"Ordary" "Will & Grace" found lns of acceptg viewers, and helped fe the way Ameri looks at gay characters.
Contents:
- WILL AND GRACE STAR CONFIRMS HE’S GAY
- WILL & GRACE BROKE GROUND FOR GAY REPRENTATN—CAN IT DO IT AGA?
- 'I WOULDN'T GET THIS ROLE TODAY': WILL & GRACE'S STRAIGHT 'GAY' STAR
- ‘WILL & GRACE’ FANS ARE STILL UNSURE IF ERIC MCCORMACK IS GAY REAL LIFE
- HOW ‘WILL & GRACE’S’ RELATABLE VIBE HELPED AUDIENC ACCEPT GAY CHARACTERS
WILL AND GRACE STAR CONFIRMS HE’S GAY
"I never have had a problem sayg who I am," the actor says his first terview wh gay magaze The Advote * is grace gay *
Grace Jon is perched on a ledge above the dancefloor of New York’s 12 Wt, the state-of-the-art, members-only gay dis, about to take the stage for one of her first performanc. Wh the exceptn of maybe hairdrsers and artists, queer people risked unemployment if they merely hted at their orientatn outsi the nf of gay bars and clubs, and was the diss that the seeds of liberatn were sown.
At 12 Wt, gay people uld grasp the power of their llectivy and unrstand what meant to be ee. LaRue, a cult dis act whose world-weary, gay-d “Cathedrals” praged Pet Shop Boys, and former Sugarloaf ontman Jerry Corbetta, the most soulful of Jon’ dis sgl also poted toward her future. I remember protters disptg the filmg of William Friedk’s Cisg, which retold the real-life story of a fugive who had lured men out of gay bars to bed and then killed them.
WILL & GRACE BROKE GROUND FOR GAY REPRENTATN—CAN IT DO IT AGA?
If the show were beg st now, Eric McCormack spects he wouldn't land the role of gay lawyer Will Tman - and that would be jt fe wh him." name="scriptn * is grace gay *
Havg tried harr, thought broar, and crossed more boundari than most of her ntemporari, this dance-floor renega closed out the boxed and the late ’80s, I had moved to San Francis; AIDS was cimatg the gay muny.
'I WOULDN'T GET THIS ROLE TODAY': WILL & GRACE'S STRAIGHT 'GAY' STAR
One night 1993, I fally got my chance to see Jon perform at a lol gay nightclub and took my iend Brian, whose partner Mark was too sick to jo .
In this passage om her recently published memoir, Jon rells her first enunter wh gay culture via her brother Chris, and she offers her own view of how our tegori of sexualy and genr n be as hrg as they are helpful. I started to go out to the gay clubs wh Chris.
My dad was very unfortable at the time wh Chris beg gay. He played the an at church, and I would ll him “church gay, ” or perhaps should be “church feme. He uld have had a girliend who unrstood his femy, but if you are as feme as he was, then the ncln is, you mt be gay.
‘WILL & GRACE’ FANS ARE STILL UNSURE IF ERIC MCCORMACK IS GAY REAL LIFE
People would ask, Well, your brother is gay, how e he never got AIDS?
My father took that away om him bee plag church members were gossipg that he was gay. He would say, “Well, if I’m gay I’ll do what gay people do. This was when gay life existed ep the margs of the margs of the mastream, a system of mors, nuendo, and sndal.
The ensemble edy seri featured two gay characters—lawyer Will Tman (Eric McCormack) and aspirg actor Jack McFarland (Sean Hay)—and their bt iends, terr signer Grace Adler (Debra Msg) and eccentric sociale Karen Walker (Megan Mullally), whose fun-filled antics were enjoyed by lns of viewers for eight seasons on NBC.
HOW ‘WILL & GRACE’S’ RELATABLE VIBE HELPED AUDIENC ACCEPT GAY CHARACTERS
Kohan was a mutual iend who watched their relatnship change and mature over the only relatnship NBC executive Warren Ltlefield was terted , however, was the one wh the gay man livg wh the straight woman. When Mutchnick and Kohan wrote the pilot, they jt foced on the Will and Grace two creators named the show Will & Grace based on a ncept the Jewish philosophy book I and Thou by Mart Buber, which he says that one needs the "will" to go after the prence of the Eternal and the "grace" to receive wag to hear about the fate of their show after submtg their pilot script, the two men sent Warren Ltlefield fax listg the box office numbers of The Birdge and My Bt Friend’s Weddg, two h movi featurg gay Hay was at the Sundance Film Ftival Park Cy, Utah when a work stg executive faxed him the pilot script for Will & Grace after seeg him Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss. '" The next day, she agreed to take the Barrowman, who is gay, said he was told by Will & Grace producers that he was ‘too straight’ to play Will.