"Heroes" Straightens Up Its Gay Character

Gay viewers are used to seeing unfortunate, misunderstood straight boys getting gay-baited because they don't play sports and having to suffer the apparent indignity of being considered homosexual. This is nothing new; given it is 2006, it's actually a bit tired. But Heroes opted to go in a decidedly different direction with Zach. A few episodes later, when Claire is debating what she should do about her horrible secret, Zach asks her if she is planning on “coming out” to her parents – as a superhuman. Interesting wording for a character whose sexuality is under apparently very public scrutiny.

This hardly serves as proof Zach is gay. After all, superhero comics (upon which Heroes is modeled) have long made the parallel between “otherness” and homosexuality. That's one of the reasons that the form is so attractive to gay youths

But in the November 20th episode of Heroes (titled “Homecoming”) Claire and Zach are walking through school when a rival cheerleader says something about Claire taking the “gay-boy” to the Homecoming dance, and that maybe he should be the one wearing the tiara. Claire punches the girl in the face, knocking her out cold.

Later in the episode, Zach climbs into Claire's window to encourage her to go to the Homecoming dance, despite being grounded. When she asks if he wants to be her date, he says he can't, for “millions of reasons”. He then launches into a heart-to-heart that is both encouraging to gay teens and incredibly frustrating in its refusal to commit.

Claire asks if he can't be her date because of what the other cheerleader said, and Zach says that he doesn't care what she said, that he knows who he is and is proud of it. He's more worried about Claire, who can't come to terms with her own “otherness”. He says, “You've got to embrace your inner freak … the only thing you'll regret is denying who you really are.”

Many viewers took that exchange as Zach's coming out.

Technically, he never says “I'm gay”, but even NBC's website was fooled by all the subtext – its official recap of the “Homecoming” episode states that Zach “stammers with his reply, admitting that he's gay”. At least it did. NBC recently edited those words out of the transcript. If the network's own marketing efforts can't get the facts straight, it's not outlandish to think that millions of viewers may have been led to the same apparently erroneous conclusion.

Further evidence that Zach is gay can be found on Zach's Myspace page, which is presumably maintained by NBC. Zach's Myspace handle is “Zachtothefuture,” and his page lists his Orientation as “Not Sure”, his favorite movies as Rocky Horror, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Velvet Goldmine, Withnail and I. His blog also include the comments “I'm still not interested in Claire, trust me”.

Zach's Myspace page also features a large number of gay and gay-friendly peers that Zach has in his network – many of whom appear to be actual Myspace users who weigh in with supportive comments after the episodes.

Comments like “Just know that you are special, too!”, “There are rumors going around that you're gay. That's so cool! I'm all for that!”, and “It's 2006 – people don't care about this kinda stuff anymore” are all over the place. It's interesting to note that there's not one derogatory or potentially gay-bashing comment on the site – although of course the comments could be monitored by the show's publicity department.