The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV (35 page)

Niles (David Hyde Pierce) has his turn at the object of another man’s affection in the memorable Frasier episode (“The Ski Lodge”). When Roz (Peri Gilpin) wins a raffle, she treats the gang to a ski trip. The prize also includes a handsome French ski instructor named Guy (James Patrick Stewart), who has the hots for an unsuspecting Niles. The night at the ski lodge turns into a door-slamming, bed-swapping farce. Once Guy confirms with Frasier’s father Martin (John Mahoney), who’s having problems with his hearing, that Niles is gay, a naked Guy waits in Niles’s bed to surprise him. Niles is indeed surprised.

A gay crush is even funnier when it’s a case of mistaken identity. On
The John Larroquette Show
(“An Odd Cup of Team”), Officer Hampton (Lenny Clarke) is thoroughly confused when he receives flowers from his doctor, Dr. Lewis (Lenny Wolpe). What the policeman doesn’t know is the flowers are really from John’s assistant, Mahalia (Liz Torres). In a hilarious scene, Hampton goes in to confront the doctor, who has trouble convincing his patient he didn’t send him flowers.

Perhaps the funniest example involves fictional talk show host Larry Sanders (Garry Shandling) and real-life actor David Duchovny. In “The Bump,” Larry is unnerved by all the attention Duchovny is giving him — the phone calls, an
X-Files
jacket (that says “The Truth Is Out There,” which Larry thinks has a gay connotation), and an invitation to stay overnight at his beach house. Larry asks Hank Kingsley’s gay assistant, Brian (Scott Thompson), about Duchovny’s sexuality. Brian tells him a third of his friends think he’s gay, a third think he’s bi, and the “rest don’t care. They just want to kiss him anyways, which would be me.” Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Larry confronts Duchovny to tell him he is straight. David says he’s also straight, but makes a startling confession:

Duchovny’s hilarious confession, which he delivers in a totally sincere, deadpan fashion, leaves Larry even more confused. The talk show host later pretends to be angry when Duchovny gets bumped from the show (Larry actually arranged for him to be rescheduled for the following week, so he’ll be on with guest host Jon Stewart). Sensing Larry’s upset, Duchovny puts his hand against the talk show host’s cheek, quiets him down, and softly says, “You really do care about me.” On the series’s last episode and Larry’s final show (“Flip”), Duchovny returns for another homo-laden encounter. When Larry visits Duchovny in his hotel room to ask him to appear on the final show, the actor is wearing only a bathrobe. During their conversation, he partly exposes himself to Larry.
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Not all episodes involving gay crushes are played strictly for laughs, such as a more serious episode of
The Golden Girls
. In “Isn’t It Romantic?,” Dorothy’s (Bea Arthur) old college friend, Jean (Lois Nettleton), whose lover Pat recently died, develops a crush on an unsuspecting Rose (Betty White), who has no idea Jean is a lesbian. When Jean confesses her feelings, Rose lets her down easy. “I don’t understand these kinds of feelings,” Rose admits, “but if I did understand, if I was, you know, like you, I would be very flattered and proud you thought of me that way.”
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Sweet, naive Rose’s response is completely in character because her reaction is so honest and genuine. This episode’s obligatory “Gay is OK” speech is delivered by Sophia (Estelle Getty) in response to her daughter Dorothy’s question about what she’d do if she had a gay child. “I wouldn’t love him one less bit,” Sophia says. “I would wish him all the happiness in the world.” Besides delivering a very heart-felt, gay positive message, Sophia’s speech also balances out the sharp-tongued senior citizen’s rapid-fire wisecracks about Jean having a crush on “goody two-shoes” Rose.

Designing Women
’s Suzanne Sugarbaker (Delta Burke) finds herself in a similar situation in “Suzanne Goes Looking for a Friend.” The former beauty queen finds one in her former pageant competitor, Eugenia Weeks (Karen Kopins), who now works as a weather forecaster on a local Atlanta station. When Eugenia tells Suzanne about her recent “coming out,” Suzanne mistakenly thinks she means at a cotillion (which Suzanne notes would make her “the oldest living debutante”). When Julia (Dixie Carter), Charlene (Jean Smart), and Mary Jo (Annie Potts) set her straight, Suzanne panics because she thinks Eugenia must be in love with her. And if they’re seen together, men might think she’s unavailable. The episode winds down with a humorous heart-to-heart talk between the women in a steam room, where someone directs an anti-gay remark toward Eugenia. Suzanne begins to understand how difficult it must be for her and vows to continue being her friend, perhaps more out of sympathy than anything, which of course is a big step for a character as narcissistic as Suzanne Sugarbaker.
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It’s also possible to be the object of someone’s crush without even knowing it. On an episode of
Wings
(“Honey, We Broke the Kid”), Antonio (Tony Shaloub) is thrilled when his idol, openly gay television actor Deke Hathaway (Clint Carmichael), star of
Austin Houston PI.,
arrives on Nantucket. Antonio, who has no idea Deke is gay, has the time of his life showing the actor around the island. When it’s time to say goodbye, Deke invites Antonio to come for a visit and leaves without his number one fan ever finding out the truth.
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The crush scenario has great comic potential when it involves a naive and/or uninformed character like Rose Nyland, Suzanne Sugarbaker, or Antonio Scarpacci. But the joke can be carried too far, as in an episode of
Ned and Stacey
(“Saved By the Belvedere”). The main plot involves Ned (Thomas Haden Church) directing a television commercial starring actor Christopher Hewett. Ned hires Hewett to recreate his role as TV’s
Mr. Belvedere
for the commercial, but he runs into trouble when Hewett really thinks he is the famous TV butler. Like his TV character, Hewitt begins dispensing advice to everyone, including a member of Ned’s crew, Jody (Andrew Craig), who admits he has a crush on another man. In the final tag, Ned returns home and listens to a series of answering machine messages from Jody, beginning with “let’s get together” to “let’s go to the theatre tonight” to “I’m here at the theatre, where are you?” to “I’m waiting for you in the bedroom right now wearing a thong.”
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At that moment, Ned pulls a gun out of his pocket.

GLAAD criticized Fox Television for “perpetuating the hateful stereotype of gay men as predators, particularly in pursuit of straight men” and for “sending a clear message that it’s acceptable for me to respond to unwanted admiration from gay men with violence.”
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In light of the murder of Scott Amedure, who was gunned down by Jonathan Schmitz after revealing his secret crush on him on The
Jenny Jones Show,
GLAAD found the scene in
Ned and Stacey
“...irresponsible, malicious and dangerous.”
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On February 28, 1997, GLAAD posted an apology from Trae D. Williams of Fox Broadcast Standards:

In other words, it never occurred to the producers or the network the scene was offensive. In spite of their apology, the scene aired during its syndication run on the USA Network.

What most straight male characters find just as disquieting as attracting gay admirers is discovering their ex-wife or girlfriend is a lesbian. Most of these narcissistic males assume responsibility for sending their mates into the arms of another woman. In “Kirk’s Ex-Wife,”
Dear John’s
obnoxious Kirk Morris (Jere Burns) is still suffering from a severely damaged male ego when he runs into his successful ex-wife Carol (Kate McNeil) and her female lover, Donna (Elizabeth Moorehead). “I turned my wife into a womanizer!” he cries.
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Hearts Afire’s
John Hartman (John Ritter) doesn’t like to be reminded his ex-wife, Diandra (Julie Cobb), left him for their marriage counselor, Dr. Ruth Colquist (Conchata Farrell). In “The Smelly Car,”
Seinfeld
’
s
George Constanza is certain he’s responsible for his ex-girlfriend Susan’s (Heidi Swedberg) relationship with her current lover, Mona (Viveka Davis).
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On
Muscle
(“Episode 5”), bodybuilder Sam (Steve Henneberry) doesn’t even get a chance to pursue the love of his life, WNKW newscaster Browyn Jones (Amy Pietz). When she learns she’s going to be outed by a New York newspaper, she beats them to it and opens her newscast by telling her viewers, ”I’m a lesbian.“ Her producer Hal (John Putch) is concerned at first, until he realizes the station can capitalize on it to improve ratings. At the top of her next show, Browyn is introduced as a ”newscaster lesbian.”

Some men handle the situation with a little more style. Although
Friends
’s Ross (David Schwimmer) still carries a torch for his ex-wife Carol (Jane Sibbet), he’s man enough to walk her down the aisle when she marries Susan (Jessica Hecht) in “The One With the Lesbian Wedding.”
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Another good sport is
Nine to Five
’s Bud Coleman (Edward Winter), who realizes he has no chance of rekindling an old romance with his girlfriend from college, Liz (Gail Strickland), when
her
ex-girlfriend Chris (Hilarie Thompson) interrupts their date. He had no idea Liz was a lesbian when their evening started, but being a true gentleman, he not only leaves the restaurant quietly, he sends a bottle of Dom Perigon to their table.

Some men have limits when it comes to old girlfriends. On
Herman
’
s Head
(“Spermin’ Herman”) Herman (William Ragsdale) is delighted to see his ex, Rebecca (Liz Rassey) until she hits him with a double whammy: she’s a lesbian and wants him to be the father of her child. Herman considers taking her up on her offer, until he realizes she’s only interested in his sperm.

Women are not immune to making a similar discovery about their ex- or current boyfriend. While men find it a reflection on their manhood, women are generally more supportive. On
Phyllis
(“Out of the Closet”), Mary Richards’s self-involved former landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman), now residing in San Francisco, is relieved when her new beau Scott (Edward Winter) announces he’s gay. “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she tells him. “I was worried you weren’t attracted to me.” Phyllis is reluctant, however, to let Scott introduce her to his parents as his girlfriend. The situation becomes even more complicated when he announces their engagement. Phyllis convinces Scott to come out to his parents at their engagement party, but he gets carried away and comes out to all of his guests. “I’m gay,” he exclaims, “and I have this woman [indicating Phyllis] to thank!”

While Phyllis is reluctant to play the part of Scott’s heard,
Seinfeld’s
Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) volunteers for the job. She attends the ballet as a friend-of-a-friend’s girlfriend and makes the mistake of falling in love with him. She plans to convert Robert (Robert Mailhouse) to her team, but Jerry is skeptical: “You think you can just get him to change teams? When he joins that team it’s not a whim. He likes his team. They’re only comfortable with
their
equipment.”
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Although Elaine manages to “turn him,” she discovers she can’t have the same “expertise” with their equipment as someone who has access to it 24 hours a day, so he quickly returns back to his own team.

In “The Turtle and the Hair,”
Sex and the City’s
Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) becomes fixated on the idea of getting married after attending a wedding. When her current beau, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), a divorce, announces he has no intention of getting married again, she begins to wonder if it will ever happen for her. Carrie’s gay friend Stanford Blanche (Willie Garson) has a great suggestion: Carrie should marry him, so he will get his inheritance from his grandmother (Mimi Wedell), who controls the family purse strings. It sounds like a good plan, but when the grandmother tells Carrie she knows her grandson is a “fruit,” she realizes there’s no inheritance in Stanford’s future and no marriage in hers.