Chip Arndt

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Mlbedwell 20:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Chip Arndt

Chip Arndt (born October 2, 1966), West Hartford, CT) became an internationally known gay celebrity after he and Reichen Lehmkuhl won The_Amazing_Race_4 in 2003, the first out gay couple to win a TV reality competition. Since then, Arndt has become increasingly active in the movement for LGBT equality as well as raising money for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and other community charities.

1 Background
2 On The Amazing Race
3 After The Amazing Race
4 Trivia
5 REFERENCES
6 External links

[edit] Background

The youngest and only boy of four children, Arndt attended Hotchkiss, a private school in his native Connecticut, and won a fellowship to a 13th year at Harrow in Northwest London. Founded in 1582, its previous students included Winston Churchill and Lord Byron. He earned his undergraduate degree in history, with honors, at Yale in 1990, where he was captain of the undefeated golf team, named All-New England golf champion for two years, and All-Ivy champion for three years. He played professional golf for a time, before entering Harvard for an MBA in 1998. He was President of the Harvard Graduate School Leadership and Ethics Forum, Chairman and Founder of the Annual Harvard Business, Law, and Kennedy School of Government Debate, and President of the Harvard Business School Gay and Lesbian Student Association. He worked as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley in the US, Europe, and Asia, and in a variety of capacities in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. (1) As the former Public Relations & Marketing Manager for Care Resource, South Florida’s oldest and largest HIV/AIDS services organization, he produced the 2005 AIDS Walk Miami, and spearheaded the 21st annual White Party, its renown week-long fundraiser, which, at his initiative, emphasized a zero tolerance for drugs policy for the first time. Currently, he is Executive Vice President for Business Development of Merchant Advantage, a Miami-based e-commerce software company he helped found. (2)

[edit] On The Amazing Race

Arndt and Reichen Lehmkuhl competed against 11 other teams on Season 4 of The Amazing Race. Taped in January and February of 2003, it premiered that May. In total, the season involved a 44,000 mile (70,800 km) run across four continents, through nine countries, and 24 cities. “Detours” both Arndt and Lehmkuhl had to perform included rappelling head first down a skyscraper, skydiving over Australia, and having to devour a bowl of raw, live baby octopus in Seoul. Arndt performed seven of eleven “roadblocks” (tasks only one team member can perform), including having to strip to his briefs and dive into a hole cut by chainsaws in the foot-thick ice covering a Korean river and swim under the ice to emerge from another hole cut yards away. They placed second during five legs of the race, and their win was their second first place, eight minutes ahead of runners up Kelly & Jon. The finale was broadcast on August 21st, 2003. (3)

While other out gay competitors had appeared in previous seasons of the critically acclaimed “thinking man’s reality show,” (4) viewers and reviewers quickly noticed that, with their athleticism, careers in the military and banking, skills as a pilot and golfer, these two were, in many ways, totally unlike the convenient gay stereotypes television typically spoon-feeds its audiences. (5) “It's taken 'real' TV to make gays seem, well, more real. ...pectorally blessed spouses Reichen and Chip on The Amazing Race are practically superheroes” – Entertainment Weekly, 8/8/2003. Another difference was their intention to make a statement. Teams are repeatedly identified throughout the show by their relationship, e.g., “Engaged,” “Dating,” “Best Friends,” etc. The couple, who had met in 1999 at a birthday party for actor Sean Penn’s father while Lehmkuhl was still in the United States Air Force, celebrated their relationship in 2002 at a large ceremony at Los Angeles' Hotel Bel-Air. (6) While not legally married, they considered their relationship just as valid, and, therefore, insisted that CBS identify them as a married couple, at the risk of being dropped from the show. (7) Approval only came after being escalated to CBS network president Les Moonves. (7) It would be more than a year later that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court would make gay marriage legal for the first time anywhere in the U.S.

[edit] Protest and censorship

Antigay groups such as the Family Research Council and Concerned Women of America accused CBS of “thrusting 'married gays' on [the] public;” calling it “profoundly dishonest,” “the worst we have seen from the broadcast networks,” and an "aberration." They encouraged, with little success, complaints to Race advertisers. (8) (9) (10) However, when broadcast in Singapore, a scene in which Lehmkuhl first told the other teams he and Arndt were both gay and a couple, and a comment later by Arndt about being reminded of their commitment ceremony the year before were edited out by station TCS5, as well as a scene repeated in each episode’s opening in which Arndt playfully kissed his partner on the cheek. (11) During the finale, CBS, itself, showed only the couple’s joyous embrace upon being told they had won while deleting their enthusiastic, extended kiss that had other teams applauding and commenting about in subsequent interviews with various media. (12)

[edit] Audience and critical response

Despite the protests and varying degrees of censorship, most viewers responded favorably as evidenced by the couple’s 83% popularity rating on the show’s official Website, and its ratings which noticeably increased. According to Nielsen Media Research, the finale episode won the most viewers of any program in that time slot, and CBS won the night. It had approximately six million more viewers than the most-watched episode of the much more publicized Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The finale’s ratings were the season's highest since its premier, and was the 11th most popular show that week. Speculation at the time believed Season 4’s popularity may have saved the series from cancellation, (13) and contributed to the series' first win a month later of an Emmy for best "Outstanding Reality-Competition Program" (for Season 3). (1) Season 4 won its own Emmy the following year.

While gay viewers were the most vociferous fans, and weekly watch parties were held in several gay bars and homes, (1) the pair created a great deal of interest among many nongay viewers, too. Internet search engines and discussion boards recorded tens of thousands of hits and “Reichen & Chip” fan sites sprung up. The most extensive is still ‘’All About RC’’, started by Vella Bellaart, a straight wife and mother from Canada. (1) Preeminent gay magazine ‘’The Advocate’’ put them on its cover as “America’s Sweethearts,” (7) and even mainstream ‘’Entertainment Weekly’’ named them reality TV’s “Cutest Couple.” (14)

[edit] Gay community response strong

One gay viewer wrote that if he'd had such "role models when I was in college, I don't think I would have spent nine plus years in a heterosexual relationship, trying but not accomplishing much of anything. Knowing that they are accepted and admired by the rest of society only makes it easier for me to be me. They have done so much in the way of improving my self-esteem." (9) A lesbian couple on ‘’All About RC’’ felt even more strongly: "We'll never forget that by simply being on the show they have saved lives—literally." Similar responses have been repeated over and over as Season 4 continues to premier in country after country, and countless new American fans are being created as the Game Show Network reruns the series in syndication. According to The Online Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, “perhaps the biggest boost for visibly gay and lesbian persons on television was the triumph by Reichen Lehmkuhl and Chip Arndt in CBS's The Amazing Race.” (15) Arndt has said that he regularly hears from people thanking him for appearing on the program, for giving them the courage to come out to their family and friends, and inspiring them to become activists themselves. (16)

[edit] After The Amazing Race

That response, particularly from LGBT youth, convinced him to continue to do what he could to help create positive social change. (16) Express Gay News named him “Best Local Male Hero” for continually using “his fame and good fortune to help others.” (17) He is a spokesperson for the annual five-state Braking the Cycle AIDS ride benefiting New York’s LGBT Community Center and Miami’s SMART AIDS ride benefiting several area agencies, and has helped raise money for a variety of other groups including the Point Foundation, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the PS I Love You Foundation, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation for which he is a Strategic Advisor. He has participated in protests against verbal gay bashing by religious extremists and the scientifically unsubstantiated claims of the so-called “gay conversion” industry. (18) He is President of Freedom Democrats, the Miami LGBT Democratic caucus chartered under the auspices of the Florida Democratic Party. (19)

SMART AIDS Ride ad

Gay Leaders Respond to Antigay Extremists: Former US Ambassador James Hormel, Gay Movement Icon Frank Kameny, Hormel partner Tim Wu, & Chip Arndt in front of protestors trying to disrupt the 2005 Equality Forum in Philadelphia (28)

This spring he addressed more than three hundred high school students at a Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network conference where he shared one of his favorite quotes, from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” (20) He is creating a personal website, ChipArndt.com, for emerging LGBT youth. An information resource, it will include stories of a variety of LGBT achievers from both history and today’s headlines, as well as detail Arndt’s own journey from a closeted teenager to an internationally known gay activist. In addition to continuing to be a topic of articles in a wide range of both gay and mainstream print media, he has appeared on CNN, The Early Show, E!, Access Hollywood, In the Life, and Entertainment Tonight, and was featured in the Logo network special Real Gay. He has also been interviewed for several different documentaries about reality programming and community activism. (1)

Responding to the announcement of Lehmkuhl’s relationship with *NSYNC star Lance Bass, Arndt said, “Lance’s coming out is another step forward on our road to full equality. I wish him and Reichen the very best and look forward to working with them to achieve our shared goal of first class citizenship, while protecting and empowering LGBT youth!" (21) In September of this year, an opinion piece in The Washington Blade strongly questioned why the Human Rights Campaign was honoring Lehmkuhl and Bass with a national award for “Visibility” but not Arndt. (22) People magazine recently reported that a representative of Bass had stated that the couple have separated, but Bass said on his myspace.com page a few days later that they were still working on the relationship.

Each spring, Arndt conducts a golf clinic at the Advocate Golf Classic benefitting the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force [NGLTF]. (22) Through his efforts in November, former President Bill Clinton's surprise appearance excited attendees of a reception prior to NGLTF’s annual awards dinner in Miami. (24) Later that month, Arndt addressed a group of gay-straight alliance leaders. (25) He was one of the commentators on the official CBS Website for The Amazing Race 10, which just concluded, where he revealed that he accidentally ran into the returning teams secretly chosen for the program’s 11th season, the highly anticipated “All Stars” version, at an airport over Thanksgiving. “A mini reunion ensued. I don’t think the producers knew what to do as I saw a few of them through the corner of my eye keeping their distance, as they never interfere with what is happening real time...We all hugged and talked for ten minutes. I even was able to give a hug to the SAME camera and sound guys that won with us on our last leg of the race... 4 crews filmed it all." (16) The Internet has been full of discussion about which teams should have been/were picked, but out of respect for the series’ integrity Arndt would not disclose their names. It will be broadcast in February 2007.

[edit] Trivia

Arndt was one of the earliest patients diagnosed with Lyme Disease, named for the small Connecticut town where he lived before leaving for college. (26)
The Harrow School’s oldest classroom was used in the first Harry Potter film.
At Yale, Arndt was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity.
While at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, Arndt worked closely with Lauren Bessette who perished with her sister Carolyn and brother-in-law John F. Kennedy, Jr. in a plane crash in 1999. Time magazine’s obituary noted, “She was a star who was ‘stunningly beautiful and not afraid of being beautiful’ in the male-dominated world of mergers and acquisitions, says former colleague Chip Arndt.” (27)
Arndt has a tattoo in the middle of his back featuring the Chinese character for “kindness.”