"You'd Be Perfect for My Daughter!" A Gay Character Revelation on "Fuller House"

When I heard that Neflix was rebooting Full House as Fuller House, featuring the second generation of the Tanners, a blended family in a gay-free San Francisco, I thought, why? Nobody I knew would be caught dead with the original series on, and this one is bound to be worse.

A gay-free San Francisco was annoying then, but now it will be downright offensive.

 But with the star, Candace Cameron Bure (DJ Tanner) being a fundamentalist Christian, she was bound to put the kibosh on any attempts at inclusion.  Besides, who was watching this show?  Elderly people wearing MAGA caps and reading church newsletters about gays trying to destroy society.  Surely they would not approve.

Well, it took a few years, but two of the show's writers were gay, and finally decided to go out on a limb and pitch a plotline with a gay character.  Candace reputedly "loved" their idea, and was happy to give it a green light.

Um...she wouldn't have to actually appear in any scenes with the little fairy, would she?

 So in Season 4, released in December 2018, Episode #11, "It's Always Open":

Kimmy (Andrea Barber), DJ's wacky, exuberant housemate (think Kramer on Seinfeld) hires 17-year old Casey (Ben J. Pierce, internet personality Miss Benny) as an intern in her party planning business.

She loves the boy's fashion sense and campy "in your face" femininity, and, being unaware that gay people exist, think he would be a perfect match for her daughter Ramona (Soni Bringas).

In spite of living in San Francisco in 2018, Casey agrees to a date with a girl.

Ramona instantly figures out that feminine=gay, so this is obviously a non-date.  But the two have a lot in common, mostly a dislike for their mothers, so they become besties.

In the B and C plotlines,  the buffed but stupid Jimmy (Adam Hagenbuch, top photo) wants to raise the baby in Nepal, which he pronounces "Nipple," and DJ and Stephanie join a dodgeball class.  Yeah, that's the problem with modern tv series -- if you don't watch in chronological order, you're lost.

Episode #12: "Prom."

Jackson (Michael Campion), dressed as a gorilla, asks Rocki (Landry Bender) to the prom. She is leery because "Prom is an embodiment of the heteronormative jock culture with a dress code that targets girls in order to control our bodies."

No one knows that gay people exist, but they know the word "heteronormative"?

At the prom, Jackson tries to impress the other football players by talking trash, which gets him in trouble with Rocki.

Casey and Ramona go to the prom together, too (gay-free San Francisco, remember?  No one else for Casey to ask).  While they are dancing, a cute boy gives him the eye, and Ramona the Helpful Heterosexual encourages him to strike out on his own and make a connection.

Casey then vanishes from the series forever, and Ramona gets together with her ex-boyfriend Bobby (Isaak Presley)

In the B and C plotlines, DJ is a chaperone at the prom (but she never interacts with Casey), and back home, some guys I couldn't identify have a cooking contest.

That's all.  Sort like a show from the 1990s, where revealing that someone is gay was enough, and the gay characters were usually gender-nonconforming.

What else do you expect from a Full House reboot?

I hear that Brian has been cast as the lead in the upcoming CW series Glamorous.  He plays a gender-noncomforming gay teen who disses a cosmetics company on his blog, and is rewarded with an internship.

It worked for George Costanza in 1994.



See also: The10 Hunks of Fuller House

Dan Byrd: Nearly Gay

For someone who is just over 30 years old, Dan Byrd has an enormous number of acting credits, including more gay, mistaken-for-gay, and nearly-gay roles than any actor in Hollywood.

Born in 1985, the Georgia boy arrived in Hollywood in at the age of 14, and was soon guest starring on tv, in Er, Camp Nowhere, State of Grace, Touched by an Angel, and The Nightmare Room.  

In his first starring big-screen role,. A Cinderella Story (2004), he played gay-vague best buddy of Cinderella Hillary Duff

Then, in Salem's Lot (2004), he reprised the homoerotic-subtext role that Lance Kerwin originated  in 1977.  Rob Lowe played his boyfriend.

 By 2005, the 20-year old had developed a pleasantly muscular physique, and, surprisingly for someone who often played victims or comic-relief sidekicks, he was not averse to showing it off with semi-nude shower or swimsuit scenes.

In Mortuary (2005), Dan played boyfriend of a girl who has a gay best buddy.

In The Hills Have Eyes (2006), a remake of the Wes Craven classic, Dan played a gay-vague teenager who is waylaid while traveling through Appalachia by a family of mutants.

In Easy A (2010), an adaption of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, he played a gay student who  pretends to be straight to avoid harassment, but ends up with a boyfriend -- older, and black, which has to be a first in American cinema.

 Suburgatory (2012): An undercover cop who infilitrates the school to check for steroid use, but is assumed gay due to his interest in muscles (which, as we know, Suburgatory specializes in).




On Cougar Town (2009-2013), Dan plays Travis Cox, the college-aged son of Jules (Courtney Cox), heterosexual, but often assumed gay, and fond of "fake coming out" to people.

In 2019, Dan is set to star in the Amazon series Utopia, about secret societies, conspiracies, and an underground graphic novel.  I don't know much about his character, but his costar will be Cory Michael Smith, who identifies as queer, so maybe there's a gay romance.  Or a subtext.

  Why is Dan so good at playing nearly-gay roles?  Maybe it's his deadpan wit, or his unimposing hotness.  Or maybe he's just lucky.