The Year in Gay Television: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Betty

The Gay Channels Get Gayer

Both Logo (AfterElton.com’s parent company) and Here! continued their quest to bring gay programming to gay viewers (and curious straight folks). Here! is currently broadcasting the fourth season of Dante’s Cove, their supernatural sudser and beefcake extravaganza which this season added Jensen Atwood and reality vet Reichen Lehmkuhl to the cast. Well, sort of, in the case of Reichen. Thus far he hasn’t had much to do other than appear shirtless a few times. Here! also added the vampire show The Lair and continued premiering new movies such as Cut Sleeve Boys and Fat Girls. Here! also runs the successful DL Chronicles, which looks at the “down low” phenomenon among some closeted gay African-American men.

Meanwhile, Logo added the very funny animated show Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World and the somewhat less successful The Big Gay Sketch Show, which was hit and miss. Also airing were new episodes of Round Trip Ticket, First Comes Love, US of Ant, and Real Momentum. Logo also premiered new films including Outing Riley, For the Love of Dolly, and On the Downlow. Both Rick & Steve and The Big Gay Sketch Show are scheduled to be back in 2008.

Logo also scored quite a coup by hosting Visible Vote ’08, the first ever presidential forum focused solely on gay issues.

Using Hot, Sexy Guys to Sell Products

It’s hardly a secret that Madison Avenue has long used homoerotic ads to sell their products, but this year saw a nice trend toward ads including gay people or even aimed at gay people. While Ikea has long been a leader in advertising to us ‘mos, Levis, Dolce and Gabbana, and Chemistry.com also climbed on board the bandwagon.

A recent ad for Levi’s 510 jeans aired in two versions, one for Logo and one for everyone else. Both feature a hot guy pulling on his jeans, which just so happens to cause a phone booth and city street to be pulled up through his apartment floor (don’t ask!). In the straight version, the phone booth is occupied by a woman, and in the gay version it’s a man and the two walk away together. It’s nice, but can anyone say “separate but equal?”

Somewhat better was the ad for Dolce and Gabbana Jewels, which includes a plethora of male and female same-sex kisses as a very attractive man and woman rush through city streets. Viewers are expecting them to be hurrying into each other’s arms, but instead there is an interesting same-sex twist at the end although it isn't entirely positive.

Online dating service Chemistry.com also created a fantastic ad taking direct aim at the homophobic policy of their main competitor, eHarmony.com. In the ad, a man flips through the pages of a girlie magazine only to look up and say, “Nope, still gay.” The red letters “Rejected” are then stamped across him, highlighting the fact that eHarmony.com doesn’t match gay people.

Anti-gay humor has long been used in ads and made appearances in 2007. The most notorious was the Snickers Superbowl ad, which featured two men accidentally kissing followed by “humorous” physical violence. But the ad’s true homophobia was to be found on Snicker’s accompanying website, which featured several NFL players reacting with great distaste to the same-sex “kiss.”