Gays on TV

I'll try to keep this brief. Believe me, I know I'm a verbose person. Until Modern Family gays were used on tv as side kicks or utilized as a supporting actor. Usually a best friend. Even when we got Will & Grace, actual gay actors were passed over to have Eric McCormick play a gay man. Then the show never showed him in a relationship or in a romantic situation. It was overly safe. Then we had another "straight" man playing Jack - the normal flamboyant sidekick. I would count Queer as Folk, but that was on HBO. It isn't public.

Modern Family came out which follows 3 families and it is an ensemble show, so there is no main character. Out of nowhere there is a realistic gay couple on tv (not shown romantically) but realistically. They even adopt a baby. There is a gay family shown for what one really is like and there is no fan fare. The fact that there is no fan fare is actually kind of comforting. It's no big deal. Then within the show, the family is an equal compared to the other "normal" families. It's amazing and it is a very good show.

One of the couple is a large flamboyant country guy and he is with a redhead who is a paper pusher. He has a stick up his ass and he is not comfortable with his sexuality. This show captures the extremes of the gay community. The redhead often roles his eyes at his partner when he is flaming and tries to assimilate him and then Cam (the bigger one) is 100% comfortable with himself. They adopt a baby from an Asian country and the show focuses on what it is like being gay and raising a child in a straight world. One is always trying to show who he is and his partner is always trying to hide who they are. It sounds dysfunctional, but that is only when you compare it to a Rockwell painting.

I think our community is finally becoming equal in society, not politically, but in actual everyday life. They say that to understand a culture you need to looks at its art, and we are finally starting to get there if that is an accurate indicator. We even just had Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where Val Kilmer plays an overweight gay hit man lawyer with no apologies. He is a real life kind of gay man who is a little more tough than average. I loved it because it was SO dark and the comedy was so brutal. It's been that way in movies for a while now, but TV has been different. They even blurred out Adam Lambert (I don't get the obsession with him) when he was dancing but will show Hannah Montana working a stipper pole in front a theatre filled with pre-teens. It is an uphill struggle, but I think we are nearing the pinnacle.

Now we just need to get the word homosexual out of the english vernacular and allow us to serve in the military, get married, and have kids. That's all. Easy-peasy.