How the Homosexuals Saved Civilization - Cathy Crimmins [53]
The gayest Academy Awards ever was possibly the most controversial one, in 1992, when Rob Lowe danced to “Proud Mary” with a live costumed actress playing Disney’s Snow White. It was a horrible, laughable moment, produced by Al lan Carr, the producer of the film Grease and the lamentable Village People movie Can’t Stop the Music. Carr was “out” before most people knew what “out” was, and he’s a fascinating peripheral character in Hollywood history. The manager of Ann-Margret and other diva celebrities, Carr wore bizarre caftans and was famous for his parties—he gave one in a former maximum-security jail, where he locked up Truman Capote and other celebrities.
Straight Sitcoms That Are Very Gay
In 2003, Vanity Fair did a cover article on gay television, with pictures of the actors from Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Will & Grace. Yet the inside story claimed that the gayest sitcom ever was Friends, with its emphasis on male companionship and Gen-X friends-over-family relationships.
Although the old-fashioned sitcom was family-based, it’s true that the more successful shows of the recent past have been work-based or set among a larger group of friends. Frasier, because of the closeness and effeminacy of the two brothers, Miles and Frasier Crane, does seem “gay,” and one episode finally even confronted that notion, with Patrick Stewart playing an impresario with a crush on Frasier. Frasier also boasts a wonderful writing staff, including several gay writers.
The cocreator of Friends, David Crane, is gay, but he does not easily acknowledge the show’s gay sensibility in interviews. What I’ve always liked about Friends is the easy banter among the characters about the gayness that is in all of us. The female and male characters frequently find themselves in potentially homoerotic situations and get out of them not without a tinge of regret. The show is about intimacy, whether it is achieved via friendship or sex. And it is also about appearance vs. reality. Time and again, the characters puzzle over Chandler’s apparent gayness, or what makes him appear gay to others. All the while, they accept him and accept their own rather fluid sexual attractions to the guest characters who stop in weekly.
“The gayest episode of Friends,” says Daniel Coleridge, an openly gay young critic for TV Guide, “is ‘The One with the Nap.’ Joey and Ross fall asleep on the couch in each other’s arms. It’s so intimate, so refreshing. And both of them admit afterwards that it’s the best nap they’ve ever had. I found it sweet—both men were vulnerable. It was sexy in a way, without any sex.”
Coda: The Inevitable Will & Grace
And then there’s Will & Grace. One can’t talk about gay television without mentioning it.
This popular sitcom, which features two gay male characters in prominent roles, is the one vehicle that has successfully brought gay-straight relationships into America’s living rooms. Yes, it’s somewhat trite and stereotypical. Yet with all of its jokes about superior gay design and taste, the show is constantly highlighting the homosexual contribution to sophisticated living.
Of course Will and Jack, the two gay characters on the show, are not “real” gay people, any more than the straight characters on Friends are realistically drawn (how many hard-working people in their mid-thirties do you know who constantly visit one another on a weeknight?). But, ironically, the relationship between Will, a gay man, and Grace, a straight woman, borders on every woman’s fantasy. Will is handsome, witty, and attentive. He is a dream man in the same way that Rock Hudson, Cary Grant, and Montgomery