Occasionally my desire to be vocal about what I feel are problematic depictions of gay men in the media comes into conflict with my…baser urges. And by that I mean, I’m sometimes tempted to overlook things I would normally tend to criticize if a television show or movie features a hot guy in a prominent role. It’s that conflict between being a good homosexual and speaking up about something that could potentially encourage homophobia or being a bad homosexual and just perving on the hot guy.
Television, lately, has been giving me many such opportunities. Some shows I can come to an internal accommodation with. My Name is Earl
More recently, two new show launches have brought up this trend once again. Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, for example, wants to be a broad farce, but is somewhat constrained by how naughty it can be by the standards people over at Comedy Central. A co-production with the BBC, it’s possible that the overall quality of the show might be improved by seeing it in the original, unedited form, but as it stands now it’s the sort of show that manages only one, maybe one-half of a good joke for every dozen groaners it throws out there. And most of those good jokes are, frankly, not so good, and are saved primarily through the delivery of the actors.
It’s the character of Bruce that I feel that I should be upset about, and to tell the truth, if the show were better, I probably would be. Marques Ray plays the character as chirpily upbeat, so it’s hard to actually dislike Bruce, but he’s also played as a sex-obsessed, shallow stereotype. The character’s introduction is even part of an extended “prison sex” joke, and the show’s promotional materials have referred to the character as a “queen.” But to complain about Bruce is to miss the larger picture, that no character on the show comes off in a particularly positive light and it’s a much deeper problem that, at the end of the day, the show simply isn’t very funny. To single out the character of Bruce for criticism feels like laughing at the guy who just fell and broke his arm.
By coincidence, another show that debuted the same night as Krod Mandoon is the cop-drama Southland. At first glance, it’s your typical cop ensemble, and it owes much to Homicide
Lest you think there’s not a “Bad Homosexual” angle here, because when word got out that Cudlitz was playing a gay character, there were multiple reactions in the gay-blog world along the lines of “why couldn’t the hot one be gay?” Which floored me, for two reasons. First of all, for gay men to be judging the merit of a gay character based purely on the character’s attractiveness pretty much confirms some of the worst stereotypes of the superficiality of gay men. And secondly, and most importantly, Cudlitz is most definitely the “hot one.” His partner on the show is cute enough, but he’s a child, while Cudlitz is both ruggedly handsome and mature.
Oh, who am I kidding…if Krod Mandoon keeps giving us shirtless Sean Maguire, I’ll keep watching…
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Dorian, I have thought the same things about “My Name Is Earl” and “Krod Mandoon”. Both are stereotyped character driven shows, but with Earl it’s done well.
I wasn’t surprised at Bruce because it was pretty clear that everyone else in the show was a negative stereotype. I found Annika’s character sort of offensive, but I would, since I’m a straight girl tired of seeing sexually confident women portrayed as being willing to sleep with anyone for whatever reason.
I thought the only reason for watching the show is that baby faced bad guy. He was pretty dang funny.
Sean Maguire’s a little to thin for my shirtless tastes.
30 year old Benjamin McKenzie is a child? To each his own, but I think you are letting your anti-twink feelings (and I understand where they come from, and I realize he’s playing a rookie cop) color your perception.
Re: Southland… didn’t The Wire do that exact same reveal shot for Rawls? I guess he wasn’t a main character and it didn’t come up ever again but still.
Krod backwards is dork. heh. Southland looks interesting!
I don’t know if you ever watched Skins, but the first two seasons included a gay guy among the cast – character named Maxxie. He seemed a well-rounded character and the writers had an interesting take on various stereotypes. They played him beside a pious Muslim and against a father who wanted him to go into labouring rather than modern dance (which was what he was good at) – and in all three cases, the result is not exactly what I expected. As the whole plot is based around school-leavers (Skins being a cross between Hollyoaks and the OC presumably), sex-obsession is certainly present but I thought excusable. It’d be interesting to see how that show fitted into you bad homosexual – good homosexual dichotomy above.
I’m always confused by how Gay Men only see non-stereotypical depictions in movies / television as being positive, and not some kind of self-delusional cognitive dissonance favouring depictions of what we wish we were rather than what we actually are.
I’ve spend time in enough gay bars to know the Queens outnumber the Butches, (most of whom are only affecting an aura of exaggerated masculinity for the purposes of procuring sex anyway, and whom all turn out to have Madonna records in their collection and yappy lap dogs they baby talk to, not matter how big their biceps are). Genuine masculinity is frowned upon as ‘trying too hard’ or ‘denying your true sexuality’ or ‘internalised homophobia’ and you are pressured to comform to the Queen stereotype to be considered ‘out and proud’.
It’s too pat to have the cynical, macho cop suddenly hanging around a Gay bar, as if this suddenly makes his character more interesting or complex. The Shield already ran with a similar gay character for its entire run, and had the guts not to go for the pat ‘out and proud’ easy solution. A more accurate depiction of my life would be the recent Gerard Butler movie ‘Rock N Rolla’, where a tough little criminal is outed to his friends, to initial shock, and then accepted due to his previous actions and behaviour anyway, so it becomes a non-issue. You can find acceptance in the wider world, not the ghetto.
Krod doesn’t strike me as being Homophobic. In a show where everyone is painted in idiotic, broad strokes, Bruce is an *honest* enough depiction of a gay man as to be expected. He’s open about his sexuality and what he likes doing, to the point of impropriety, which is the kind of conversation you’d overhear from a group of gay men talking anyway.
What you’re overlooking is that Bruce could have been abandoned to his fate by the group of heroes, but they welcomed him into their party and accept him for what he is. In the first episode, Krod discovers his Commander is in love with Bruce, and although Krod is uncomfortable with hearing graphic depictions of anal sex, he says this makes no difference in his respect and allegiance to him.
You also have an immensely-popular, openly-gay English comedian playing a sex-obsessed heterosexual villain. Not bad for a guy whose previously delivered the majority of his performances in Drag.
As for Annika, she feels no shame in what she’s doing, and broke up with Krod for this exact reason. She’s a Slut when viewed by his, (and some viewers), morality, but not by the beliefs of her own Pagan religion.
I think Annika would have bothered me less (and she bothered me only a little) if they had removed that line about her “giving it up for the time of day” while they were standing under a clock. That seemed to me like the writers wanted the audience to frown at her promiscuity, because other than that, her choices were logical, given her faith and role as a resistance fighter.
Also, I want to see more of the villain’s work. I’m going to get his name and IMDB him. I’d never seen him before, and had no idea who he is, but he’s a master of facial expression.
I feel stupid for not seeing that Krod = Dork until Aaron said so.
Everything in the show can be traced to tabletop roleplaying tropes. Annika is the female character played by the male player, whom, having ostensibly little grasp of what an actual woman raised in a society without judeo-christian sexual hangups would act like, steers his character in the all-problems-solved-with-my-pants-off direction oft as possible. I completely less-than-three her.
I give the portrayal of Annika a pass because they also seem to want the audience to frown at Krod’s disapproval of her promiscuity.