"glass closet"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

noticed in the 4/24/07 Advocate (p. 3):
   AMERICAN IDOL Is there a glass closet for openly gay contestants?

and then it's the cover story in the new Out magazine.

Michael Musto in Out magazine, May 2007
   http://www.out.com/detail.asp?id=22392

By all reports, Jodie [Foster] lives an out life—within serious limits
—while cagily avoiding any on-the-record revelations, a delicate
dance that’s difficult to pull off—but not nearly so much so as
double-bolting the door and living a total lie. Jodie, it turns out,
is one of the foremost residents of a glass closet—that complex but
popular contraption that allows public figures to avoid the career
repercussions of any personal disclosure while living their lives
with a certain degree of integrity. Such a device enables the public
to see right in while not allowing them to actually open the latch
unless the celebrity eventually decides to do so herself.

[Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet (1992) is widely
credited as the vector of spread for the expression.

tens of thousands of hits.  not in our archives, as far as i can see.]

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

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