Buffy Summers is The Slayer, the "one girl in all the world" with the power to kill the vampires, demons, and other evils who keep escaping from the hellmouth located in suburban Sunnydale, California, while trying to negotiate high school.
Her scoobies include science nerd Xander (Nicholas Brendan, left); his girlfriend, a 1000-year old vengeance demon; witch-in-training and eventual lesbian Willow; and Willow's doomed, bury-your-gays girlfriend.
Not a lot of beefcake in the bunch, but the writers took care of that by giving Buffy lots of boyfriends, including two feuding vampires, the conflicted, tortured Angel (David Boreanaz, top photo), and the sassy punk rocker Spike (James Marsters).
Literally tortured. The writers kept trying to out-do themselves in thinking of creative ways to torture Angel.I liked some of the adventures, such as when everyone in town had to sing instead of speak, or when grinning men who fed on fear started floating around. And Buffy gave us two indispensable terms for analyzing tv shows, scoobies and Big Bad.
The attitude toward LGBT people was a bit old fashioned. Xander, upset because a lady demon rejected him, announces that he's going to go gay. Willow explicitly states that she was straight, but changed to gay. Their handler shuts them all down, proclaiming that there's no time to worry about "orientations" when they're facing the most severe crisis of all time (every season).
In 1999 Angel left Sunnyvale, except for a few guest appearances, to start his own paranormal detective agency, in Angel (1999-2004). His scoobies included Cordelia, a reformed high school Mean Girl; the half-demon Doyle (Glen Quinn), and Wesley (Alexis Denisof, left), a "rogue demon hunter" -- at least in the first season. Glen Quinn died, and there were many defections and replacement, doubtless because this was not a fun, tongue-in-cheek paranormal adventure.
I had to keep watching due to a partner who was a big fan, but it got very, very dark. Sure, Cordelia used to be a Mean Girl, but did that justify putting her through excruciating physical pain in every episode? I insisted that he fast-forward past the scene where Wesley's girlfriend spends five minutes dying, in the awareness that she has no soul, so she's headed for extinction. This is supposed to be entertainment? F*k the Sadness.
After Angel, David finally managed to break into movies. I didn't see any of them, and probably won't. These Girls (2005): high school girls blackmail a "slightly older hunk," who happens to be married, into having sex with them? In 2005, David was 36. But at least he gives us frontal and rear nudity.
The Hard Easy (2006): two teams of jewel thieves converge on the same target?
Mr. Fix It (2006): a man named -- get this -- Lance Valenteen, har har -- has the job of convinces ex-boyfriends to return to their girlfriends. He finds himself falling in love with one of his targets.
Suffering Man's Charity, aka Ghost Writer (2007): A sleazy gay predator teacher (Alan Cummings) tries to manipulate a young writer (David) into sex, but upon discovering that he has a girlfriend, kidnaps and tortures him (while he is dressed in lady's clothes, for some crazy reason), then kills him, and puts his name on his victim's unpublished book. It becomes a hit, which raises the ire of the ghost. Was the writer checking items off a list of "how to insult gay people"?
David returned to tv with Bones (2005-17), playing an FBI Agent who pairs up with his forensic-anthropologist Love Interest to solve murders. They appear to be a non-paranormal Mulder and Skully, with Booth (David) solving cases through "intuition, faith, and God," and Brennan (the Love Interest) preferring empirical evidence and naturalistic explanations. It's a slow-burn "will they or won't they?", with the Big Damn Kiss in Season 6, a kid in Season 7, and the Big Damn Wedding in Season 9.
I never watched, but some reviews dislike Booth's homophobic attitude toward gay and trans people. Other argue that Brennan is pro-gay, and there's a regular lesbian character, so we get "both points of view."
When Bones ended, David moved on to Seal Team (2017-), about the elite U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, not the semi-aquatic mammal. He plays Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes, aka Bravo 1/1B. Imagine trying to get all that on your name badge at a conference.
I doubt that there are any gay characters. Perennial gay ally Steve Howey appears in two episodes, playing a straight guy.
So: 25 years of tv series with no or few gay characters, with a few homophobic asides, and in real life, David seems rather ambiguous. He posts a photo on instagram wearing a GLAAD t-shirt, but also, according to a subreddit, posts that "LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, reproductive rights, and Black Lives Matter are synonymous to communism, tarot cards, and zodiac signs." Wacky.
When the highly-conservative, devout Roman Catholic in his 50s posts a jerk-off video, it's not really sexy, it's rather sad. But I posted pics on RG Beefcake and BoyfriendsSee also: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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