Portrait of a happy couple?

I've heard from a couple sources recently that Will Smith and Jada Pinkett are both gay, and are in a show business marriage (i.e., it's just for show). I might not have been inclined to believe it, since Smith doesn't set my gaydar off. But then I thought of all the pictures I've seen of the two of them together, where they are inevitably intertwined and expressing some sort of passion.

Here are Will and Jada on the red carpet, posing for the photographers by sticking their tongues down each others' throats. Or here they are at home, obviously impatient for the photographer to go away so they can jump into bed like the eager lovebirds they are. Or here they are in front of a restaurant, practically tearing each others' clothes off. And there they are dressed up in evening wear, so overwhelmed by the passion of the moment that they just have to make out like a pair of tenth graders. Hey you two -- get a room!

They're trying way, way too hard.

While looking for these pictures, I ran across this recent article, from a publication called IndiaReport:

"The secret to Will Smith's happy marriage revealed

 Los Angeles, Jada Pinkett Smith has revealed the secret ingredient to a happy married life and that is plenty of sex.

Jada who has been married to Hollywood superstar Will Smith for more than 12 years, said that the key to a happy marriage is to find time for intimate moments despite the hectic schedule, reported Ace showbiz.

'My husband and I always make time for sex! Always! No matter how busy we are. And if I told you the places! You would not even believe. It's crazy the risks that we take, but that's what keeps it so much fun,' gushed Jada.

The pair, who have two children, 11-year-old Jaden Smith and 9-year-old Willow Smith, are considered the ideal couple in Hollywood circles.

At a certain level they are ideal: Jada pretty clearly doesn't have to worry about Will seeing another woman, and Will doesn't have to worry about Jada being with another man. (Not that either of them would care.)

This article is reminiscent of Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's couch to demonstrate his love for Katie Holmes.

Newsflash: real wives don't talk like that, especially not after twelve years of marriage. After twelve years, real married couples are sick to death of each other. Most marriages become battlegrounds, accumulations of petty resentments. By this point the prevailing emotion is neither lust nor affection, but rather anger. Sex, if it happens at all, is rare. (It is replaced by bickering.) And if their house is big enough, they may even move to separate bedrooms.

Had Jada Pinkett-Smith been in a real marriage to Smith, her thoughts would have run more as follows: "After twelve years of smelling his burps and farts, after twelve years of listening to his stupid jokes and his snoring, it turns my stomach to even be in the same room as the son of a bitch. I do everything I can to avoid sex with him, and when he insists on it, I basically just hold my nose and put up with it. I can't even recall the last time he gave me an orgasm." Now Pinkett-Smith might not have actually given voice to those thoughts -- but she wouldn't have sounded the way she did in that article, either.

I don't blame actors for hiding their gayness. When I see an actor I know is gay in a clinch with some actress on screen, I can't help but think, "Hmm...."

But good actors are supposed to study the people they're portraying and observe them closely. Had Smith and Pinkett ever taken a hard look at a real married couple, they would know better than to act so deliriously happy to be together.

I've long thought Smith somewhat underrated as an actor (he was perfect in Men in Black). But while he may not get enough credit for his work onscreen, he certainly doesn't deserve any Oscars for his over the top impersonation of a heterosexual male offscreen. (For that, he actually deserves a Razzie.)

This post, by the way, is not an indictment of gay people. I've known many and liked most. It is an indictment of people who have no idea how to wear their beards.

How many married couples do you know who -- after more than ten years together -- feel obliged to demonstrate their lasciviousness and passion every time a camera is nearby?

Smith might as well have posed for those photos with a penis in his mouth.