.
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