Parks and Rec alum Nick Offerman is seeing a resurgence with the gays after his heartwarming/tearjerking episode in HBO’s The Last of Us alongside Murray Bartlett.
Offerman has had love for the community for some time, wasting no opportunity to play in the LGBTQ+ sphere on TV and in film. He was Captain Holt’s ex in Brooklyn 99, a gay bar owner in Bob’s Burgers, and a bi baker who romances both titular characters in the Will & Grace reboot. He even played the coach in the incredibly sapphic (and Queerties-nominated!) A League of Their Own series.
This week, his touching showing on The Last of Us inspired a user over on Twitter to track down another piece of his allyship made material. In 2013, the actor wrote a foreward on the topic of masculinity for Blake Little’s Manifest — a book of gay erotic bear photography.
The message is compelling:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Before you ask, the book is sold out, but prints are available for purchase (and your viewing pleasure) on Little’s website.
Related*
We need to talk about Murray Bartlett and last night’s heartbreaking gay episode of ‘The Last Of Us’
As emotional as that episode of ‘The Last Of Us’ was, it could’ve been even more bleak. Here’s what went down, and how it differs from the video game.
The actor’s seemingly gruff demeanor, frequently masculine characters, and famed mustache lead many unfamiliar with him to believe he’s some stereotypical, traditionally patriarchal, burly guy in real life. According to him, it’s not so cut-and-dry.
“People ask me frequently (well, enough that I would remark upon it), ‘How did you become so manly?'” Offerman opens. “I’m a goddamn actor, for crying out loud. But am I ‘manly’?”
The oft-asked question leads the actor to ask a question of his own: “What is ‘manly’?”
He explains that an early catalyst to his broader understanding of masculinity was one of the first artists he idolized in his youth, Freddie Mercury. He’d even wanted to be like him until he realized he didn’t have “the voice of a rock and roll angel-demon, nor a jaw line as rendered by Tom of Finland.” An unexpected but appropriate reference!
“If you had asked me back then with what qualities I would describe Mr. Mercury, ‘manly’ would certainly have been at or near the top of the list,” he continues. “‘Pretty’ would have been there as well, so I guess a man can be both, in my humble etc.”
Related*
Murray Bartlett on the evolution of gay sex in film and TV
“We are seeing a real evolution of that in terms of those queer intimate scenes that are actually intimate.”
While straight and gay men alike continue to often have complicated, reductive relationships with masculinity — clock this recent study about feminine men in leadership roles — Offerman seems to have at least this part of the experience figured out.
“If you had gone on to inform me that Freddie preferred the company of gents in the bedroom, and then asked me if I should like to change my list of descriptive qualities based upon that knowledge, in effect asking me, ‘Can a gay man be manly?’ I would have asserted, ‘You bet your sweet caboose he can. Is a gay man not a man?'”
Indeed, when it comes to the hot bears pictured in the pages of Manifest, Offerman assures, “Whether they are about to engage in work or play, the men pictured herein are about as manly as they get.”
bachy
Offerman is cool, and very funny. He’s married to Megan Mullally (Karen Walker from Will & Grace). Doesn’t that sound like a fun marriage?
I’m very curious to read the full foreward of Manifest.
wikidBSTN
Mullally also plays Offerman’s ex-1st wife in Parks & Recreation, in some of that shows funniest episodes.
missvamp
i adore him. funny & a great actor.
cheks
He was in Miss Congeniality 2 as a dumb criminal. And he played another role that was not a typical “masculine” character like Ron Swanson.
I think it’s hilarious when guys look to him or his Ron Swanson character as a role model because Offerman isn’t his character, like he says, he is a actor. And his character is a caricature, and it’s poking fun of libertarians and right wing ish men like that.