'Will & Grace' Broke Ground for Gay Reprentatn—Can It Do It Aga? | GQ

Contents:

• MART SHEEN AND SAM WATERSTON GO GAY FOR PAY (AND LGHS) ON ‘GRACE AND FRANKIE’
• WILL & GRACE BROKE GROUND FOR GAY REPRENTATN—CAN IT DO IT AGA?
• HOW WILL & GRACE PAVED THE WAY FOR GAY CHARACTERS ON TV

MART SHEEN AND SAM WATERSTON GO GAY FOR PAY (AND LGHS) ON ‘GRACE AND FRANKIE’

Their bt iends are gleeful and proud gay Jack and charismatic, filthy-rich, amoral sociale lawyer Will and straight terr signer Grace share a New York Cy apartment. Their bt iends are gleeful and proud gay Jack and charismatic, filthy-rich, amoral sociale productn, box office & pany Episos246Vios54Funny Women of TelevisnFunny Women of TelevisnWe salute the brilliant women behd all those unfettable lghs on the small the galleryMore like thisReview It's gettg betterI'm startg to like the Will & Grace characters better, the wrg's gettg better and the lghs are g more often than when I first started watchg 4-5 weeks ago. In this spoff of the 2018 film Love, Simon, Victor Salazar (played by newer Michael Cimo) fds himself wh a cute girliend but a csh on gay classmate Benji (Gee Sear).

WILL & GRACE BROKE GROUND FOR GAY REPRENTATN—CAN IT DO IT AGA?

Back the late '90s, you’d be hard prsed to fd anythg remblg gay romance on TV, and yet The WB’s supernatural drama put an unabashed lbian uple right at the heart of the story. Jog Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar, and I’d be a bad gay not to mentn her performance the mp-tastic Scream 2 here) the Soby Gang is Alyson Hannigan’s Willow Rosenberg. We hear the phrase “sexualy is a spectm” all the time (or at least I do New York and on Gay Twter), but filmmaker Diree Akhavan is here to poke around wh that phrase and see jt how unfortable n make people, gay or straight alike.

Police Capta Raymond Holt (played by Andre Brgher who got his start playg a p on Homici: Life on the Street) has been openly gay sce the show’s begng, provg not all gay televisn characters need to be boozy hairstylists or flight attendants. Hulu’s dark edy about two stgglg actors NYC (recklsly ncelled after only three seasons) will provi such a scene and plenty of other gay-ass ntent to boot. And addn to Billy and John, we’ve also got Cole Esla (the kidnappg Twkie om Search Party) servg as Billy’s gay rival and transgenr actor Shaka Nayfack (Connectg...

Another ncelled-too-soon-but-prerved-on-Hulu classic, this ABC s (thk Friends but the early 2010s) prented viewers wh two very different versns of the gay male.

HOW WILL & GRACE PAVED THE WAY FOR GAY CHARACTERS ON TV

Behd door number one is Derrick, played by EastSir’s Stephen Guaro, the “offensively stereotypil gay” who is brought to be Penny's (the ever-hilar Casey Wilson) replacement GBF. Bee behd door number two we have Max, played by The Mdy Project’s Adam Pally, who while gay, acts much more stereotypilly straight ways, th not fulfillg Penny’s visn.

Especially at the time when gay men were only portrayed as femme on TV, seeg a masc gay man on primetime was somethg empowerg to gay people who hadn’t seen a fuller queer spectm reprented on their on Hulu. We’d still love to see even more reprentatn (one gay a season don’t really cut the days), but as someone who has watched every season, I was always gog to clu on the on Hulu. In a flashback episo mid-season, however, a big fat gay plot twist (which I won’t disclose due to spoilers) wallops viewers and leav them seeg the show's key relatnships a whole new way.

Thomas, aga playg a nrotic gay man, fli om Atralia to Los Angel to vis his termally ill father, only to learn his dad would like him to be the guardian to his two teenage half-sisters. In addn to the LGBTQ reprentatn prent om the gay romance between Thomas’s Nicholas and Alex (the darlg Adam Faison om Liberty Crossg), the show also featur tistic actrs Kayla Cromer as an tistic sister. For so many ltle gay kids, there is a slow (often sickeng) realizatn that they aren’t like their straight peers, and never has been so betifully and thoughtfully picted as was a show tled “penis.