 SOAPBOX - ALAN CUMMING Gets The Last Word
With a self-named line of beauty products and his participation in an anti-circumcision organization, Alan Cumming is “for skin” in more ways than one.
I love the concept of taking a classic like The Wizard of Oz and revamping it a bit, which is one reason why I did the Sci Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man. I just loved my character of Glitch, this story’s version of the Scarecrow. It’s great to play someone dopey who gradually realizes he’s a bit more clever than he thinks he is. It’s nice to inhabit a classic, but it’s a bit nerve-wracking, too.
Whenever you play a character like that, when it’s a re-imagining of a story that a lot of people have very fond memories of, you’re afraid you’re going to let them down. Like when I played Nightcrawler in X-Men 2, there’s the added pressure that you’re going to let people down who have preconceived notions about the character. So for Tin Man I tried to inject some of the physicality of Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow into my Glitch. We must have done something right. Tin Man ended up being the most-viewed telecast in the history of the Sci Fi Channel and 2007’s most-watched U.S. cable miniseries!
Certainly The Wizard of Oz resonates strongly with gays. Most gay people have some sort of time when they’re in the closet or they’re not as out as they’d like to be. They imagine that in the future everything’s going to be better and easier. The Wizard of Oz is about characters who are all on a quest to find something about themselves, and they imagine that when they get there, everything’s going to be all right. But they learn the journey is more important than the destination. I believe the idea that everything you need to make you happy is right inside of you—you have to find out about yourself. It’s all about self-empowerment.
Gays today certainly hope for a better life “down the road.” The civil rights struggle in this country is not over because there’s still a large segment of the population that is not treated with the same dignity and respect as everyone else.
America is run right now by a right-wing religious nutcase. You can’t expect civil rights issues to be addressed when the people in power think we’re sinners and should all be sent to hell. You have a leader who thinks gay people are second-class citizens and should not have the same rights. That’s a huge message to be sending out to voters. We listen to our leaders to give us our opinions, and that’s probably why America is such a backward country right now.
Tweaking conservative attitudes was partly why I developed my Cumming fragrance products. With a name like mine, people didn’t know if we were being serious or not. I love the fact that we could do this whole campaign taking a piss at celebrities selling things and also at sexuality. For example, the body lotion is called Cumming All Over and the soap is Cumming In A Bar. We just won Best Celebrity Fragrance from the First Annual Beauty News And Sniffapalooza Best Scent Awards. And 20 percent of the sales at cummingthefragrance.com go to Empire State Pride Agenda.
I’ve become involved with NORM, the National Organization of Restoring Men, a group dedicated to foreskin health and matters involving circumcision—which I think is genital mutilation. Practically millions of boys, a couple of days after they’re born, are genitally mutilated in this country, and nobody bats an eye. When it’s girls in other countries we’re horrified and shocked. Like in Somalia and other parts of Africa, we’re all up in arms and doing petitions on the Internet.
When I came to America and showed off my penis to a range of people, the bulk of them had never seen a foreskin. I was shocked that every penis I saw was circumcised. People say, “Oh, we must do it because otherwise there’ll be jokes in the locker room if they have a foreskin.” I mean, for fuck’s sake, you’re mutilating an entire nation just so they won’t get jived in gym class?
There’s such shame and guilt attached to sexuality and sexual pleasure in America. I think the reason circumcision keeps going on has something to do with that—because circumcision denies sensation.
Maybe the manufacturers of lube and hand moisturizers are all behind it! They want to keep American boys buying moisturizer all the time so they can jack off. We were going to do a line of lubes for the product line, actually. One was going to be an oil-based called Cumming On Your Own, and one was going to be water-based, to be used with a condom, called Cumming Together. But it never came off…in more ways than one.
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Catch Alan in Tin Man, now out on DVD, and in The Seagull at New York’s Classic Stage Company through the end of the month.
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Instinct Online 
written by charles stokesjr on March 24, 2008
Gum on People of Instinct--you have what it takes--#1 gay magazine--where is the good stuff-Nude Guys--you have the pull==do it- where's your guts??You have the models--!!