Retired football player: I haven't seen the commericial, but sounds like it could be Esera Tualo.


Karmen, I don't think anybody even realized initially that female viewers would take to the show as they did. In fact, the writers said something to that effect in one of their interviews. And actually there have been a lot of complaints about the limited view of gay men presented by QAF (precisely what the conservatives attack as "The Gay Lifestyle") and it looks like this might be equally true of the lesbian show. We'll see. Maybe the sex scenes will make it worth watching. Or maybe there will be good writing? We can but hope.

Etheridge was born in 1961, Michaels was born in '74, so there's just 13 years difference. I'm the same age as Melissa and have gone out with women Tammy's age, so to me it's not a huge gap.



Why would an attractive cast be that controversial?. Most television shows are filled with attractive people, if they made a show about lesbians an exception to that (i.e., a cast made up of "bubbettes") I'd find it insulting. And when I go out I've noticed that the women who get hit on the most are the prettier ones.

Of course, I'm a big fan of the first 3 years of "Bad Girls" so what would I know.

I tend to agree about QAF on the writing front. It just isn't a very well written show. The first season was all "sex sex sex" with little story telling, the 2nd and 3rd season tried to be more drama oriented, but dropped the ball on nearly all fronts. The Emmett & Pickle storyline started good, but then ended stupidly. There's no way Emmett would've turned down a million dollars in reality, just to say the "relationship" wasn't real too a bunch of people who didn't think it was real to begin with. The Ben & Michael storyline could be better. Ben is just a substitute for Brian, but they don't play it out fully, and Ben is a steroid addict, then he isn't. Michael's father plot could've been better, I mean, Michael and his mother are just going to pretend they don't know the truth even though they both know that they both know? I do have hopes that Ted's addiction isn't all gone at the beginning of the 4th season and they will play up the Blake/Ted history.

Comments on gays in television, including a reason for the shortage of lesbian characters that hadn't occurred to me.

Seomin tends to bug, but he makes some good points in that article.

jo_tornblade, thank you for mentioning Bad Girls. I love that show to no end. I watched it on showcase diva but it's not on that channel anymore. Does anyone know where it's being shown in Canada? Or should I just go for the DVD's?

That 's a show of quality. Good writing, complex characters, believable storylines and gritty realism that never went over the top. Good times good times.

Good points, but why must 90% of the article be about gay characters in the media? Only the last few paragraphs specifically mentioned lesbian characters. I'm glad there's a site like www.afterellen.com where I can read about lesbian representation. I'm completely for queer equality, but I just wish there was more of a balance in these articles. This Seomin guy just loves to talk about the gay community, and I'm like, "Hello? I'm here too?" It's quite frustrating. Oh well.

I know that it hasn't been mentioned here for awhile but I'd like to talk about Friends. Thier handeling may not be the best when it comes to homosexual characters but I haven't seen anything that's I have thought of in a negative way. Someone mentioned how they spent a whole episode focussing on a girl/girl kiss between Rachel and an old friend of hers and how that was bad but to be fair Joey has kissed both Ross and Chandler at least once throughout the series so it's not like they were only focussing on using girl/girl action. Also Ross' first wife was a lesbian from the first episode (I think) and Chandler's dad is gay as well. I think that this show has portrayed us pretty well for a show that's all about making people laugh.

You know, there's an article on afterellen.com comparing gay and lesbian visibility on Television. One excellent point it made was about how while bisexual representations are lacking in both quantity and quality, bisexual men don't exist on television.

Can anyone think of positive or neutral representations of bisexual men in any media?

I think it's just the idea that bisexual men don't exist, period. It's kind of like the one-drop theory of sex - one homosexual experience marks a man as gay. A guy who is with both other guys and girls is generally read as in denial about his homosexuality. (Women have more leeway, although the same idea still applies.) Of course this doesn't carry over into "real life" all the time...

Bayliss dated Peter Gallagher on the last season of Homicide, and he'd been heretofore straight.

NBC's running another episode of Queer Eye tonight.

So far as gay representations of males and females, in recent years I've seen quite a few more made-for-tv dramas focused on lesbians than on gay men. As for the theatrical films running on Sundance, IFC, etc., seems to me these are about fifty-fifty, but I wouldn't bet money on that. Don't watch enough dramas to even guess - but The Wire's Kima has got to be hands down the best recurring lesbian character.

AIDS and the other STD's make it trickier to deal with bisexual male characters, I should think. Any show that introduced one could probably expect an explosion of moral indignation on the boards. We've seen a couple of guys coming painfully out as homosexual after being married, and at least one (on The Shield) struggling to go in the other direction. But there does seem to be a shortage of happy bi's.

yeah, I can't remember a single bisexual male character on any show, but then I think I have only met a handful of bisexual men in my lifetime. I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as a bisexual man, but most of the very few "bisexual" men I have met, either had only sexual relations with women and full relationships with men, or eventually stopped having sexual relations with womens and became gay.
I know several more bisexual women, but then, most of them ended up with men too.

I'm not trying to feed into the "there is no such thing as bisexual" crap, because I certainly don't think that everyone has to be one or the other, I just think that society is much more comfortable with putting people into clean and neatly wrapped packages, that so many people who are truly bisexual eventually end up on one side of the fence or the other due to societal pressure (both from straights as well as the gay community).

That probably also explains why there are few bisexuals on tv--it's better to have a character who can be labeled as "gay", but labeling someone as "bisexual", that's probably a little more than most viewers can handle (or more than the stuffy network executives think we can handle).

There was a bisexual guy on Ally McBeal that one time, though I pretty much tend to think that portrayals of anyone on that show are automatically negative...

Played yumiliciously by Mark Firestein of Good Morning, Miami.
No, really.

Didn't Ally refuse to date him after she finds out he was bisexual or am I misremembering?

She refused and then couldn't provide a volid reason why she won't date him.

I think it was, "David E. Kelley loves the idea of women making out, but not men making out."

At least, that's what it was from my POV.

There was that bisexual that Carrie dated for a short time on Sex and the City, too. She couldn't wrap her head around it, and when she got kissed by Alanis Morrisette, totally ditched him.

After all, why should a woman who is supposed to be some sort of expert on sexuality and writes a popular column about it be expected to understand bisexuality? [/sarcasm]

Because Carrie is unable to understand why any person on the planet, gay, straight or bi, would ever want to have sex with anyone but her.

Yeah, none of the girls believed that a man who was bisexual wasn't gay and in denial, (because being bisexual is just so easy) apart from Samantha.
Carrie is such a fucking prude and narrow-minded considering she's a sex columnist.
There was a bisexual guy on (excellent) British drama This Life.

This Life was indeed excellent, billabonged.

I was wondering who everyone's favorite gay and lesbian characters were. Mine are Tobey from DC and Tara from BTVS.

Tara, and Jack from DC, with the caveat that Jack only counts on all of the both times he was written well.

And Clark and Lex, naturally.

Methos from Highlander, cos he's bound to have racked up more than a few guys in his 5,000 plus years. Also Stuart Jones from Queer as Folk UK.

I agree completely about Tara. I'd like to add Lindsey McDonald and Lorne, both from Angel, as the best bisexuals who never identify as bi (that we know).

From soap operas, Lena on All My Children is my favorite lesbian. Henry on As the World Turns is just like Lorne, except for the green and the horns and he's allowed to use non-pastry nicknames. Guy-y'know-like-Guy-Pierce from General Hospital was excellent and had the good taste to ogle Dillon. Too bad the idiots in charge only wrote him on for a couple of days.

From reality, I can't pick one from Queer Eye, so all of them except Blair. Ellen DeGeneres is my favorite female comic ever since her "phone call to God" standup routine, so I guess that makes her my favorite "reality" lesbian.

When and how did Lindsey McDonald identify as bisexual? This is news to me. I stopped watching this season, but know that he's back.
Or are you just reading into the character?

Tobey from DC is one of my all-time faves.
None of the real gay people in real life are favs of mine, if only because their shtick is so tiresome, and they're usually playing themselves. But when Ellen plays someone else (Dori on Finding Nemo), she's really good.
The QE guys are too into being their personalities, and Reichen and Chip were too into themselves.
QAF is just trash.

Maybe this The L Word will be interesting.

I said they never identify as bi (that we know). Onscreen, both have shared gayest looks of the episode with Angel, and Lindsey behaved as if he was attracted to Darla and they shared a kiss and an implied affair. Lorne has commented repeatedly on Cordelia's hotness. That's my evidence for calling them bi, but no, as far as I know (I stopped watching after the fourth episode this season) they've never described themselves as bi (or gay or pansexual or whatever word they like).

If the question means "regular characters specifically identified as gay," mine would be David in Six Feet Under and Kima in The Wire. David isn't at all pretty, has plenty of problems, only some of which relate to sex, and is an undertaker. Kima is beautiful, but dresses and acts like a working detective (no conducting rooftop surveillances in nylons and long coats that flap around her shins) and - like a lot of cops - has some conflicts between her home life and her work. In other words, they have lives.

Or as my favorite guest gay character said on The West Wing, "My life doesn't have to be about being a homosexual."

Huh? I think Michael C. Hall is hot.



See I hate that line in the context that it was given. The only reason his party asked him to go to Josh's office to fight for the Defense of Marriage Act was because he was gay.

I remember that now.
Yeah, I actually hated that line, too. The only reason he's there is because he's gay and willing to stick his neck out for his party, or for his job if they asked him to, and yet his life doesn't have to be about being gay."
Except when you're making a statement about DOMA, I guess.

Bach-us, I completely misread your post. Sorry.

Of course Congressman Skinner was a Log Cabin Republican in that TWW episode, a Bad Gay, if you like. But Charley Lang, the actor, and Paris Barclay, the director, are both gay, and if you have a chance to watch again (Season 2, "The Portland Trip) you'll probably spot enough subtext to fuel a slash fic or two. Much as I admire Sorkin, I still think he wasted a great opportunity. But in any case, I often delight in characters I wouldn't want to split a beer with. Roy Cohn as crafted by Kusher and Pacino? Wonderful!

As for Michael C. Hall: well, to me, "hot" and "pretty" don't have to go together. He seems very attractive sometimes and sort of beetle-browed and unappealing at others. A "real life" sort of face, actually. And he and Alan Ball have created a character I really care about.

Seen it numerous times, I still don't see anything good about that scene. Mainly because of Matt Skinner's stupid assertion that if people were pro-gun control, as Josh is not only because of his political bent but because he was shot by people who apparently bought their guns legally, they should just join the NRA and make gun control the NRA's new issue, ignoring the fact that if that happened another anti-gun control group with the money and influence of the NRA would instantly pop-up. The one nice thing about that episode is the way Skinner rebuffs his Republican colleagues as he leaves Josh's office but that is never followed up on. And any slash fic opportunity is wasted because Josh is nearly drooling over Donna's backside as she leaves the room.

Another reason I fucking hate The West Wing. As taxing as some gay Republicans may be, at the very least, they seem to know what is right and what is wrong for gay rights, and don't act like little Uncle Toms (for the most part- you listening, Tammy Bruce?).

If TWW hated Republicans any more, it would be written by Michael Moore.

Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to stir up a discussion of gay politics as depicted that one time on that program. I quoted Skinner's line for sense, not context. But taking Skinner as a character who was in four scenes: was he believable? was he interesting? did one want to know more about him? For me, and maybe only me, it's "yes," three times.

As for hoyay potential, I'm generally slow to see this, probably because I take it fairly seriously. As written and acted, though, those scenes were a plausible starting point for a story line that TPTB wanted no part of. There's a gratuitous little exchange that goes:

Matt: Josh, I came here as a friend; I think you know that.
Josh: What does that have to do with it?
Matt (looks away): I came here 'cause I came here.



Actually, biakbiak, both characters seem to watch Donna's departure with equal interest. Or lack thereof.

Anyhow, that's ancient history. I only wish some of the writers who are more and more using one-shot gay characters as plot devices would give them enough dimension to be interesting. (Have you noticed that homosexuallity is supplanting garden-variety adultery as a motive for blackmail, revenge, etc.?)

Certainly on the VSE of Without a Trace, but as with the VSE of Cold Case, the episode was so good, it's overlookable.

He was actually in a couple of episodes the previous season, just acting as a Congressman who was involved with a few different issues (the census and a banking bill, as I recall) before it came to that episode and his sexuality even came up. Which was neat; offhand, I'm having trouble thinking of any other examples of non-closeted gay characters where their sexuality just wasn't brought up until it became relevant. (Unless it's to deliberately "shock" the audience - because, of course, finding out a character is gay immediately overrides all previous information you've learned about them.)

It seems like whenever a gay character is introduced, that's exactly how it's handled - they're "a gay character", instead of a character who is a gay. You can almost tell it's written in the script for the very first moment they appear: "Enter Ted, a gay lawyer." Because, of course, that has to define absolutely everything about their characterisation.

Can anybody think of any characters where sexuality was just something you found out a little way along the line, instead of being shoved in your face from the moment they arrived or suddenly appearing in a big coming out drama?

last night I watched Saturday Night Live and was slighty put off by their commercial spoof on "Gaystrogen". The commercial starts out with a gay couple at home and one of the guys is buying turquoise jewelry, deciding between different shades of white for a dollhouse, and other assorted ridiculous things. Anyway the other guy is not interested. Then the voice over comes on and asks if you've lost your spark or your "gayness" or whatever and it shows how the "gaystrogen" works. So the guy who was not interested in turquoise jewelry, or decorating a dollhouse takes the "gaystrogen" and then becomes super effeminate and buys a lot of turquoise jewelry.

who the fuck buys turquoise jewelry? or decorates a dollhouse?

sorry, imo those examples weren't even funny, since they were just so out there.

Makes me think of the Gay Beer commerical with Adam Sandler and Chris Farely.

"If you're thirsty, and you're gay..."

There was also one for a fake drug Homocil, which was supposed to calm parents of effeminate boys. "Because it's your problem, not theirs."

As best I can recall reading, Skinner wasn't conceived as a gay character in those early brief appearances, but Lang later pitched a gay Republican storyline to Sorkin, who liked it. But the result was just what Nomad liked (me, too). Sometimes a male character is so obtrusively nelly from the get-go that the audience never has to be "told," but I can't remember this realistic getting-acquainted process being shown elsewhere, either.

I liked the SNL homocil ad -- I thought it was a pretty accurate portrayal of parents having issues...Too bad it doesn't really exist!

Personally, I loved the Schmidt's Gay ad, it was very well done and the homicil ad was hilarious. Watching the little boy twirl around in a tutu with a baton, while his father (I believe it was Will Ferrell) nearly has a heart attack, I laughed at loud at that it was pure comedic genius.... but turquoise jewelry and painting a dollhouse? **breathes deeply to prevent self from heaving*** that's just gross and wrong on so many levels.

Heh. Take a few more deep breaths, Wonderland. In the hobby of miniatures (things in 1/12 scale or less) , some of the top craftsmen and collectors are gay men! Course, I realize that's not quite the same thing as just painting a dollhouse, but still... (When you think of it, it's not all that far from model railroading, but allowing more scope.)

I can't leap to the defense of turquoise jewelery fans, though. Don't know any.

Hrmm, from the lesbian side of things, I'd say Nikki and Helen from UK's Bad Girls, which is also my answer for favorite gay characters. Still hasn't been shown in the US and I'm surprised no one's bought the rights to the show yet (maybe it's time for a letter to Trio), or probably it's being remade.

Anyhoo, it's a "prison drama". Nikki's the 'gay prisoner' who falls in love with Helen, 'the straight warden'. Since their relationship is drawn out over the series, they dont actually kiss until halfway into the first season. Since it's not just about Helena's sexuality, there's no ham-handed "message" moments or big coming out drama.

While the actual sex scene is rather "chaste" and doesn't last nearly long enough, it's great because the audience has watched these two people fall in love over the course of many episodes. There's actual tension and drama that's drawn from sources other than their sexuality.

Schmidt's Gay and Homocil ads viewable here. Heee!

Kind of obscure, but in the Prime Suspect TV movies, starring Helen Mirren, there was a detective/inspector named Mike who was gay, though it was only talked about a few times.

Very obscure, but Carol's EMT boyfriend Shep's partner Raoul from the second season of ER. Not outed until he'd made a half-dozen appearances.

ER also had Gedde Watanabe's character (Yosh?) and Jorja Fox's character make casual references to their homosexuality, but then they went all Big Message on us when Weaver came out. Bong!

Original Cindy of Dark Angel. She's cool. Noone in there made a fuss about her sexuality. At first, the hints were subtle, I guess. Then came one episode where her former lover was in town. Even then, her sexuality was a non-issue. It was more about encountering an old flame, which could have been substituted with a het relationship. A few pages back, someone commented the ideal potrayal of a GBLT relationship is when the relationship is done the way hets are done. I guess this was one example.

ETA: Original Cindy in AfterEllen.com