It's no Hollywood secret that when you need a mystic, you cast a black actor. When you need a mobster, Italian or Russian actors work best. When you need a terrorist, find the nearest Middle Eastern fella. Oh, and when you need a villain? Well it doesn't matter the skin color of the actor, so long as you make him a homo. And after staying true to the script on True Blood, HBO's other big deal series Big Love is making a go of it. But is the stereotype finally evolving?
From 300 to Desperate Housewives, movie and television writers consistently make their "bad guy" characters interested in the same sex. (The soap opera One Life to Live made a whole storyline out of an evil gay character who killed someone that threatened to out him.) How come? Because it's natural for audiences to fear, have a harder time identifying with, and root against characters they don't see themselves in. Hollywood, an industry maintained by the least creative people on the planet, thinks you're stupid, and will feed you lowest common denominator fare.
But does that hold true on HBO, a network willing to break boundaries? Well, HBO is the network that killed off the only gay character on The Sopranos.
We just found out HBO's blood sucking series True Blood would be giving one of its vampire king characters a boyfriend, played by Theo Alexander. And while that doesn't necessarily make him evil per se, the show's producers have set up a humans v. vampires story arc for the series, leaving Alexander's character immediately branded as one of the bad guys. (We haven't seen the script; maybe he's sympathetic to humans like Bill.)
And now on the polygamy fest Big Love, the upcoming season's biggest evil doer — who audiences already know is gay — is getting a boyfriend. Alby, who is the son of "the prophet" Roman Grant, is leading the Juniper Creek compound's Mormon sect. Viewers have already come to despise him, at the same time watching him struggle with his same-sex attractions (there was a truck stop bathroom gone bad scene last season). And now writers are giving Alby (played by Matt Ross) a lover, Dale. Reports Michael Ausiello:
The character [of Alby] is “being groomed for an incredible season,” teases co-creator/executive producer Will Scheffer. Adds counterpart Marc V. Olsen: “Alby’s boyfriend, Dale (Benjamin Koldyke), is appointed head of the UEB — a trustee. They stumble into a relationship, and this guy is [just like Alby] struggling with his urges. He’s been going to [reparative therapy] for several years… unsuccessfully. Alby is going as well.”
But attempts to “pray the gay away” are just the tip of the iceberg. “There’s a provocative nature to what we’re doing,” Olsen suggests. “It’s more than just the Mormon culture. We’re highlighting certain aspects of the church’s relationship with its gay members that I think, as the story unfolds, is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy.”
Big Love is great television. So is True Blood. And the one thing that's helping us get over the "villains are too often gay" stereotype is that producers here are sexualizing these gay men. Rather than just sitting on the sidelines as the stock gay villain, these three-dimensional characters often have complex story lines and, to the chagrin of the Parents Television Council, just might be seen in bed — or truck stop — with another man.
We'll be watching. Gleefully.
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At least TV will feature a queen or two who isn't wearing more make-up and nail-polish than the majority of females in his vicinity. And any simulated oral sex will be more than welcome ^^
I think we should welcome a portrayal that attempts to be balanced. We're not all Rebeccas of Sunnybrook Farm, you know. Some of us are extremely rotten people.
So long as TV attempts to balance gay portrayals, I don't mind the bad with the good.
Wait. I missed the 'mo in 300. Who was it?
@2 Jason:
"Some of us are extremely rotten people."
I discovered that through almost every gay website on the internet.
You are also forgetting that True Blood includes one gay character already Lafayette who, while no saint (read: he is a small time drug dealer and promiscuous), is a main character and well liked. True Blood appears to be pretty realistic when depicting gay characters and quite supportive. They even had one sub story dealing with some bigots getting stuck into Lafayette but being exposed for being spineless low lives.
Er, not all gays in TV are villains. Look at Ugly Betty, for instance. Stereotypical, sure, but not villains. And most villains are not gay; check out pretty much *any* show, the majority of villains are straight or their sexuality unknown.
Also, for the record, True Blood was based off of a series of novels. I've not read them, but I should think the gay villain was there, too.
What is wrong with the idea of a gay villain that one should forgive? Arent bad people, or more broadly, people who do questionable thing who happen to be gay?
As long as they portray them as that, villains who happen to be gay, its fine; and they portray them in a realistic and complicated manner and treat them just as they would anybody else, its fine.
Prince Jack on King was on of the most interesting and complicated gay characters ever written for TV, he wasnt a good guy, but he wasnt a bad guy either. He was "real" and that was fine.
This notion that gay in TV and movies should be saintly creatures is ridiculous, just keep them real.
It's better than being the idiot funny best friend.
I have to disagree with the lazy generalizations in this post. For every show cited, there is a far more monstrous hetero villain. Alby's father, Roman, the patriarch of the compound–and husband to probably a dozen women–is Satan incarnate. The villain of Ugly Betty is Vanessa Williams–her gay assistant Marc is much more sympathetic. I havent watched Desperate Housewives in a season or two, but the gay son is hardly the villain of the series.
If anything, gays went from being the villians to being the overly-sympathetic, sexless martyrs or best friends, like Matt on Melrose Plac, Will on Will & Grace, or even Kevin on Brothers & Sisters. I think now we can enjoy nuanced gay characters with good and bad qualities–like the gays on Modern Family. Though its worth remembering TV usually boils people down into caricatures anyway.
As to the other generalizations, there's clearly been an effort to avoid various stereotypes in recent years. When new Mission Impossible or Die Hard movies or other action blockbusters come out, they try to portray the villains as a multi-ethnic cabal, or vaguely British/German, or part of the American industrial-military complex. Maybe Queerty lifted this post from an issue of Premiere from 1986?
@Erik
I was just about to mention Prince Jack. Kings was such an underrated show. Such a shame it got cancelled :(
And not only does True Blood have Lafayette who is "good guy" and very openly gay and Desperate Housewives has 2 gay couples on the show and neither 1 of them have been portrayed as villains. This is a strange article.
Meh. Everybody knows vampires are casually bi veering toward gay.
Frankly, if the villain was gay I'd root for him or her.