The AfterElton.com 2007 Visibility Awards

Worst Scripted Series Featuring a Regular Gay Character

Dirt, FX

We’ve nothing against complicated gay characters doing all sorts of dubious things. Witness our adoration last year of Gay Vito (Joseph Gannascoli) on HBO’s The Sopranos. But in bisexual Leo Spiller (Will McCormack) on FX’s Dirt, gay viewers found themselves subjected to yet another psychotic whack job that felt more stereotypical cliché than breakthrough moment.

In the course of Dirt’s first season, Leo (who is confused about his sexuality) has an affair with Jack Dawson (Grant Show), a closeted A-list action star, only to later help his sister Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox) out him in her magazine. Leo comes to regret this for the damage it caused Dawson’s wife and children and he decides to punish his sister by terrorizing her as an anonymous stalker, something she is horrified to learn in the last episode.

That’s right — another crazed bisexual stalker. Thanks, FX!

Perhaps in the hands of more skilled writers, Leo could’ve been a riveting character as opposed to one simply offensive and off-putting. But then again, that describes the whole show.

Best “Gay” Episode on a Scripted Series Not Featuring a Regular Gay Character

My Name is Earl, “The Gangs of Camden County”

Last year this award went to Cold Case’s very moving “Forever Blue” episode, but this year’s winner is a little more light-hearted, if just as well done. NBC’s My Name is Earl has been gay-friendly from its very first episode, which featured Kenny James (Gregg Binkley), better known around town as Gay Kenny.

But Earl outshone the competition this year with “The Gangs of Camden County”, an episode centered on Earl Hickey’s (Jason Lee) attempts to broker peace between two rival gangs at the prison in which Earl is incarcerated. But when he learns the two gang-leaders are secretly in love with each other, Earl realizes his task is much more complicated. Even though the episode is set in prison, Earl’s writers never indulge in stereotypes or cheap jokes at the expense of the gay prisoners. Indeed, it champions them without ever feeling false and was brilliantly done.

Most Well-Intentioned Though Fumbled “Gay” Episode on a Scripted Series Not Featuring a Regular Gay Character.

It may have had its heart in the right place, but it was hard not to chuckle at the episode of Kyle XY called "Free to Be You and Me". In it, Kyle and the open-minded Trager family decide to put on a high school "alternaprom" for gay and lesbian students — and then the show manages to keep all of said gay and lesbian students safely off camera or out of focus in the far background.

Hey, we know this is a "family show," but the lengths the series went to to try and address diversity inclusiveness while avoiding any actual on-camera diversity itself seemed almost surreal.