Thomas Lennon: From Dangle to Felix

How much do you hate mockumentaries?  They're contrived and ridiculous (were camera crews really following around the Modern Family families for 10 whole years?), and they demolish suspension of disbelief necessary for enjoying fiction.

Of all the mockumentaries you've been forced to sit through -- not only Modern Family, but The Office, Park and Recreation, Trailer Park Boys, American Vandal, The Naked Brothers Band -- which do you hate the most? I'll bet it's Reno 911 (2003-2009), the hugely offensive Comedy Central dreckfest about a down-and-out police force going out on patrol (apparently a parody of Cops). 

The situations were offensive to begin with: pedophilia, suicide, strip clubs, stereotypic portrayals of everyone from African-Americans to gays.  But what made it even more offensive was the dialogue -- improvised, not scripted, which meant that the actors were free to spout any disgusting sentiment that sprang into their characters' heads.

There were lots of disgusting characters, but I'll bet the one you hated the most was Lt. Dangle (Thomas Lennon), a hugely offensive gay stereotype.  He wasn't  particularly swishy, but my God, he was a walking penis.  His  name was actually a reference to his penis, and he wore short-short pants that showed off his bulge, as if a police department is a cruise bar.

He was constantly propositioning his male officers and criminal suspects, as if he couldn't think of anything but sex.

He was actually gay but "curved around the edges," capable of heterosexual sex on occasion: he was married to a woman once, had an affair with a female police officer, slept with another woman (under the impression that she was a drag queen), was attracted to a female officer (actually a man in drag).  And so on.

Can you believe that this dreck was nominated for a GLAAD award?  How slim were the pickings that year?

Strangely enough, Lennon states in a 2009 interview that he is proud of the character:  "an incredibly macho, tough gay man  not defined by his sexuality."

Um...not swishing is not the same thing as being macho.  And definitely defined by his sexuality...his name was Dangle.

I wanted to know what other homophobic work Thomas Lennon had done.

A long list of movies, beginning with A Friend of Dorothy (1994), in which Winston (Raoul O'Connell) starts college in New York and is afraid to come out ("a friend of Dorothy" is 1950s slang for a gay men).  Lennon plays a Moonie (religious cultist) who sends Winston the wrong signals.

In 17 Again (2009), he plays the crazy-but-heterosexual-roommate of a man who turns into his 17-year old self (played by Zac Efron).  Lennon is asked if the pressure to be sexy is lifted, since all the girls in the audience will be looking at Zac Efron.  Ok, not all girls or boys are heterosexual.

I Love You, Man (2009) is about a socially inept hetero guy Peter (Paul Rudd) trying to find enough friends to be his groomsmen at his wedding.  He goes out with Doug (Thomas Lennon) to "interview" him for the friend role, but Doug thinks it's a date and kisses him.   Peter is quite surprised; he hadn't been aware that gay men exist, in spite of having a gay brother.

You probably don't know that there was a 2015-2017 remake of the classic 1970s sitcom The Odd Couple, about a slob and a metrosexual forced to become roommates.  Oscar (the slob) states that Felix (the metrosexual) "very, very gay, extremely gay, but he isn't."  Asked why they didn't just make Felix gay,  Lennon says that it never occurred to anyone.  Besides, hasn't the gay-straight roommate bit already been done, in Will and Grace?

Right,  you couldn't have another program with a gay character, could you?  It would be redundant.

Lennon also has a lot of writing credits, including Let's Go to Prison (2006), about the fear straight men have that if they go to prison, they will be raped by monstrous gay predators. The reputed rapist (Chi McBride) turns out to be a nice guy (that's a rubber duck he's holding).

 As you can tell, I don't like this guy (Thomas Lennon, not Chi McBride). His gay characters and jokes send a message that most gay people are harmless, even nice when you get to know them, but they're still a bit off, not quite right.  That's not staggeringly homophobic, but it's still homophobic.