Gay Weddg Dtatns

Contents:

• SEX AND THE CY 2 PLANNG A BIG GAY WEDDG?
• WHY "SEX AND THE CY" IS BAD FOR THE GAYS
• TOP 13 GAY WEDDG STATNS AROUND THE WORLD
• FIRST GAY WEDDG DAY N.Y.
• TOP NEW YORK GAY WEDDG VENU

SEX AND THE CY 2 PLANNG A BIG GAY WEDDG?

Sex and the Cy 2 is throwg a big, gay, se Jt Jared claims that an “sir” says the movie will volve a weddg between the seri’ notable gay uple, played by Mar Cantone and Willie Garson. Their source claims they’re planng celebry meos om gay ins to class up the ocsn.

Photo: Courty of HBOStanford and Anthony: Go Huge or Go HomeCharlotte’s gay bt iend, Anthony Maranto, falls for Carrie’s gay bt iend, Stanford Blatch, and the girl group nven at an n Connecticut for the big celebratn. Mcg stereotyp, old clich: How n a anchise created and beloved by gay men be so bad at portrayg them? I like to thk I'm not the kd of gay man who gets easily offend watchg movi about gay people.

Even at-party celebratns like "The Haner" are required to show some nuance and sensivy toward gay characters and them. But two movi the past two years have ma me genuely angry, and the strange thg is, the two movi are aimed largely at gay men, beloved by gay men, and most surprisgly of all, ma by gay men: "Sex and the Cy" and, now, s md-blowgly tone-af sequel, "Sex and the Cy 2. But most surprisg of all, given the fact that both movi were wrten and directed by the openly gay Michael Patrick Kg, is how retrogra they are their treatment of gayns.

WHY "SEX AND THE CY" IS BAD FOR THE GAYS

The two ma gay characters, Carrie's chubby pal Stanford (Willie Garson) and Charlotte's sassy BFF Anthony Maranto (played by Mar Cantone), are tragilly asexual helpmat whose ma role has always been to provi relatnship advice to the show's straight female characters, flg bchy quips, or let their flamboyant outfs serve as a visual punch le. Anthony, particular, is the worst kd of shallow, fashn-gbbg gay mstrel.

TOP 13 GAY WEDDG STATNS AROUND THE WORLD

"Her bt gay iend is marryg my bt gay iend! " exclaims Charlotte, the sequel's first scene, before Carrie adds, "Jt when you thought everyone was too old to get married, here e the gays.

It's the clichéd, nscendg hetero fantasy, the one which you troduce the only two gay men you know, and magilly, the sparks fly. If I had a dollar every time I met a woman who said, "Oh, you're gay? You should meet my gay iend, " I uld probably buy a plane ticket to Abu Dhabi (or, at the very least, Buffalo).

And yet, a movie that feigns to tackle the plexi of morn romance, all a gay man needs to do to fd love is be placed the general vicy of another gay person -- even if he's as repellent as Mar Cantone. Admtedly, when "Sex and the Cy" went on the air 1998, the gay televisn landspe was vastly different. Characters like Will and Jack on NBC's "Will & Grace" had to be sexls and unrveloped to make them palatable to nervo Amerin dienc still gettg ed to the ia of two homos smack dab the middle of mt-see TV.

FIRST GAY WEDDG DAY N.Y.

But over the past , televisn portrayals of gay men have cracked open to somethg far more nuanced. Startg wh "Queer as Folk" (wh s near-explic gay sex scen) followed by "Six Feet Unr" (wh Michael C. Hall's troubled gay funeral home director) and "The Wire" (which dared to make s brilliant antihero, Omar, a gay man) and "Brothers and Sisters" (wh troubled gay fay member, Kev Walker) and "Morn Fay" (wh s gay male adoptive fay), gay men televisn have bee somethg much closer to flh and blood -- wh sex liv, personal dilemmas and, some s, children.

It's a change that parallels the way gay people have, real life, bee ls and ls troubled and fed by their sexualy (and has a precent the way black people stopped merely beg the "hired help" of the films of the 1940s and '50s and took on plex personali film). But much like the female hero' signer fetish, the gay characters "Sex and the Cy" are still trapped some very gltery late-'90s amber.

TOP NEW YORK GAY WEDDG VENU

Consir Stanford and Anthony's gay weddg. There are swans, crystal-adorned everythg, a chos of gay men wearg sparkly, sparkly hats. The SATC girls say thgs like, "Could this weddg get any gayer?

Of urse, there's nothg wrong wh a glzy, kschy weddg, or a gay man who lov fashn, but the problem is the fact that, the "Sex and the Cy" universe, that's the only form of gayns that exists. It's a culture, unbeknownst to many straight Amerins, that has long sce disappeared om the life of the vast majory of gay men. For people my age, who me of age the '90s, the mastreamg of gay culture meant phg away om those clichéd ias of gayns and fdg new ins.

Durg the early, taboo-shreddg seasons of "Sex and the Cy, " a mon crique of the show was that the characters were really jt gay men drag, wh their nstant talk of sual promiscuy, rim jobs and "spunk. " Openly gay creator Darren Star lnched the show the late '90s, pre-"Queer as Folk, " when the ia of a premium ble show about the liv of gay men was still unthkable, and 's perhaps evable that he would map his own experienc onto the stori of four ndid women. Even today, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte make far more nvcg gay men than Stanford and Anthony ever have.