Correcting Rolling Stone

[wouldbedorothy]

freakykat called me last night rather riled up about a list Rolling Stone had made of "The 15 Most Groundbreaking Gay Roles on Television." While I applaud the existence of all the characters, the list seems extremely lazy, like whoever came up with it just flipped through the current channels to come up with most of them, when there are SO MANY hugely important characters that came way before. I came up with this mostly to make her feel better, lol, and am posting at her request.



Here is the link to the list:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/photos/the-15-most-groundbreaking-gay-roles-on-television-20110125/tea-on-skins-0174137

Of their 15, I accept 3:

Rickie Vasquez, "My So-Called Life" (YES!)
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/photos/the-15-most-groundbreaking-gay-roles-on-television-20110125/rickie-vasquez-on-my-so-called-life-0645707

Jack McPhee, "Dawson's Creek"
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/photos/the-15-most-groundbreaking-gay-roles-on-television-20110125/jack-mcphee-on-dawson-s-creek-6aa5832

Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker, "Modern Family"
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/photos/the-15-most-groundbreaking-gay-roles-on-television-20110125/cameron-tucker-and-mitchell-pritchett-on-modern-family-0446794

Even my Mitch and Cam are borderline. I love Lafayette (from "True Blood," who is on RS's list) deeply, and I might put him on a list of overall best ever characters, but he just falls short of this list for me. Here's who I add...


Jodie Dallas, "Soap"

Srsly. Everybody knows Jodie was fucking groundbreaking. It was the '70's, people! Sure, he was a little confused (You want to be a girl? Really?), and by the end the writing was beyond confused (You want to be WITH a girl? Really??). But he was deeply lovable and supremely human, and I have no doubt he opened a lot of minds.


Cliff Waters, "Brothers" (1984 Showtime sitcom)
Will Truman, "Will & Grace"

Similarly stereotype-busting characters, I place them together. Cliff was the precursor - 14 years before Will (Showtime you are awesome), but Will was more widely seen (network instead of cable) and therefore had the bigger impact.


Matt Fielding, "Melrose Place"

Yeah, so he never had a sex scene. That's lame. He was still important. He had storylines involving workplace discrimination, gay bashing, HIV, fighting for custody of a child, and even male/male domestic abuse. He had several relationships on the show, and even if the physical/sexual aspects were closeted by the network, Matt never was.


Carter Heywood, "Spin City"

Don't dismiss the sitcom side character. Best I can tell, he was the first African-American gay character regularly featured on a series. That's pretty huge right there. Bonus, he was highly intelligent, extremely successful, and fit no one's cookie-cutter "gay" image (other than perhaps looking good in a suit, lol).


Ellen Morgan, "Ellen"

Hello? Did the fact that Ellen Degeneres came out in real life, too, somehow diminish the importance of her character so doing? I don't think so. The epic "I'M GAY" said into the airport mic still reverberates loudly. And she actually dated! And had a relationship! (If the show got less funny after that, that's neither here nor there :-b)


Omar Little, "The Wire"

Not just a black gay character (which is rare enough), but the kind of "street" urban gay male I don't think had ever been on TV before. Tough and feared... a complex criminal who targets bad guys, sticking up and stealing from drug dealers... he had three boyfriends/partners over the course of the show.


Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

Tara should also be noted here. But a big part of what was groundbreaking about Willow was that she was an established character. You'd already known and loved her for years, and as she fell in love with Tara, you got to newly discover her at the same time she was discovering herself. Also, lesbian witches for the win \O/!


Bianca Montgomery, "All My Children"
Lynn Carson, "All My Children"

AMC gets credit for both the first lesbian on daytime - Lynn - and also the first who actually got to actively BE a lesbian on daytime. Bianca's emotional coming out to Little Mama Kane, and an audience who'd known her since she was a baby, was a big damn deal then and still is.


Luke Snyder and Noah Mayer, "As The World Turns"
Hank Eliot, "As The World Turns"

As The World Turns, considered by some the most conservative of the soaps, managed to give us both the first gay male daytime character in Hank, and the first fully-realized gay male characters (and gay love story) in Luke and Noah.


Dr. Kerry Weaver, "ER"

Not the first lesbian on TV, by any means, what makes her so interesting is her own initial homophobia towards herself, and how realistically long it took her to come out. She didn't have a relationship with a woman until season 7 (not that she'd had many relationships otherwise, being very private and a workaholic), and she still didn't fully accept herself as a lesbian until the end of season 8, then living with and having a child with her partner.


The characters of Queer as Folk UK and US

Maybe it's harder to single out one character as "groundbreaking" in a "gay show," as opposed to one gay character standing out amongst straights. So, as we should, let's acknowledge them all. The shows broke ground not only in terms of sexual content, but also the quality of the writing and complexity of the characters, all of whom were very different.


If I'm going for 15, for the last slot, I'm torn between Colin Russell from "Eastenders," and Ron and Erick (and Rosalyn/Cicely!) from Northern Exposure.

And hell, even if RS wanted to be trendy and put on a bunch of newer examples, they could certainly do better than Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars and NuSkins. How about Layla from "Kick"? MUSLIM LESBIAN, come on. Or Adam from Degrassi Next Generation? Not "gay," perhaps, but I'd call a teen FTM transgender pretty fucking noteworthy.

Just my two cents :)

(Re: Glee... Kurt can be #16, lol. I do love Kurt. Actually, Karofsky may have the potential to be really groundbreaking.)

Comments

[teatotaller.livejournal.com]

The Rolling Stone list did seem either lazy or mistitled. Maybe it should have been called a round up of current gay characters? Because how can a list of groundbreaking characters go back not more than 20 years?

Your list had a lot more thought to it.