Why do gay men obstruct other gay men?
So here’s my rant for today. And while it’s not a new one as I am sure there is some other gay writer out there blogging that while gay men are constantly striving for acceptance and tolerance from a generally homophobic world, we often are our own worst enemy.
I got to re-thinking about it from this HuffPo interview (from outgoing Ahmed Shihab-Eldin – who’s reports I’ll miss greatly): You can read it here.
I am not limiting this to just the social circle either. I’ll post my thoughts on that topic in another stream of consciousness later cause I got LOTS to say on that topic alone.
Let me make a case for how it even happens in the media:
I was at Comic Con in San Diego (the only one that counts BTW (Sorry NYC – you’ve got B’way – leave So Cal a crumb, will ya?)) once where there was a discussion panel (the room was packed to the hilt – standing room only) for this particular show that was all the rage a couple of years ago (flash forward – it was cancelled shortly there after).
I won’t necessarily name the show because it would be pointless at this juncture since it has long been relegated to the netflix/pirate download universe, but suffice to say that it was a hot show at the time. Anyway, the panel of production crew for this show was asked about the inclusion of a gay character as a secondary lead if not main character of the show. The screenwriters jumped right into the fray and said that they were just in the midst of planning such an arc and they couldn’t wait to get started on it. It would come with the following season – they were sorry that the show had to go three seasons in before they could get to it but they were really excited about it. The audience (even for a few years ago) seemed rather pleased about this little announcement (okay, I’ll confess that it was an LGBT panel that is held every year at Comic Con). The two screenwriters of the show were, in fact, gay and were really happy that they got the green light with this particular arc. All seemed good, right?
Yeah, well, at the time I remember grousing to myself (I tend to grouse alot with unspoken angst over what comes out of these Hollywood types at these events), that why did we wait 3 seasons to get to the damned arc? Why are we left in the closet and have our stories sidelined by our own people? Yeah, i know, they gotta get work too and they’ve got the twat head producers to please who are only in it for the buck (despite all the flowery words about creative process and their vision and all the other hooey they throw our way – it’s all UTTER BULLSHIT).
The following March (on the eve of when this hot show was to start shooting) the show was cancelled. So guess what? No gay character arc, no gay storylines – once again our story is left on the cutting room floor – only worse, this one never got shot to begin with (HUGE STEP BACKWARD, if you ask me).
But it’s not the only instance of this happening – Greg Berlanti (who is gay) of ‘The Tomorrow People” (TTP) said the same damned thing about TTP. When HuffPo asked him about his not having a gay character in TTP he said that one was coming in season two and it was gonna be great (are ya starting to see a trend here?). SO that show got cancelled this past April. So here we are yet again – another fucking blown opportunity. Though to be fair he gives a much more lengthy explanation here. Yet, I can’t help but feel that he could’ve done better. How about this Mr. Berlanti – let’s not ‘wait for a creative moment to put in a gay character that will stick around –
…how about we have one from the VERY BEGINNING THAT’S INTEGRAL TO THE SHOW? Yeah, let’s start with that… whaddaya say? Huh?
Producer Greg Berlanti
The general straight populace isn’t ever going to get used to us if our shit ain’t out there, folks! Are ya listening, Hollyweird?
Next up, The Vampire Diaries –
Now, aside from the fact that Ian Somerhalder’s Damon walks that same homo-erotic line with his other male leads in that Mick Jagger sort of metro-sexual swagger, TVD has had NO GAY CHARACTERS for years now! I was a fan of the show but was growing increasingly bored with the fucking boozing and rampant straight sexual situations that we were being inundated with. Why hasn’t MADD gone after this show? This show has more drinking (even when they were in fucking high school (and DON’T get me started on how 30 something looking actors were just soooo wrong for a HIGH SCHOOL show). I never once bought the vixen trio of Elena, Bonnie and Caroline were EVER actually of a high school age. The casting director shoulda been hauled out and beaten with a wet noodle over that faux pas alone!
Luke from The Vampire Diaries
Anyway, so in this past season we FINALLY get A GAY CHARACTER (count ’em, ONE – in the whole fucking town of Mystic Falls or where ever they were now going to college – and we have to wait MANY seasons to find ONE?) What the muthafucking ever. And I am just counting the seconds til this new gay guy is bumped off. Cause you know it’s gonna happen. (And no, Glee doesn’t count because the entire premise of that show is gay from word go (and sadly sometimes in the worst way imaginable) – too much sometimes even for me to stomach on a weekly basis – and I have a background in musical theatre).
In fact, I can only think of TWO drama shows where the gay men actually make it to the end and they were secondary or main characters – Torchwood and Spartacus. In the pantheon of TV shows through out the years and we have these two shows to show for it? Okay, then there’s Felix from Orphan Black (BTW, I don’t know if you’re keeping score on this too but it seems that two out of the three shows I’ve named are British imports – only Spartacus is American produced).
Our gay heroes on Spartacus – THEY MADE IT TO THE END!
Okay, and there’s True Blood – but even with Lafayette (on of my absolute favorites and not just because he’s slightly sterotypical but because Nelsan plays him with such pathos and depth that I am utterly fascinated by his portrayal). The same can be said of Jordan’s portrayal of Felix in Orphan Black. There are subtleties and layers that both actors bring to the table that are truly amazing to watch. THOSE are the types of characters our little gay village need.
And Sidebar: What the fuck is up with Lafayette losing Jesus? That was some messed up shit when their arc so wasn’t over – total missed opportunity. But that season’s writing was the almost the worst of the bunch. That is until the season of Billith. Now that season of TB was just plain out tragic.
Jordan Gavaris as the irrepressible Felix
Okay, I thought of another show that has a gay character prominent enough to warrant it’s own plot line – that one in Scandal (my daughter watches it religiously and keeps telling me I need to do so too). I was going to watch a marathon and catch up when i got wind of them killing off one of the two gay characters (for dramatic purposes). Yeah, you can bite me with your dramatic elements involving gay characters being ‘sacrificed’ for the dramatic cause. That’s SOOOOO 1980’s Dallas/Dynasty era (and I should know cause I was alive when those shows were running in their original time slots (NOT re-runs)).
In Torchwood we FINALLY have a gay character that can’t die (because he can’t die – it’s in the character write up). So yay for #TEAMGAY, yeah, hold up a minute. Turns out he can die – when the show doesn’t get renewed or languishes between seasons. Pasadena…
John Barrowman and Gareth David Lloyd from Torchwood
So guess what gay producers, writers and actors – be the muthafuckin’ change you want to have happen.
Y’all need to grow a pair and put our shit out there. Sorry if that sounds a bit forced, but I got a little Larry Kramer angst going on here from watching ‘The Normal Heart’ – a bloody brilliant movie – thanks Ryan Murphy for getting it out there. Try to remember what it was like when you were growing up starved for some recognition and figure out how to get it out there. And don’t shoot me that old line – gay characters don’t sell. Yeah, well maybe we have to shove a few down their throats until we get to a point where they become inured to it all. THEN we’ll have achieved something. If gay people can bore the crap out of straights like they do to themselves – then game over – mission accomplished.
But we ain’t there yet – not by a muthafuckin’ long shot.
So there was the first show I talked about, then TTP, then Vampire Diaries. That’s three shows, two of which utterly failed in producing a single strong gay character. While the actor playing Luke on VD seems to be a good one, I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall and he’ll get bumped off. That’s the modern message we get from these shows: if we finally do get around to putting one out there – yeah, well, it won’t last. It’s fleeting – just like we want the world to think we are in their lives – fleeting, passing through, an oddity to behold and then eschew like yesterdays bright wrapping paper after a successful party.
So over that way of thinking.
So I am constantly polling around – looking for gay men to satiate my thirst for something that reflects my life or at the very least, a form of my reality. But sadly, we’re still all too absent.
And here’s another little nugget of information – the M/M genre of novel writing is actually quite large and thriving and it’s reader base is primarily made up of women. So why aren’t we looking to satisfy the gay market for these ladies? Why aren’t we killing the both birds with the same literary stone? If we’re studying demographics and how to pitch and sell to them, then why aren’t we looking at these numbers then?
I get that it’s show BUSINESS and not show ART. I get it. But if we aren’t taking the necessary steps to have the same opportunity to bore the crap out of the straight audience because we are now just one of the crew, then how the hell are we ever going to make progress on a storytelling and visual level?
As a gay author, I wonder for long periods about that. Not that it pulls focus from my day or anything, but I do ponder it on the back burner. I only wish the screenwriters and producers who are gay and have dealt with the same struggles we all seem to have in common in this world, that they would do more, fight – hell, if we do have a gay mafia out there in Hollywood – then fucking act like some gay muthafuckin’ blinged out homo-thugs and DO SOMETHIN’ ‘BOUT IT!
Are ya feelin’ me, now?
The truth is in the blood…
So given that the final season of True Blood is around the corner. I’ve been reminiscing about the difference between Charlaine Harris’ book series and the episodic version on our TV screens.
The Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris
At first blush the main cast of characters seem to be front and center (with a few notable exceptions – that being Lafayette and the much more sub-dued Tara – arguably the TV series strongest and most interesting characters). This however is where we hit that proverbial argument (one of which I don’t always think is as valid as Hollyweird seems to make it): Books are different than TV/Film.
Lafayette and Jesus – I fuckin’ LOVED these two.
Yeah, the more I read, coupled with the fact that I have family that works in the film industry, I am not so sure of that as a creative premise at all. I think in most cases it is producers and directors wanting to make a splash on the shoulders of another author’s works. “Reimagining it for the masses over a different medium…” sort of thing.
It worked for the Harry Potter series, right? Eh, don’t get me started on that one… there were soooo many fucked up production decisions on that film iteration of the beloved books that I could spend an entire blog series just covering it all.
The brilliantly wonderful Daniel Radcliffe
And when David Heyman offered only that as a children’s series they didn’t feel they could ever stretch the films out to encompass the smaller story elements in the books because children were going to struggle to sit still longer than the ‘line in the sand’ at 2 hours and 30+ minutes they’d alloted for each installment in the series. Say nothing of the fact that these were the same children who were happily sitting in the Lord of the Rings movies that toppled at 3.5 hours long with apparent ease. Or given the fact that as the movies wore on (and those little tykes grew up) they should (according to Heyman’s implied theory) be able to handle a longer film. My point being that it was nothing short of a financial cop out. The story and it’s telling suffered because of poor plot line choices. Steve Kloves (the screenplay writer) did his best to keep an even keel scriptwise with input from Rowling herself (often cluing him into elements that were important far before the rest of the world knew what was going on). But alas, it was the story plot lines and the production team involved that sort of ruined the magic of that series for me.
Okay, I’ll cop to the fact that I own every single one of them. They’re my granddaugther’s favorite movies and books. So those films hold a different form of sentimentality for me. She was only one when the first one came out – and she was riveted even at that tender age. If you got in the way of the TV she’d skreech and in her babushka (the reference my family had for her baby talk as she tended to sound like an old Russian woman) way telling you on no uncertain terms to: “get the FUCK outta the way man, I am watching my flick!”
Der Hitlermort
I did like that they never lost sight of the whole blood business. Pure bloods vs. Muggles – yeah, so Third Reich in it’s reach and scope. I really liked that element in Rowling’s series.
Speaking of which – The Hobbit writers felt the NEED to insert a fucked up fake Elvish/Dwarf love thing? WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK? That singular addition to the tale fucking ruined the movies for me! You DON’T INSERT into literature you fucktards! You aren’t that bright to do so… something like that practically soured me on the whole fucking idea of movie options from novels.
The unwitting dwarf in the fiasco fake Elvish romance – a clusterfuck of an idea if I ever saw one.
Which brings me to the real analysis of this blog entry: True Blood.
Joe Manganiello as Alcede
In the books the world of Bon Temps and the fearsome but beloved Vamps are quite different. So different in fact, that the faeries play a larger role in the course of the series (and to set the record straight – I HATED the treatment of them by the writing staff of the HBO series – a mishmash of Disneyesque cum Burlesque twat-heads that I was only too happy to see them perish in the TV series. They were complete waste cases). But not in the books, the faeries are BAD ASSED. Even Eric Northman thinks twice about confronting them when Suki is in the hospital and her Faerie grandfather Niall is inbound. What the fuck happened to that element? Why toss your wad on these sappy faerie light versions of their fearsome counterparts in the books? I just didn’t get it.
The FUCKED UP fairies of True Blood
And I get it, dear reader, that you may wonder why I even care. Well I do because it matters. It matters because I am a writer. Not to say that i have lofty ideals that my stories will ever equate to a property that would get sold to a film/TV company. I can dream but I am a realist as well in that department.
So yeah, if fucking matters big time that they get it right.
There is one element that is fairly spot on between the books and series – Alexander Skarsgard portrayal of Eric Northman. From the moment Alexander makes is appearance in the show I was all “YES! YES! YES!” and I am over the fucking moon that he’s a Nord actor. Go for the blood. It was brilliant bloody casting.
The fucking over the top in all the RIGHT way – True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgard
Now, with the exception of Ryan Kwanten, Nelsan Ellis, Rutina Wesley, and Kristen Bauer van Straten , the rest of the cast is questionable. Not that the other actors are bad at their jobs. That’s not it at all. The actors perform admirably to the tasks given to them. It’s the writing that has sucked as the seasons have worn on to the point where it barely resembles the premise it started out with. These are writers who’s good ideas went out with the bath water around the second season. Coincidently, around the same time that the TV series started to really divert from the plotlines that Charlaine had in the books. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it didn’t have to be a bad thing. But unfortunately, it was.
The differences between the two worlds were really starting to show. One element completely dropped from Harris’ books that I really loved in the novels? Bubba – Elvis as a goofy dumbed down lovable vampire with a penchant for kittens. Now THAT I would have loved to have seen. Hell, they could’ve even cast Michael St. Gerard (from the old Elvis bio pic) in the role.
So the takeaway from the TB fiasco, as I’ve come to call it? Whenever someone says they want to put a ‘twist’ on it, ‘shake it up a bit’ on a successful premise, then that really means – hey, we want to substantiate why we’re having to hire screenwriting hacks to reinvent the wheel because, hell, we’re just too imagined out to come up with a truly great premise ourselves so we’d rather bastardize your shit rather than put in the real work ourselves.
I mean it is possible, you know. Need I say ORPHAN BLACK? Now there’s a series that was created from ground up. But of course, it’s Canadian. Damned Canucks (and I happen to love Canucks… brilliant bastards that they are). But if anything, they show how it can be done. Just like we novelists do – with grit, determination, a little mental-elbow grease and guess what IMAGINATION. Something sorely lacking in Hollyweird.
Tatiana Maslany – the Meryl Streep of TV.
Sidebar: You know, I sorta have mixed feelings when I bash Hollywood with the ‘weird’ status. Mostly because for the most part I like their sense of equality when it comes to the gay community (in so far as it doesn’t extend (or rarely extends) to lead characters). But then they go completely off the rails with real imagination and creative bravado. They just seem to be apathetic to trying new things when it’s so much easier to option something in existence and ‘spin’ it, make our mark on it.
What the fuck-ever.
Fae-ry Tales Reimagined…
Author’s sidebar (to provide some context): So I’ve not been blogging as much as I should the past couple of weeks. Life fully inserted itself and pulled focus as it is wont to do from time to time. I had finals in school (yeah, this gay dad put his daughter through college before he ever got around to finishing his own schooling – guess I’m a good father that way), work was a bitch (isn’t that why it’s called work and not play? And on top of all of that I was busy trying to get my first novel to a publisher. Anywho, long story/short – I was busy. But that didn’t mean for a single second that I didn’t have things roiling around in my head just itchin’ to be hurled onto this here digital paper, right?
So here’s what I’ve been mentally riffing on in the back of my mind…
…whilst dealing with work, school, life and the book: traditional character re-imaginings. Now, normally, I am split on this topic. There are some icons in literature and movies/TV that I think are completely sacred. This is why I will NEVER watch Elementary (Watson as a woman = ludicrous). That was simply someone who was too lazy to finally play up and pursue the last step in the Sherlock/Watson bromance and actually make them (male) lovers and so, made it mainstream palpable by throwing a female into the mix. Uh uh, nothin’ doin’ there. So Sherlock’s sacred. As is James Bond – I wouldn’t make him gay for the world. He’s far too much of a romantic fuck-up to wish that on my fellow fey brethren. Now, Benedict and Martin’s Sherlock (set in modern day London)? Sign me the fuck up!
Benedict and Martin
I could wax nostalgic over many such literary and media laden icons like these. But my thoughts were running rampant on a different sacred ground that I was just itching to see go GAY! Disney Villains.
I’d like to point out that I was totally smitten with a certain artist over at Deviantart.com by the name of Sakamichan who has some amazing artwork over there. There is a particular vein where the Disney princesses and villains have been reimagined as their Fae Boy counterparts. This got my creative juices flowing.
First up – Ursula vs. Urs
Disney’s Ursula reimagined as Urs by Sakamichan (deviantart.com)
This could go in so many ways that the original Hans Christian Andersen tale didn’t. I could see Urs actually having the hots for Prince Eric and finding a means to torment Ariel that would take on a whole new meaning. That waifish little fish woulda had a tougher time with a studly and horny gay boy on her finned backside that’s for sure. But if we add a whole other gay boy layer of icing to this lovefest cake? What if Ariel were a merboy instead of that insipid carrot topped girl?
Ariel as a merman…or gaymer? – He looks pretty gay either way…
- VS.
- Ariel as the fish of a girl she can be…
Next up: Cruella DeVille vs. Cruel DeVil
Disney’s Cruella as reimagined by Sakamichan from deviantart.com
Now we’re getting to the meat of the matter – and I ain’t talking dog meat, neither! This gay fashionista would have added an intense sexual tension if he wasn’t only interested with the puppies but what if he was interested in wrestling a Roger Radcliffe who had dallied with his more prevalent bisexual past while in college. Perhaps Roger is bored with domestic life and Cruel finds the repressed and domestically whipped Roger irresistible? Hell, maybe the dogs are just the trip wire to snag what Cruel is really after? Some man on man action with said repressed husband? That sort of action might’ve made the puppies blush!
Okay, I know. This whole blog entry is rather silly. I get that. That’s where I am mentally after an exhausting round of school finals, work crap and a novel submission. But I have one more musing to propose and it’s a doozy –
The Grand Finale – Maleficent vs. MALEficent…
Maleficent as reimagined into MALEficent. Emphasis on all things MALE…
Now we’re cooking with gas…!
This whole thing would need a complete re-write. I see it as two brother’s dueling for the heart of one simple gay prince who doesn’t have a hope of finding the kind of love he truly wants. He’s probably a waifish man-child. A geek amongst princes – you know the type? Can’t swing a sword if he hired a knight to do it for him sort of gay boy? A King’s worst nightmare?
Only his father wouldn’t berate him. He’d love his shy but lovable little princeling. Now the real story would be about the battle between Prince Philip and Maleficent. In MY version the boys would’ve been half-brothers with Maleficent being the product of an illicit affair between his father and a comely witch. Maleficent would be that son. So as not to eschew him entirely he introduces Maleficent to his half-brother hoping that the two of them would grow close. And for a while they do. Until in their early teens they fight for the affection of a common but ruggedly handsome stable boy. When it seems the stable boy prefers the romantic overtures of Philip over the wanton sexual come-ons of Maleficent, Maleficent pulls a terrible stunt that costs the young stable boy his life. In grief Maleficent accuses Philip for the boy’s death and vows that one day he will visit a terrible curse upon his one true love.
The rest can sort of play out along those lines – with perhaps a replay of the same sort of love triangle between Maleficent and Philip over this new boy. Will the brother’s ever learn or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of their past? Kitchy, I grant you – but isn’t that the very nature of fairy tales. Faery Tales like you’ve never imagined.
And here’s a twisted take on this whole re-imagining – what if Philip and Maleficent were trying to correct the mistakes of their past? Maybe behind closed doors Maleficent is into painting toe-nails and soft-pillows and chatting about fashion and romance literature. And what if Prince Philip was a total leather daddy now and wanted nothing more than to bend waifish Anatoli (which means East or Sunrise (Dawn) in Russian)? But, I dunno… I think I like Maleficent being the dominatrix-esque leather daddy, don’t you? Either way, you have to admit it would be a far cry from either the Grimm Brother’s take or even the Disney remake.
…or perhaps, like me, they’ve been the musings of your gay boy dreams?