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We're not the first to be confounded that so many male actors on Broadway or even in your town's local community theatre are gay, when only about nine male actors in Hollywood will cop to the same. What is it about the stage that attracts the swishy, whereas only super-manly men appear on our multiplex screens?

Since that's one for the ages, let's move on to the issue of being gay in the movies -- both actually gay and fictionally gay. Since there are even fewer decent roles for gay men in film than there are for women, it's easy to slot such roles into a handful of categories. If you're casting a character who's gay and swarthy, you've got your Harvey Fierstein. If he's gay and dashing, Rupert Everett. If he's gay and old, Ian McKellen.

If he's way gay, you may have a problem. Because some (ostensibly) straight actors think it's funny to play incredibly over-the-top screaming queens. Remember Anthony Clark in The Rock? Shawn Wayans in Scary Movie and its sequel? Jason Alexander in Love! Valour! Compassion! This severely limits the professional options for actually gay actors who hover around the "fey" range of the homosexual spectrum (or HomoSpectrum, if you will). When a director is looking for verisimilitude in the casting of his effeminate supporting character, Michael Jeter is probably at the top of his list.

Michael Jeter plays good, old-fashioned sissies. He's short, and slight. He has a high-pitched voice. He throws like a girl. Because he's not only gay but also Southern, he tends to play folksy weirdos with names like Herman and Carson and Earl and Quincy and Sticks Varona and Toto and Dibble and Avron and Uncle Jude and L. Ron Bumquist and The Chicken Man. He works best in an ensemble cast where his slight stature sets him apart from the crowd. You know, in The Green Mile he's the little bitty convict. In The Boys Next Door, he's the little bitty mentally challenged group home resident. In Sister Act 2, he's the little bitty priest.

Though some will invoke the Baranski clause and claim that his Best Supporting Actor Emmy (for his role on Evening Shade) disqualifies him as a HITG! candidate. But...seriously? Who watched Evening Shade? It's not even his most memorable role; in this commentator's opinion, that would be "Homeless Cabaret Singer" in The Fisher King. Jeter appears in semi-drag -- in an ill-fitting sequined cocktail dress, but with his usual big, bushy red moustache -- and serenades Amanda Plummer with a spirited rendition of "Everything's Coming Up Videos." (And if you've seen the movie, I apologize, because now that song's going to be lodged in your head all day. "If you like porno, we're your connection, and everything's coming up videos! Everything's coming up videos!") Sure, a straight, burly actor could play the role. But it wouldn't be the same. In his few scenes in The Fisher King, Jeter demonstrates precisely what a ninety-eight-pound sissy in Hollywood does best: yodel like Ethel Merman. God bless him.