Not Suitable for Work: A 2020s "Friends" with two breakups, two meet-cutes, three d*cks (two visible), fashion, finance, and a gay guy turned straight.

Link to the n*de dudes

The first three episodes of Not Suitable for Work (2026) just dropped on Hulu.  It's advertised as "five twenty-something professionals" in Manhattan struggling with careers and relationships.  

Sounds familiar.  I've already seen New Girl (with Max Greenfield, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) Happy Endings (with Zachary Knighton),  Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (with Victor Rodriguez III), and the grandad of them all, Friends:

The first episode synopsis of the new series gets all creepy: "Whoa -- two girls live across the hall from three guys. Yeah, I'd watch that, leer leer."  But according to Decider and Meecham Meriweather's blog, there's a gay character, Kel, played by Nicholas Durvenay.  So I'll watch for gay representation.

There are five interlocking plotlines.  I'll separate them for clarity.

Dudebro Davis

Behind a giant stock ticker, Dudebro Davis (Will Angus) is getting yelled at by HR for having an office romance: "relationships with coworkers are forbidden." 

"If I have to choose between love and work, I'll choose love!"

The next morning, Dudebro tries to bring his girl breakfast in bed, but she's dumped him.

He asks his roommates why girls keep breaking up with him, even though he has a great body and a high-paying job.  

"Maybe you come on too strong, falling in love instantly."

He heads to work. Coworker Jocelyn (queer actress May Hong) notes that she hurt her Achilles tendon, but the nurse at Urgent Care was kind of cute.  She doesn't specify a male nurse, and most nurses are ladies.  I'll bet she's queer.

Coworker Dileen renewed his vows with his wife over the weekend.  Dudebro responds with "God, I'm so lonely!"  You had a girlfriend like 30 seconds ago.  You haven't had a chance to become lonely yet.   Dileen advises him to start off as a friend, then move gradually into romance.

But when Dudebro walks into work the next day, he is so stunned by the sight of the Girl of His Dreams that he drops his coffee.  And she turns out to be his new coworker!   He stumbles over himself trying to "welcome" her, introducing her to the coworkers, giving her the company password, and so on.  But when he offers to help with her assignment, she's offended: "I graduated from a top university with a degree in this, and I've done it 38,000 times on two internships with top firms!  I don't need help!"  Uh-oh, you're blowing it.

Gay Dude Kel

At medical school, the teacher announces that today they'll be examining cadavers, including their genitals, "which may be swollen."  Gay Dude Kel doesn't want to do it: "Is there a vegan option?" No.  He removes the sheet and exclaims "That dude's real dead" -- and faints. Haven't you studied anatomy, bro?

 

Cut to Gay Dude discussing a call-back for an acting job with Rich Kid Josh (below). 

"How can you handle acting and med school?"

"It's easy.  I just don't sleep."

On his call-back audition, he is asked to do a monologue where he tells his dad "I'm nothing.  I'm useless."  Next he is asked to do a freestyle rap.  It wasn't mentioned in the audition call. He tries, performs badly, and is ushered out.  

Back in the cadaver lab, Gay Dude decides that he doesn't want to cut open an "uncircumsized cadaver." So it would be ok if he were circumsized?  He doesn't enjoy med school, so he's quitting.  Right now.

When Gay Dude breaks the news to the guys, they are shocked.  "But you don't have a job, and when your mom finds out, she's going to kill you."

"Who cares?  Now I can concentrate on my acting."

The next day, Gay Dude meets his sister  at the coffee shop and explains that he hates medical school, and is droppping out.  "I just need you to help me think of how to tell Mom."  Uh-oh, the sister invited Mom.  Here she is, wanting to take the Christmas card photos with her talented doctor children.  Gay Dude chickens out of telling her.

Rich Kid Josh

Rich Kid Josh (Jack Martin) and his girl are doing stuff. Shirtless, but he moves around too much for a good screen shot  He stops to check his cell phone, which annoys her. It would annoy me, too.  You're literally in the middle of the act.  But he has to check the time of his interview --a PA job on The Wes Dryden Show, a big deal. 

You've seen Jack Martin as the villainous RA in Pizza Movie.

Later, his roommates complain about the girlfriend taking up so much space, so he offers to move with her into the apartment next door.  It's occupied by Fashionista Abby (below), but she's living there illegally, so he'll order her to move out.

In the morning, Rich Kid appears at his interview.  He tells Boss Patricia that even though he's the CEO's son,  he wants to go through the ranks like anyone else.  "Nope, it's not going to happen. You're not qualified.  Next!" 

On the way out, Rich Kid runs into Wes Dryden (Victor Garber), flatters him, and drops CEO Dad's name. "Oh, and I'm applying for a PA job on your show."

Cut to Rich Kid announcing to the guys that he got the job!  

The next day, Wes Dryden introduces Rich Kid as the new PA. Boss Patricia is angry: she wanted to hire a girl who's been interning there for two years.   She calls Josh into her office and asks "Do you know how I got this job?  I married Wes."

Victor Garber's d*ck is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Update: it was very small and blurry, so I got rid of it.

"But you're both gay."

"It was the 1990s.  He needed a lavender marriage for his career, and I needed a promotion."  The point is, she's angry that all Rich Kid had to do was say his name, so she's going to keep him from moving up in the industry.

That night, the girlfriend brings Rich Kid  "his favorite" (that's so annoying; all anyone ever eats on tv is their favorite). 

In other news, she's dumping him.  She fell in love with a real estate agent, brother to The Property Brothers (stars of a Canadian DIY show). 

More after the break

Arturo Castro: The gay Guatemalan roommate and gay-subtext gangster, with the c*ck that got censored.

  

Link to the d*ck pics

When I posted a d*ck pic of gay-subtext gangster Arturo Castro on my review of Mike + Nick, it got a "sensitive warning" exclamation point that wouldn't go away.  Wait -- isn't every post on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends sensitive? .  

So I'm going to try again, and put the post so far down that I won't see the exclamation point.

Guatemalan actor Arturo Castro is best known for Broad City (2014-19), the New York gal-pal sitcom.  He plays Jaime Castro, Ilana's pocket-gay roommate, in 25 episodes.  Most of his centrics involve being fashion conscious and shy, but eventually he begins dating Johnny (Guillermo Diaz, right).

There's a c*ck pic of Guillermo Diaz on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Arturo has 95 other acting credits listed on the IMDB, but I don't recognize any except Narcos (2015-17), a biography of drug lord Pablo Escobar, and The Menu (2022), about a chef whose posh creations involve the deaths of his dinner guests. As far as I can tell, none of his other characters are gay

Although he does show his physique in a 2019 episode of Room 104, the anthology series featuring paranormal problems bedeviling guests who stay in that room.  Craig (Arturo) suffers from a debilitating skin condition that gets worse and worse, no matter what he tries.

Shaving his stuff doesn't help.

But he never gives up hope, which is why he continues smiling even as his body falls apart.

We see his backside, too.

Nice.  Too bad you're not into bottom stuff.  With guys, anyhow.

More after the break, including the c*ck that got me censored.  

"And Just Like That": Carrie's return has elitism, bisexuals, d*cks, musems, marital spats, s'mores, and shoes. Lots of shoes.

Link to the n*de dudes

I never watched the original S*ex and the City series when it first aired on HBO (1998-2004), although I knew about Mr. Big (Chris Noth), for obvious reasons.  Who wants to watch four super-entitled New York-centric ladies having lunch? The only episode I watched featured Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) investigating bisexuals for her newspaper column.  

Her conclusion: they are all gay, and fooling themselves.  Bisexuals don't exist. 

So much for bi representation. 

Researching this review, I discovered that Carrie has a stereotypic gay best friend with the incredible name Stanford Blatch (why, was Bruce Van Swishington taken?).  

Having never watched the original, I've never been interested in the 2021-25 sequel, And Just Like That (presumably the title means that 20 years have passed "just like that"). But I've seen n*de guys parading around on occasion, and the plot synopses mention several LGBTQ characters.  We'll see if the portrayals are cringy.

I'll identify the five main ladies by their careers.  From left to right, Filmmaker Lisa, Art Dealer Charlotte, Columnist Carrie, Realtor Seema, Lawyer Miranda. 

Episode 3.5, "Under the Table," has three main plot threads.

The Charlotte/Lisa Plot:

Scene 1: The Guggenheim.  I love that museum.  Wait -- they didn't visit, they're just walking past. Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend Harry (Evan Handler) reveals that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, but they found it early, so he has a 98% chance of full recovery. 

In other news, they're going glamping (glamor camping) with the kids at Governors Island this weekend.

Scene 2:  Nuclear family breakfast in a huge, super-elegant kitchen. Filmmaker Lisa won't be back from filming her documentary until late Friday, so she tells her husband, Herbert Wexley (wow, what unrealistic entitled name), to take their children to Governors Island for glamping with Charlotte and her boyfriend. 

Husband is played by Chris Jackson

Wait -- this is the first he's heard of it. "No, I've told you several times." "No you haven't."

 

"Sorry, I can't do it.  I have a photo shoot for my campaign."  He has to pretend to be a "regular guy," eat one of those...um...frankfurter sausage things...and ride on the...you know, the poor people train...the subway.  

"You can do the 'regular guy' shoot on Monday, " Filmmaker Lisa commands. "This weekend we're going glamping with the Goldblatts."

Scene 3: Art Dealer Charlotte is trying to cook, but she's too distracted.  Her friend Anthony (Mario Cantone) asks if she's ok. 

Her children, a girl and a nonbinary person, ask if they can skip glamping.  "No, you're going" It's important because her boyfriend has prostate cancer, but he doesn't want them knowing that.

Scene 4: Governors Island (no apostrophe), just south of Manhattan, with views of the skyline.   The nonbinary child notes that there's a spa and go-karts. 

Art Dealer Charlotte's boyfriend complains about the mosquitos. 

 Filmmaker Lisa bursts in, and her husband criticizes her for being late. "Well, four hours ago, I was in Atlanta."  Then they bicker because one of them told the other to buy chocolate to make s'mores.  This couple is on the outs.

Scene 5: A tent big enough for three beds and a living room set. The boyfriend and the kids are lounging around, playing on their cell phones, when Art Dealer Charlotte bursts in and complains that they should be doing outdoor activities. They refuse. My parents used to say that on family vacations.  "You shouldn't be lounging around the cabin reading comic books.  Go enjoy the outdoors."  How does one "enjoy" the outdoors?  It's a place you go through on the way to enjoying things.

Meanwhile, Filmmaker Lisa and her husband bicker. She takes a photo of him and their kids.  When he looks at it, he accidentally scrolls to the last one she took: a selfie with her editor Marion (Mehcad Brooks).

"Are you having an affair with Michael B. Handsome?  Talk about getting your chocolate in Atlanta!"

"No, it's just a work crush."

He continues to growl, so Lisa stomps off, and runs into Charlotte at the pier.  They complain about their partners, and decide to ditch them and take a spa day. 

Cut to the spa. Close up of ladies in bikinis.  They're really pushing the heterosexual male gaze. 

Carrie/Miranda and Seema after the break

Champions: Gay kid with two dads played by Andy Favreau and Anders Holm

TV series that failed after only 10 episodes used to fade into oblivion.  Now they are picked up by streaming services, Amazon Prime, Vudu, and Netflix.  But streaming services also have self-contained 10-episode series, designed to tell a story and end.  Which is Champions?

Episode 1: We open in a run-down Brooklyn gym, where two guys, a hunk and a dork, are arguing over whether to get a dog.  A gay couple?  Nope, just heterosexual life partners -- gym owner Vince (Anders Holm, below) and his layabout brother Matthew (Andy Favreau, left). Think Alan and Charlie of Two and a Half Men.

  Suddenly a gunman bursts in, threatening to kill Vince for sleeping with his wife. Matthew convinces him that Vince has such a horible life that death would be a blessing.  This is the stuff of comedy?

Is it just me, or are the pair named wrong?  The hunk should be named Vince, and the dork Matthew. And shouldn't the one with the muscular physique be the gym owner?  Did the actors get their casting calls switched?

Also, why is it the dork who has sex with a hundred women per day, beginning in high school, where he got his girlfriend Priya (Mindy Kaling) pregnant?

Speak of the devil.  Cut to the ritzy Manhattan Academy of the Performing Arts, where 15-year old Michael (transgender actress Josie Totah, before she transitioned) is being told that there's a problem with his application (whose bright idea was it to name the two stars Michael and Matthew?).  The Dean of Admissions, who admitted him and offered to let him stay in his house, has been arrested in a "Jared from Subway type sting," so Michael (the kid) has nowhere to live.

Wait -- Michael (the kid) was being groomed by a pedophile?  This is the stuff of comedy?

The solution is clear: Michael (the kid) can live with Dad Vince (the dork) and Uncle Matthew (the hunk), who didn't know that he existed before today.

The rest of the series: Michael is the only kind of gay kid one ever sees on tv, an uber-swishy, facial product-wearing, show tune-obsessed swish.  He reminds me of Justin from Ugly Betty, except that Justin took five years to come out, and Michael's gayness is a done deal, not ever questioned.  In this world, homophobia does not exist.

But racism does: Vince has a type, preferring to date Indian women, although he's eclectic in his choice of bedroom partners. Anti-Indian and other racial prejudice is frequently evoked.

Michael proceeds to rehabilitate his two Dads. He encourages Vince to cut back on his womanizing, Matthew to study for his GED, and the duo to reconcile with their estranged mother.  He helps out at the gym, too, revising its web page and giving gym bookkeeper Dana (Ginger Gonzaga) advice on her love life. 

Not that Michael (the kid) lacks problems:  he's painfully naive about everything but musical theater, he struggles to embrace his Indian heritage and to accept the fact that he's no longer the most talented performer in his school.

More after the break

Max Gail the Bodybuilding Cop

On Barney Miller (1975-82), an ensemble comedy about the cops and criminals in a wacky New York precinct, Max Gail played the naïve/dumb hunk Wojo, a precursor to Woody on Cheers and Joey on Friends. But he was quite a hunk, massive as a bodybuilder in pants so tight he could barely sit down, with soft brown hair, a disarming little-boy grin, and square hard hands that jutted uncomfortably from his wide 70’s cuffs. At least one episode showed him shirtless. Who cared if he always failed the detective’s exam?

But Wojo offered more than beefcake. In its early seasons, Barney Miller featured two swishy gay criminals, and there are hints that Wojo’s attempts to bond with them masks a turmoil in his own mind, a growing realization that he, too, has such “feelings.” In “Quarantine” he demands of Mr. Driscoll, “Haven’t you ever tried it with a girl?” then waxes silent,when the criminal admits that he has indeed tried “it” to the point of siring a son. 

 Wojo himself tries “it” valiantly and exhaustively for awhile, but then his heterosexual profligacy fades in the face of increasing joy with squard room comrades and outside friends. 

In “Wojo’s Problem," Wojo discovers that he is sterile, and Officer Levitt (Ron Carey) exclaims "But you're so. . .big!" "That's got nothing to do with it!", Wojo snaps. Sterility comes dangerously close to a metaphor for gayness.

In “Inquisition," Wojo accidentally “outs” a gay cop, who will probably be fired. He says dismally “I feel like such a Judas.” Dietrich quips “At least you didn’t kiss him.” Could kissing be a possibility?

In “Examination Day," Wojo finally passes the detective's exam, and he excitedly makes a phone call:

We can pick up a little food, go to my place, and start celebratin’. But better be ready. . .’cause this time I’m a sergeant. [Notices Barney staring at him in disapproval, flashes a guilty grin, covers the phone with his hand.] Just telling a few friends the good news.

Presumably the writers expect us to conclude that Wojo is talking to a woman, but he never specifies a gender. If it is indeed a woman, why would Barney evidence such strong disapproval? The cops make personal calls all the time, and certainly Wojo is justified in announcing the good news. Maybe Wojo is planning a romantic dinner with a man.

After Barney Miller, Max Gail played beefy, balding hunks in many movies and tv series, including Whiz Kids, with Matthew Laborteaux. He has played gay characters several times, most notably on The Drew Cary Show, with Batman Adam West as his partner.

Spring 1977: On the Brink of Busting Loose

In the spring of my junior year in high school, when I was starting to accumulate college catalogs from all over the country -- indeed, all over the world -- and hoping to get away from the oppressive influence of parents, church, and heterosexism -- a new sitcom appeared on Wednesday nights after Good Times called Busting Loose. 

It starred the 20-year old Adam Arkin as Lenny Markowitz, a cute Jewish boy -- just as I was reading My Name is Asher Lev, and watching Lanigan's Rabbi, with their homoerotic Jewish subtexts.  And meeting Aaron, my first Jewish friend, who was gay but didn't know it yet.

Lenny tries to distance himself from his parents by getting his own apartment -- a terrible one.  The wallpaper has ducks on it.

He has a crush on his next door neighbor, Melodee (Barbara Rhoades), who dates for a living -- "I'm a great date!" she explains. But she's actually a paid escort, not a... you know.

  She's always saying things that sound like sex but really aren't: "Can I borrow some ice?  My date threw his back out."

But I was more interested in Lenny's close knit group of childhood buddies (plus a coworker), various personalities and levels of hotness: the nerd Lester (Danny Goldman), the bad boy Vinnie (Greg Antonacci), the hunk Woody (Paul Sylvan), and Allan (Stephen Nations), whom I don't rememer.

There were only 21 episodes, in the spring and fall of 1977.   No gay characters, no nudity.  You had to be there, just at the brink of "busting loose."

Paul Sylvan also embarked on a musical career, and posed naked and steamy for the cover of this album.

Stephen Nathan was in The First Nudie Musical (1978).

And Adam Arkin has had a long career, with many gay-positive projects, such as East of A (2000) and Kids in America (2005).

Saturday Night Live and the Ambiguously Gay Bill Murray

Chevy Chase

In the spring of 1976, during my sophomore year at Rocky High, my friends started talking about a new late-night tv program, with musical numbers and comedy sketches.

"A variety show!" I exclaimed in disgust, thinking of Carol Burnett, with its boring sketches and songs from the dinosaur era.

No, this is different!  Songs by ABBA and Paul Simon!  Spoofs of tv commercials! The cast is young, our age!

So at 10:30 on February 21st, 1976, I heard the words "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night" for the first time.

The guest host was Desi Arnaz, who starred on I Love Lucy in the 1950s.  At that time I had never actually seen an episode, but I had heard of it, so I was mildly amused by sketches involving failed I Love Lucy Pilots (one was I Love Louie, with him married to jazz musician Louie Armstrong!)  

I didn't see it again until April 17th, 1976. I had never heard of the guest host Ron Nessen (Press secretary for President Ford), but I liked a short film about men singing at a urinal, and Weekend Update, with Emily Litella (Gilda Radner) riffing on "Presidential erections" (of statues).

On April 24th, 1976, the guest host was 1960s icon Raquel Welch.  The men kept trying to get her to take her top off and display her breasts.  I didn't like that, but I liked the sketch "One Flew over the Hornet's Nest," where the Bees weren't allowed to watch the Oscars on tv, and the musical guest, Phoebe Snow, singing "All Over":  "The night queen fright wig street Parade may fade, when we laugh at the statues of gods we have made."

And on like that through high school and college, watching occasionally, when I was home and there was nothing good on Creature Feature.  Pleasant but not hilarious, cozy and intimate, like the kinds of spoofs you do among friends.

Occasional gay references, especially in 1977, when Bill Murray joined the cast; he was so flamboyant, with a Castro Clone moustache and a shirt unbuttoned all the way down his chest, that we all assumed he was openly gay.  (Meatballs in 1979 "confirmed" the rumors.)

For the next few years, everyone between age 15 and 30, male or female, gay or straight, knew "I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not," "Jane, you ignorant slut," "Land Shark," "Cheeseburger cheeseburger coke coke," and "Oh, no, Mr. Hands."  It was a set of common references for everyone age 15 to 30, male or female, gay or straight.  It was one of the few places in the "straight world" where I felt like I belonged.

When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, it came on at 1:30 pm, when I was either out or otherwise occupied.  Besides, I was living in a "good place," so I didn't need it anymore.  

During the 1980s and 1990s, I only saw a few glimpses here and there.  I remember the Church Lady, Michael Myers singing about masturbation, and a homophobic sketch about how horrible would it be to allow gays in the military.  According to Saturday NIght Live: An Oral Hisotry some of the cast members, notably Chevy Chase, were extremely homophobic.

But the phrase "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" still brings back memories of high school, when the whole world was fresh and new.

Love, Sidney: Tony Randall Plays...Um...You Know

In a 1972 interview in the gay-vague After Dark magazine, Tony Randall said that he'd recently seen some gay porn.  "Just terrible!  Just disgusting!  There's nothing to watch in that. It confirms something I've always suspected -- they don't like it."  Later he said "There is no such thing as homosexuality -- it's just something invented by a bunch of fags."

Rather an odd statement from someone who had played the gay-vague friend to gay actor Rock Hudson in several movies, including Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957), Pillow Talk (1959), and Send Me No Flowers (1964).  But at the time he didn't believe the rumors -- "6'5, built like Tarzan, very virile. A man's man. I didn't believe it for a moment."

Apparently he spent his life believing that all gay men swished.

Still, he kept trying to incorporate gay plotlines into The Odd Couple (1970-75), about two divorced men sharing an apartment, the prissy, gay-coded Felix (Tony) and the boorish slob Oscar (Jack Klugman).  Every other hip urban sitcom had a gay episode -- why not his?  Maybe Felix could find an article Oscar was writing on gays in sports, and assume that he was gay.  Or they could accidentally get booked onto a gay cruise.  The network censors nixed every idea, so Tony and Jack started baiting the censors by hugging and kissing.  

In 1981, Tony Randall starred in the tv movie Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend, about a depressed gay artist living in Manhattan who takes in a single mom and her daughter. The gayness was gingerly tiptoed around, conveyed through hints and innuendos.  Oddly, he didn't swish.

The tv version, Love Sidney (1981-83) faced howls of outrage long before it aired.  Right-wing nutjobs hated the fact that a gay man would be openly portrayed on tv (also a woman who had sex without being married).  So Sidney was de-gayed as much as possible, and Laurie (Swoozie Kurtz) became merely divorced, not "loose."

How de-gayed was Sidney?  He never says anything, but there is a photo of his long-dead lover placed tactfully in the background in the apartment. He doesn't know any other gay people, although he rescues a suicidal one in the penultimate episode.  Actually, he doesn't have any friends of his own, although he is quite obsessed with his mother.

He doesn't date any women, except in the 1983 two-parter "Allison."  It doesn't work out, because he's still pining "for someone he lost."  "I really hate her!" Allison exclaims.  Sidney cautions: "Don't hate...er, that person."

That's as gay as tv got in 1983.

That's as gay-friendly as Tony Randall got.

The Odd Couple

The Odd Couple (1970-75) seems like an odd addition to the teen-friendly Friday night lineup that also included The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, and Room 222.  No teens, no teen idol songs, just two middle aged men, the slovenly Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman) and the fastidious Felix Ungar (Tony Randall) as bickering heterosexual roommates in a New York apartment.

Ostensibly they are thrust together out of necessity after failed heterosexual unions: Felix is kicked out of his house because his wife, Gloria, finds him too fastidious, so he takes refuge with his divorced friend.  But surely being a “neat freak” is insufficient cause for divorce.  Nor does the sudden disruption of his life explain why Felix continues to live with Oscar for five years; a middle-aged heterosexual man with a sizeable business income (Felix is a professional photographer) may move in with a buddy for a few weeks in an emergency, but he would certainly want his own apartment as soon as possible.  If Felix is understood as “gay,” however, it makes perfect sense.

Tony Randall would most likely favor a gay reading of his character: in the 1950’s and 1960’s he specialized in gay-stereotyped roles, sensitive, effete, artistic, snobbish, persnickety, and doting on macho best friends; in Send Me No Flowers (1964), his character all but jumps into bed with the hunky Rock Hudson.   After The Odd Couple, he planned to make television history by playing the first openly gay character with a starring role in prime time, but network censors insisted on closeting Love, Sidney.

Randall notes that they did attempt to mention gay people a few times in The Odd Couple.  Felix finds an article that Oscar is writing about gay liberation, assumes that he is gay, and muses, “If it was going to be anyone,  you’d think it would be me.” Oscar and Felix accidentally book themselves onto a gay airplane flight, and fit right in with the other couples.   But all such references were summarily nixed by the network censors. The producers got so fed up that they filmed clips of Oscar and Felix kissing, and sent them in just to get the censors mad.

The network was so squeamish about potential “misinterpretations” of the couple that in the first season they made the middle-aged men, one still aching from a breakup, flirt with women as aggressively as college fratboys.  In the first episode, “The Laundry Orgy” (September 1970), Felix and Oscar scheme to end their weekly poker game early so they can go out on a date with the giggling British-mod Pigeon Sisters, who seem to have popped in directly from a stag film.  Aside from the best-buddy dynamic, the fact that they can only conceive of a date with women when both of them go together, the plot is remarkably heterosexist, with poker-playing buddies mere hindrances on the road to heterosexual toddy.

As the show progressed, the poker pals and the Pigeon Sisters were dropped, and the tension about the duo’s conflicting personal habits faded into the background.  Eventually their definition as an “odd couple” depended less upon the neat/sloppy interaction than upon appearance together in all public and private events, so obviously romantic partners that their occasional heterosexual dates and separate bedrooms seemed irrelevant.  In “The Princess” (September 1972), Felix is hired to photograph the Princess of Luxembourg (Jean Simmons).  Oscar and the Princess share a mutual attraction, but the walls of royal security make him despair of ever seeing her again.  Then Felix receives an invitation to attend a royal ball, and gets an idea: “It says here that I can bring a guest.  Oscar – you’ll be my date!”  So Oscar and Felix, resplendent in tuxedos, mingle among the palace elite as same-sex partners without the least embarrassment.  The Princess seems taken aback by this demonstration that the two are lovers, but only because she is herself interested in Oscar.

After the initial giggling Pigeon Sister phase, Oscar and Felix develop an extraordinary interest in children.  They tutor a teenage jock, act as big brothers to a reform school boy, adopt a homeless boy,  restore a lost infant to its mother, help Oscar’s homeless niece deliver her baby, and coach pee wee football. This domesticity helped The Odd Couple move beyond the sophomoric humor of Neil Simon’s hetero-sex farce, and sealed the duo’s popularity among adolescents.

Of 114 episodes, only fourteen concern Oscar or Felix seeking heterosexual romance, and eleven involve nurturing children or adolescents.  Most of the remaining episodes show the couple acting as domestic partners: going on cruises and retreats together, relating anecdotes about how they first met, or helping friends sort through their romances.  The romantic implication of their relationship is never far from the surface.  For instance,  in “Being Divorced Means Never Having to Say I Do” (December 1971), Oscar’s ex-wife Blanche announces that she is getting remarried.  Oscar is delighted at the prospective liberation from alimony payments, but Felix objects (literally, during the ceremony!).  He protests that Blanche is obviously not in love with her fiancé.

Oscar: [Sarcastically.]  What is love, Dear Abby?

Felix: Love is that feeling between two people, a man and a woman. [Pause.] It doesn’t have to be a man and a woman. [Pause.] It could be a man and a dog, or a dog and a cat, or a. . .a bunny. [Pause]. Love is that intense, vital, passionate feeling one person has for another.


As Felix attempts to describe the romantic love that would justify a permanent monogamous commitment rather than a simple friendship, it is curious that he doesn’t make love exclusively heterosexual, as so many people still do today.  His pause after “it doesn’t have to be a man and a woman” followed by an incoherent ramble about pets suggests that he has thought of another form of romantic love, one that he dares not speak aloud.  Oscar agrees that he has a “intense, vital, passionate” feeling for Felix, but it is certainly not hate, and it is too passionate to be simple friendship.

The theme song had lyrics, never aired, that emphasize what gay viewers knew all along, that the two were literally in love, sharing a passion deep enough to withstand their conflicting personalities, their trivial pursuit of women, and the stares of passersby:

No matter where they go, they are known as the couple.
They’re never seen alone, so they’re known as the couple.
Their habits, I confess, none can guess with the couple. . .
Don’t you find, when love is blind, it’s kind of odd?

Fall 1982: Dancer from the Dance: Gay Ghetto by Andrew Holleran

When I started grad school in Bloomington, Indiana in 1982, I had no trouble finding gay books.  There were no gay sections in the campus bookstore or the White Rabbit downtown, but you could just scan the shelves for titles that were dark and sinister, about secrets and lies and despair, like Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask or Tennessee Williams' A Thirsty Evil.

But one day I stumbled upon one that didn't use code: Dancer from the Dance (1978), by Andrew Holleran, with a shirtless guy wrapped in a yuppie sweater on the cover (he looked like Perry King, bottom photo).  The blurb that yelled: "A haunting novel of romance and decadence in the fast lanes of gay society!"

Wow, no secrets, no lies, no despair!  Maybe even a gay man who experiences a moment or two of happiness, and doesn't die at the end.

No such luck.

The gay men in Dancer from the Dance are all young, beautiful, wealthy, and cursed. They trudge from gym to bar to after-hours club to bathhouse, dancing, taking drugs, having sex, seeing the same faces year after year, but knowing nothing about them except their penis size. They have dozens of lovers but no friends.  They are unable to find any meaning in life, or any happiness.

Every summer they are bussed from the Village to Fire Island, from one prison to another, and they peer out the windows at Sayville, with its husbands and wives sitting contented on porches while kids frolick in front yards, and they think "That's happiness!  But we can never experience it, because we're gay, and therefore doomed."

As one of the characters explains: "The world demands that gay life be ultimately sad, for everyone in this country believes. . .that to be happy you must have a two-story house in the suburbs and a FAMILY."  Andrew Holleran not excluded.

The main character, Malone, vanishes at the end of the novel.  Sex/dance partners are always vanishing.   Some escape, like the character who moves to the Deep South and finds infinite joy in helping a friend install a septic tank.  Others die.  The rest keep on dancing.

Very depressing take on the gay world.  Yet I wasn't depressed, because I knew something that Malone and his coterie didn't: the men they saw day after day, year after year were, in fact, a FAMILY, an adhesive brotherhood that could change the world.

See also: The Violet Quill

The Homophobic Small-Town Manhattan of "Friends"

Friends (1994-2004) was set in the same intimate, "small town" Manhattan as Seinfeld.  But it lacked the New York color -- it could have been set in any big city -- not to mention the witty dialogue, interesting minor characters, and intricately connected plotlines.

And while Seinfeld was mostly heterosexist, assuming that gay people did not exist (except for a few homophobic episodes), Friends knew about the existence of gay people.  And was scared stiff.

It was about six heterosexual young adults who hung out together to commiserate over their terrible jobs -- though they still managed to afford huge apartments in Manhattan -- and terrible love lives -- though the women still managed to date a never-ending stream of chiseled hunks, including Adam Baldwin, Tom Selleck, and Brad Pitt.

The friends differed in personality, class background, socioeconomic status.

Upper class:
Neurotic, easily-befuddled Chandler (Matthew Perry), who worked as a statistician.
Former spoiled rich kid Rachel (Jennifer Anniston), who lost her silver spoon and worked as a waitress.

Middle class:
Nebbish paleontologist Ross (David Schwimmer, left), who had a crush on Rachel in high school.
His sister Monica (Courtney Cox), formerly fat and unpopular, now a control freak caterer.

Lower class:
Italian-American stereotype Joey (Matt Leblanc, top photo), a muscular but dimwitted aspiring actor.
Ditsy Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), who worked as a masseuse, and had an equally ditsy brother (Giovanni Ribisi).

Eventually they paired off into Chandler-Monica and Rachel-Ross.  Joey and Phoebe stayed unattached.

Gay people intrude in a number of episodes, as problems to be solved:





Chandler is horribly embarrassed by the fact that his Dad is a drag queen.
Ross's ex-wife is "now" a lesbian, and actually intends to "marry" her girlfriend.
Ross is horrified when his male student comes on to him.

But more common, in nearly every episode, is the men's homophobia -- a literal fear of gay people.

Tijara Mamula has uploaded a remix, "Homophobic Friends," with the highlights of the homophobic and transphobic jokes that form a constant undertow to the series.

Turns out that friendship itself is problematic.

If a guy has male friends, people think "he likes guys, he's gay."
If he has female friends, people think "he's like a woman, he's gay."

Chandler, Ross, and Joey are each mistaken for gay at various points in the series.  To gales of audience laughter.  To be thought gay is second worst humiliation possible.

The worst humiliation: to really be gay.  So the guys often criticize each other, and the other male characters, for acting "too gay."  They police the slightest gender-atypical behavior, horrified that signifies some inner gayness that must be stopped before it grows like a malignant tumor and destroys them.

Ross didn't know that his wife was a lesbian!  He must be gay!

Joey and Chandler hug!  They must be gay!

While on a ride-along, Ross refers to himself as the cop's "partner."  He must be gay!

So much for the cozy, small-town Manhattan of Friends.

But it gets worse: An incredibly homophobic joke in the first season turned a million gay fans away from the series forever.

See also: Homophobia on "Friends": This Time It's Serious.; and Giovanni Ribisi

13 Things I Hate About Will and Grace

Will and Grace (1998-2005) was a multiple-Emmy award winning sitcom about a gay man, Will (Eric McCormack), his best friend Jack (Sean Hayes), and their heterosexual female life partners, Grace (Debra Messing) and Karen (Megan Mullaley).

I hated it.  I still hate it.  I can't watch an episode without seething with rage and trying to kill my tv set.

Here are the top 10 things I hate about it.

1. I know that some gay men (and straight men) have feminine mannerisms, but every gay male character on the program, except for a few famous guest stars, prances.  They wear face cream and listen to show tunes and call each other "Mary."  Will goes even farther.  He believes that he is a girl, literally.  In one episode, Will's visiting cousin states that he needs "a woman's opinon" about something, and Will immediately chirps "Sure, I'll be glad to help."

3. Every gay stereotype you ever heard is absolutely true.  Grace or Karen frequently make astonishingly homophobic statements, and Will has to admit that they are correct.  In one episode, a gay man has to pretend to be interested in a woman, but he doesn't know how.  Grace says: "Treat her like your mother."  Will protests, "That's homophobic!  All gay men aren't in love with their mothers. . .um. . .ok, ok, treat her like your mother."

4. Gay men like sex with women.  A lot.  Will/Grace and Jack/Karen are always cuddling, smooching, pawing at each other.  Will and Jack occasionally kiss other women, too.

5. But they like sex with men more.  That's right, gayness is a sexual preference.  You have to try both sexes, and decide which one you prefer, like deciding between strawberry and chocolate ice cream.  In one episode, Will admits that he had sex with a woman in order to "be sure."

6. They like sex with men, but relationships are heterosexual. Will gets married to his cop beau in the last episode, but before that he had 3,000 episodes paired with Grace.  And the last episode fast-forwards to reveal Jack and Karen living together for 20 years.  Same-sex bonds come and go, but heterosexual bonds are forever.

7. There is no gay culture.  Will and Jack must spend all of their time among heterosexuals, because there are no gay political groups, social groups, sports groups, churches, or community centers.  Just a lot of gay bars, and in one episode a bookstore.



8. All gay men are affluent sophisticated lawyers who live in Manhattan and have gym-toned physiques and listen to show tunes and are utterly self-absorbed.  Of course, the straight women are the same.

9. There are no lesbians.  Will is constantly telling people that he is gay, but Grace only states that she is a woman. She doesn't have to mention that she's heterosexual, because lesbians don't exist.  Except in one episode, where they were portrayed as butch, predatory, and "confused."  One "changes back" into heterosexual after kissing Will.

10. Sean Hayes utterly refused to acknowledge that he was gay during the entire run of the show.  I can't imagine how much internalized homophobia and self-hatred it takes to do that.  Of course, if he actually believed all of the contemptible things his character was saying about gay people, I can understand why he would hate himself.

11. Leslie Jordan plays a flamboyantly feminine gay man -- even more feminine than the other characters, so much that Karen's homophobia changes from ridicule to hatred.  But he insists that he is straight.

12. Grace and Karen throw around "fags" and "homos" with utter abandon, and instead of calling them out for their homophobia, Will and Jack meekly accept the abuse.

13.  Sorry, I couldn't confine myself to 10.  But this is the last one: Will doesn't know that gay men exist.
In one episode, Will is going on a blind date.  As he sits in a restaurant waiting for his date, he strikes up a conversation with the man at the next table.  He states that he, too, is waiting for a blind date. 

At this point, what would you conclude?

Right.

But Will doesn't. He says: "You know how women are, they always like to make an entrance." He is gay, and yet he is absolutely certain that every man on Earth is straight.

Postscript:  I just heard some horrible news.  After 12 blissfully gay-free years, self-hating Willa nd Jack -- and their fag-hating  life partners Grace and Karen --are returning for another season of homophobic hijinks.  Somehow, with the new fascist regime and the throwback of gay rights to the 1950s, it seems fitting.

The Wiz: Gay Manhattan in the 1970s

Dorothy is a 24-year old kindergarten teacher  living with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in 1978 Harlem, New York.  They were happy to raise her, but now they're dropping broad hints: "You're grown up, practically middle aged.  Move out!"

But Dorothy is paralyzed by fear.  She's never been south of 125th Street, which means that she's never been to the Museum of Modern Art, about a mile away, or the Empire State Building, or to the gay village of Chelsea.  Like everyone in America in the 1970s, she has heard horrible things about Manhattan: skyrocketing crime, economic decline, a failing infrastructure.  It's a cesspool of corruption, misery, and perversion.  There are gay people there.

Then she follows her dog Toto out into a snowstorm, and gets lost in Manhattan -- which she calls Oz.

She encounters raw racism -- taxis invariably refuse to take her fare -- and  many of the urban evils that 1970s critics bemoaned: graffiti, prostitutes, gangs, drugs, gay people.

But she still visits sites that are both beautiful and powerful -- the New York Public Library, the World Trade Center, Cony Island, and the glittering emerald fantasy of Park Avenue.


She makes more friends than she ever had before in her life: a Tin Man, a Scarecrow (played by Michael Jackson), a Lion.

And she is surrounded by beefcake.  Cute "numbers runners."  Munckins frozen in graffiti.  Sweat-shop workers who escape their masks and uniforms to reveal muscular bodies, naked except for jockstraps. Many, if not most, are gay-coded.

In the end she defeats the evil Evilene, debunks the shyster Wizard, and goes back home to Harlem.

But she is no longer afraid. She knows now that for all its dangers, squalor, and decay, Manhattan is a beautiful, magical place, where you can find friends, where difference is accepted, where you can be free to be who you are.  Where being gay is ok.

The Wiz is not a great movie.  It's way too long, the acting is awful, and paralyzing fear is not the best attribute for a heroine -- Dorothy has none of the resourcefulness of her counterpart in the Baum books, none of the courage of the Judy Garland version. One gets the impression that she should be talking to a therapist rather than going on a heroic quest.

But I liked the fantasy versions of New York landmarks, the soul-inspired score, the black/urban adaption of  the all-white Oz of Frank L. Baum and Judy Garland.  The utter-lack of hetero-romance. The beefcake.

And the gay symbolism.

When I saw The Wiz in the fall of 1978, during my freshman year in college, I had visited 17 U.S. states and 5 foreign countries, but still, my world felt as constrained as Dorothy's.  Faced with constant heterosexist pronouncements about my future wife and kids, I felt, like Michael Jackson's Scarecrow, that:

You can't win, you can't break even
And you can't get out of the game

The Wiz suggested that home might be a "good place" after all.  All you needed was a copy of the Gayellow Pages.

Danny Nucci: Some of My Best Friends

During the early 2000s, the success of Will and Grace prompted producers to flood the market with clones like Some of My Best Friends (2001), about an upper-class Anglo gay guy (Jason Bateman) living in Manhattan (aren't all gay people affluent, Anglo Manhattanites?) who accidently gets a straight, homophobic, working-class, Italian roommate (Danny Nucci, left).  Sounds more like Joey and Chandler of Friends than Will and Grace.

Only five episodes aired during the spring of 2001.  I saw half of one. Stereotypes were abundant.

The Advocate heavily promoted the show (before it aired).  It even gave Jason Bateman and Danny Nucci a test to see who knew the most about gay people.  Danny won.


No wonder.  Jason Bateman hasn't had a lot of experience in gay and gay-friendly roles, but Danny Nucci has. As a teenager in the 1980s, he played a lot of buddy-bonding roles, and in the 1990s he transitioned to gay, bisexual, or "best buddy of the gay guy" roles.  Plus he provides ample beefcake with numerous shirtless and nude scenes.

The Brotherhood of Justice (1986): a group of teenagers become violent vigilantes. Danny's character cuddles with brother Keanu Reeves.

An Enemy Among Us (1987). A CBS Schoolbreak Special.  Danny plays a boy who contracts AIDS from a blood transfusion.  But everybody thinks he's. . .you know.

Titanic (1997): Danny plays Fabrizio, Leonardo DiCaprio's buddy in the only gay subtext in the interminable movie.

The Unknown Cyclist (1998): a man dying of AIDS gets his gay and straight friends to participate in a charity bike race.  Danny plays the bisexual Gaetano, who is HIV positive.

Friends and Lovers (1999): a group of friends hits the ski slopes.  Danny plays a gay guy who gets his first boyfriend.

More recently, on "Mob Rules," an episode of House (2005): Danny plays a mobster who discovers that his brother is gay (he's going to become a witness so he can enter the Witness Protection Program and avoid harassment by his homophobic family).

Movin' on Up: The Jeffersons

A spin-off of All in the Family, The Jeffersons set into the vacuum caused by the demise of Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers in January 1975.

It followed a nouveau-riche African-American couple, irascible George Jefferson (Sherman Hensley) and pragmatic Louise (Isabel Sanford), to a "deluxe apartment in the sky", where they were surrounded by wacky friends and neighbors: sarcastic maid Florence (Marla Gibbs), snobbish interracial couple Tom and Helen (Franklin Cover, Roxy Roker), looney Brit Mr. Bentley (Paul Benedict).

When I was in high school, it aired during a block of must-see Sunday night programs (Alice, One Day at a Time, Trapper John MD), so I watched quite often, though it had very little gay content (I preferred the strong gay content on What's Happening!!)

1. Virtually no beefcake.  As a teenager, I thought that George and Louise's college-age son Lionel (Mike Evans) was cute, but following the tradition of black beefcake, he always appeared fully clothed.  After a year, he was replaced by Damon Evans, who was rather too thin and fey for my tastes.

The most you could hope for was a hunky guest star, like Jay Hammer as Tom and Helen's son.

Or Ike Eisenmann as a teenage racist in extraordinary tight jeans, who has a change of heart after George saves his father's life.

2. Lack of bonding. Friendships on the show were always cordial and businesslike, never passionate.

3. No gay characters.  Apparently the network execs felt that seeing racial minorities was traumatic enough for Middle America, and gays would give them conniption fits. So no gay people were mentioned, although there was a male-buddy-is-now-a-woman plotline.

The lack of substantial gay content is surprising, considering that Paul Benedict and Damon Evans (left), both accomplished theatrical actors, were gay.  In an interview, Damon states that he didn't get along with the other cast members, except for Roxie Roker.

Sherman Hensley, who died last July, was probably gay, too; he was never seen with a woman and lived with his "roommate," Kenny Johnston, for over thirty years. But he refused to Say the Word.

He came from a generation of men who considered gayness "deeply personal," who didn't realize that Saying the Word could reduce homophobia, give gay kids a role model, and help them "move on up."