Category Archives: Television

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

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The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters.

Courtesy of The Backlot. I did participate in this poll and I’m pleased to see that a few of my recommendations made it in.

I’m particularly pleased about the page linked above, featuring #s 9, 8 and 7 — the delicious fantasy soap opera trio of Sonny Kiriakis, Will Horton and Luke Snyder! Just think about it for a minute!

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Freddie Smith as Sonny Kiriakis

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Van Hansis as Luke Snyder

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Chandler Massey as Will Horton

I also appreciated the inclusion of Justin Bartha’s David Sawyer (The New Normal) at #35, the exceptional Luke McFarlane as the equally exceptional Scotty Wandell (Brothers and Sisters) and two of my favorites from across the pond: #23 Kieron Richardson’s Ste Hay and #12 Emmett J. Scanlan’s Brendan Brady from the UK sudser Hollyoaks.

With few exceptions — #s 1 and 2 while deserving of inclusion, don’t deserve the top spots — I think this is a great list. At least there’s SOME representation out there. We can always use more, but at least it’s not the desert it was in the olden days!

Netflix Checks Piracy To Help Decide What To Buy

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Netflix has long argued that its service helps counteract piracy by offering a legal alternative; and it seems that the company is putting its money where its mouth is.

In an interview with Dutch tech website Tweakers, Netflix VP of content acquisition Kelly Merryman, says that it actively seeks out  TV series that have high rates or piracy when making programming decisions.

via Netflix Checks Piracy Stats To Help It Decide What To Buy – Forbes.

More than just a little bit smart.

And why do people pirate? Because traditional media outlets have not kept up with the needs/wants of the 21st century consumer.

Will and Sonny Scare the Mormons

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Days of our Lives - Season 46

Days of our Lives’ ongoing front-burner gay storyline featuring Will and Sonny (Chandler Massey and Freddie Smith, far right couple) is the reason that some have alleged that KSL-TV in Utah has moved the program to an overnight timeslot.

from Huffington Post Gay Voices

“Days Of Our Lives” fans in the Salt Lake City area won’t be able to watch their daytime soap during the day anymore. KSL, NBC’s Salt Lake City affiliate, has announced it will move the long-running soap from 2 p.m. to 1:05 a.m.

According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, KSL won’t say why it’s moved “Days” to late night — or why it airs “Dr. Phil” twice — but it could be because of the show’s ongoing gay storyline.

KSL is owned by the Mormon Church. In the past, they’ve refused to air many network shows.

Russell Tovey: The Unlikely Lad

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Russell Tovey: the unlikely lad | Television & radio | The Guardian.

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The lovely Russell Tovey, a terrific actor who’s never been compelled to be “in.” He’s playing his first ever gay role this year. |Image: The Telegraph.

“I had loads of spots, but I went in and said, look, I want to play this part. Dakin [in The History Boys] was meant to be the lead, lothario, sex object, and nobody was going to lust after me, this spotty, pasty, big-eared thing. But Alan Bennett really liked me and he thought, well, he obviously wants a bigger part, so he wrote up the part of Rudge for me.” Tovey’s skin problem almost led to him quitting the production. “My skin was so bad, I thought, I just want to leave. It was really affecting me psychologically. You go into makeup and they’d paint each spot. It was self-esteem-crushing. Horrible.”

Great article in The Guardian.

I’ve loved Tovey since he was in the movie version of The History Boys. He’s done loads of movies and TV shows in the U.K. primarily since then. He’s signed on for HBO’s gay-themed dramedy Looking opposite another out actor, Jonathan Groff. The series, Tovey’s first major U.S. role, is set to begin shooting in the San Francisco area shortly.

DAYS Shocker — Massey Abruptly Fired from Top Role in Drama

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Chandler Massey as Will Horton. The two-time Emmy winner was let go last week.

Well, this is interesting. Not good interesting, but interesting nonetheless. This is why I hate the networks….

Two-time Emmy winner Chandler Massey filmed his final scenes as Days of Our Lives’ gay heartthrob Will Horton on Friday, Aug. 23 — only he didn’t know they were his last until he was summoned at the end of his work day to the office of Greg Meng, the soap’s co-executive producer. During this meeting, Meng informed Massey, who had been planning to depart the NBC soap when his contract expired in December, that he would have to leave immediately because a replacement had already been hired. Massey exited the studio sans fanfare — no farewell party, no goodbyes, no nothing — and sources close to the young actor say he was devastated and in tears. His last episode will air on or around Dec. 31. Days has yet to announce the name of Massey’s replacement, who won’t begin work until after the soap returns from a two-week production hiatus in September.

via TV Guide

Recent Post: Massey Leaves Iconic Role as Will Horton

Massey Leaves Iconic Gay Role as Will Horton

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Outlets covering gay entertainment news and those covering soap operas had plenty to write about Fri., Aug. 23, when, in a surprise move, two-time Emmy winner Chandler Massey announced that he had filmed his last scenes as Will Horton on the venerable NBC sudser Days of our Lives.

The story of Will Horton (Emmy winner Chandler Massey, left) discovering himself and his love story with Sonny Kiriakis (Freddie Smith) has been achingly slow, but powerful performances by the duo have overshadowed the typically tepid plotting.

AFTERGLOW. Sonny Kiriakis (Emmy nominee Freddie Smith, right) will find a strange new bedfellow in the new year when an as yet unannounced new actor takes over the role of partner Will Horton (double Emmy winner Chandler Massey, left) on the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives.

The 22-year-old Massey had announced his intentions to leave the role earlier this year when he won his second consecutive Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actor. He has said that he intends to finish college, which was interrupted during his freshman year when he won the role of Will Horton on DOOL.

“I’m done. It’s bittersweet, Massey is quoted as saying on The Backlot. “These four years have been so amazing I’ve built a family here. I’m so grateful to NBC and everyone for these amazing four years. It’s been my privilege and honor to work there.”

Massey was let out of his contract several months early for a variety or reasons. While originally saying that they would not recast the role, producers have now indicated that storylines have dictated a recast.

While many current fans of the show have taken to social media decrying the decision to recast, Massey — the fifth actor to play the role — has been vocal in his support of a recast for some time.

“I think it’s a good move [to recast],” Massey said in The Backlot piece. “I’m biased because I fell in love with Will and Sonny and I want Will and Sonny to be together.”

I agree with him. I fell in love with them, too. But, recasts have always been a part of the life of a continuing drama. After all, excluding babies, 12 actors assayed the part of Tom Hughes on As The World Turns from 1960 until Scott Holmes became “lucky 13” in 1987, staying with the role until the series ended in 2010. There’s hardly a role on a soap that has not been played by another actor at one time or another.

There’s no doubt about it: I will miss Massey, but I do believe that it’s more important that DOOL continue to tell this story and I hope a recast indicates that they tend to do just that.

There are plenty of young people, struggling with their sexuality that need to see other young gay people in a committed relationship to show them that it can be done — insane gunmen, unintended pregnancies, annoying and sometime borderline psychotic parents, drug dealing cousins, perjury, hot architects and Stefano DiMera aside — and that you can come home each night to the loving embrace of Sonny Kiriakis and his fabulous hair.

Thanks, Mr. Massey, for sharing your gifts with us. Your impact on the landscape has been indelible.

Because of DAYS’ shooting schedule, Massey will likely be seen as Will through December.

Other Recent Posts:
More Sands Through the Gay Hourglass — Revisiting and Revising
Like Sands Through the Gay Hourglass: Ticked Off at American Dramas. Again.
Charm of DAYS’ Gay Supercouple “Cannot be Denied”
Chandler Massey Takes Home Second Emmy
Daytime Emmy Q and A: Freddie Smith

NPR Says Julia Child Was Wrong — Um, I Don’t THINK SO!

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Julia Child Was Wrong: Don’t Wash Your Raw Chicken, Folks : The Salt : NPR.

I’m open to being proven wrong, but I think this is a lot of bloody hokum. The comments are more prescient than this article.

If there was, in actuality, an epidemic of food borne illness from washing poultry, there would be more of a hue and cry about it. The fact is, the reason there is so much wrong with food today is because modern agribusiness has done a fine PR job convincing us that this the CHICKENS’ FAULT and not the fault of the MASS PROCESSING AND SLAUGHTER INDUSTRY.

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Sorry, NPR. Julia Child was never wrong. Image|Paul Child/PBS

Solve the problem by (A) buying your chickens from an organic farmer/butcher or (B) not eating chicken. Telling you not to wash a chicken is like telling you not to wash e coli-ridden bagged lettuce, which you shouldn’t be buying either. HOW HARD IS IT TO RIP UP LETTUCE, PEOPLE?? I’m done ranting, I’m going to go wash a chicken.

I’ve been called out on my near-reverance for the late Ms. Child more than once, but I’m here to tell you, if you study cooking, if you study food, if you study kitchen technique, you will never find a better teacher.

I’m a pretty fine home cook, if I do say so myself. Julia Child taught me how to be fearless in the kitchen and how to marry flavors and, most importantly, how to cover up mistakes with good humor and an extra bottle of wine.

My advice, always, to fellow mortals: don’t fuck with Julia Child.

The Straight Years — A New Website and a Look Back at How it Used to Be

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Got this tweet this past weekend from LogoTV —

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Of course, I had to check it out.

The premise is people who are out now showing old pictures of themselves when they were pretending to be straight — or simply hadn’t figured out how to come out of the closet.

Back when I was a pre-teen/teenager, there were three people on television that I knew were gay: Paul Lynde on The Hollywood Squares, Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game, and Billy Crystal’s character, Jodie Dallas, on Soap. And that was it! At least that was it in my little insulated corner of the planet. No one talked about gay and straight. Were these my role models? No, thanks. That’s not it. I’m not like ANY of these men. (Although, I LOVED Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly — they were the epitome of hilarious to me in the 70s — I did not connect the dots.)

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Charles Nelson Reilly made the 70s a little bit funnier on Match Game. A gifted actor, teacher and director, the Tony-winning Reilly filmed his autobiographical stage show, The Life of Reilly, shortly before his death. |Image: nndb.com

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TV’s center square, Paul Lynde, was bitchy and campy and threw out one double entendre after another on The Hollywood Squares for years. Also known for stage and TV work, including memorable turns as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Lynde died of a heart attack in 1982 at age 55. |Image: crewmagazine.

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Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas in Soap. Allegedly gay throughout the series’ 1977-81 run, Jodie had several relationships with women. Granted the show was an over-the-top spoof on soap operas, but commercial director Jodie was nobody’s idea of a role model.

Things weren’t that much better in the 80s, when Steven Carrington on Dynasty was television’s gay standard bearer. Carrington — played by Al Corley and then recast with Jack Coleman — like Jodie Dallas before him, had far more romantic entanglements with women than any gay man I’ve ever met. Then again, “conversion therapy” and attempts to go straight were seen as serious back then, as ridiculous as it sounds now. There was no touching, no actual affection shown between two men on TV then; not in those days when, after his 1985 death, the world was shocked to learn that Rock Hudson was gay.

Looking back on those “straight years,” I think that simply because they were there and we could have a conversation about them, Jodie Dallas and Steven Carrington began to pave the way for networks like HERE and LOGO and superstars like Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell and Zachary Quinto and George Takei and Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick Harris and shows like Glee and The New Normal and Will & Grace and Brothers & Sisters and The L Word and Queer as Folk on cable and the networks and Husbands and The Outs and Eastsiders and Submissions Only and Hunting Season online and iconic couples like Kevin and Scotty,  Luke and Noah,  Lindsey and Melanie,  Will and Sonny and, hell, Jack and Doug on Dawson’s friggin’ Creek just to scratch the very tip of the iceberg.

I finally figured it all out in my mid-20s and came out publicly after attending the 1993 gay march on Washington. Being surrounded by the largest crowd I’ve ever seen on the National Mall, I decided that I wasn’t alone. I had back up in case coming out was a terrible idea.

It wasn’t. It NEVER is. I just wish my “straight years” hadn’t lasted quite so long. Maybe they wouldn’t have if I could have seen more of myself on television, in the movies or in literature back then.

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The Corner Bar was a 1972 summer replacement series on ABC that is credited with the first recurring gay character on American television. Played by Vincent Schiavelli, “Peter Panama” was reviled by gay activists at the time for playing up all of the worst gay stereotypes. Schiavelli, far right, is pictured with cast members Gabriel Dell, J.J. Barry, Shimen Ruskin, Bill Fiore and Joe Keyes. |Image via sticomsonline.com, watermarked argentaimages.

How “Husbands” Predicted The Future For Gay Marriage And Digital Hollywood

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How “Husbands” Predicted The Future For Gay Marriage And Digital Hollywood.

Fortunately, Husbands has not had to worry about suffering from performance issues. When Bell and Espenson launched it two years ago as a web series on YouTube, it won a rave from no less than The New Yorker, and generated enough of a passionate fan base that the duo was able to raise $60,000 on Kickstarter for a second season. That season, which debuted on YouTube last year, saw a roughly 35% boost in viewership. “Everybody has access to the ability to make their own product now,” says Espenson. “It really is ‘the best will thrive.’ Like, whole networks are set up to guess what people are going to like. You don’t have to guess anymore. You can put it up and see what they like. That’s what we did. And they liked us.”

Excellent article and interview with Bell, Espenson and Hemeon about the impact of Husbands and finding new venues for content.

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Husbands’ co-star Sean Hemeon is flanked by series co-creators Brad Bell and Jane Espenson at the 2013 Entertainment Weekly San Diego Comic Con party. The much-lauded marriage equality series centers on Hemeon and Bell, who play a hilarious mismatched married couple in the crisply written show. | Image: Chelsea Lauren/WireImage.

It’s very interesting to me that the trio no longer use the phrase “Web series” to describe the show, now beginning its third season (and this time on CW Seed, the companion site to the broadcast network), but rather simply call it a “series.”

I think they are right — and it’s very interesting to see language and usage change — sometimes practically overnight.

Says Espenson: “There’s nothing on YouTube that you can’t see on your smart TV. There’s nothing on TV, essentially, that you can’t find online in some form. So [saying “Web series” is] like saying, “I heard a radio song” vs. “a CD song!” Well, what’s the difference? You can get it either place.

I’ll have to start checking myself.

Meanwhile, you can watch — please do; it’s terrific!! — the new season of Husbands on CW Seed.

Watch the first two seasons and some behind-the-scenes videos HERE.

Read some of the Husbands-related posts I’ve made over the last year HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Glee’s Cory Monteith Dead at 31

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Sad.

Cory Monteith

Glee star Monteith. The Canadian star was found dead in a Vancouver hotel at age 31. | Image: Chris Pizzello/AP

By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, July 14, 4:10 AM
via The Washington Post
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Cory Monteith, the handsome young actor who shot to fame in the hit TV series “Glee” but was beset by addiction struggles so fierce that he once said he was lucky to be alive, was found dead in a hotel room, police said. He was 31.

Monteith, who played the character Finn Hudson on the Fox TV series about a high school glee club, was found dead in his room on the 21st floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel on Vancouver’s waterfront at about noon Saturday, according to police.

Deputy Police Chief Doug Lepard said there was no indication of foul play. Monteith’s body was found by hotel staff after he missed his check-out time, Lepard said.
“We do not have a great deal of information as to cause of death,” Coroner Lisa Lapointe said.

Lepard said Monteith had been out with people earlier and that those people are being interviewed.