There is a conspiracy theory that has been making the rounds on the net for quite some time now. In it, the actor Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Dominic Monaghan (Merry) are a gay couple that have been together since the filming of The Lord of the Rings. And they want to come out...but contracts and a whole lot of money at stake are keeping them in. So what do they do? Start testing the waters by infiltrating a gay gossip site called Data Lounge. Test the waters. Get media attention brought to them so they can out themselves as smoothly as possible and not get in trouble. Going on for some time now, the saga is up to thread 14 and shows no sign of slowing down. There are cryptic posts, shoutouts through clothing, PR beardings, interviews, sheep, photographs, insiders and trolls. And the strangest thing of all is that some of the proof is strangely compelling. Examples of all this and the "proofs" can be found here.

So after looking at many of the "facts", do you think it possible that two young actors might be trying to test the waters to come out in a novel fashion? And more importantly this all raises the question; do you think mainstream America (and the world in general) is ready to accept young openly gay men in cinema as leading men? Or is it career suicide?
posted by Windigo on Feb 4, 2003 - 54 comments