"There are some people that the press like to pick on and not just the gay press, but the press in general. And some people, the press just doesn't care about at all"
About this Quote
Lane is naming a brutal newsroom truth that still gets dressed up as “public interest”: attention is not distributed by merit, it’s allocated by narrative. The line is deceptively plain, but it carries an actor’s timing - the pause after “not just the gay press” widens the target from niche community scrutiny to the whole media ecosystem, then lands on the real indictment: indifference can be as punitive as harassment.
The intent is less to complain than to map the mechanics of visibility. “Pick on” evokes schoolyard cruelty, framing press coverage as a social hierarchy where certain figures become safe sport. In Lane’s world - a gay performer who came up in eras when being out could be a career calculation - the subtext is about who gets turned into a symbol. Some celebrities are treated as cultural battlegrounds: their bodies, relationships, and “representativeness” become click-ready proxy fights. Others float through unbothered, protected by irrelevance or by the press deciding their story can’t be monetized.
The context matters: Lane’s career spans tabloid peaks, the AIDS crisis years, the coming-out politics of the ’90s, and today’s algorithmic outrage economy. His point anticipates the current attention market, where “coverage” is a form of power that can either erase you (the press doesn’t care) or trap you in a role you never auditioned for (the press picks on you). It works because it refuses a comforting binary of good press vs. bad press; Lane draws the scarier map: who gets targeted, who gets ignored, and who gets to be left human.
The intent is less to complain than to map the mechanics of visibility. “Pick on” evokes schoolyard cruelty, framing press coverage as a social hierarchy where certain figures become safe sport. In Lane’s world - a gay performer who came up in eras when being out could be a career calculation - the subtext is about who gets turned into a symbol. Some celebrities are treated as cultural battlegrounds: their bodies, relationships, and “representativeness” become click-ready proxy fights. Others float through unbothered, protected by irrelevance or by the press deciding their story can’t be monetized.
The context matters: Lane’s career spans tabloid peaks, the AIDS crisis years, the coming-out politics of the ’90s, and today’s algorithmic outrage economy. His point anticipates the current attention market, where “coverage” is a form of power that can either erase you (the press doesn’t care) or trap you in a role you never auditioned for (the press picks on you). It works because it refuses a comforting binary of good press vs. bad press; Lane draws the scarier map: who gets targeted, who gets ignored, and who gets to be left human.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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