"Brothers" & "Betty": Breaking New Gay Ground

Billy Crystal plays a gay character on Soap …a same-sex couple share a bed on thirtysomething … a high school teen kisses another boy on Dawson's Creek. These are commonly cited as the milestone moments in depictions of gay characters on network television. Looking back at the just completed 2006-07 TV season, it seems we might now add to that list “when Kevin met Scotty.”

Actually, that's not quite accurate. When it comes to gay milestones on TV, we've moved well beyond mere moments, and even the presence of a gay character is not enough to warrant a show being considered significant. These days, it seems any show can introduce a gay character. It's doing something interesting with him that's far tougher—hence the deadening blandness of sitcoms like The Class. What's significant about this past season is that we had more than single moments, and more than individual characters to celebrate. Instead, two hit shows—Brothers & Sisters and Ugly Betty—revealed themselves to be groundbreaking in a variety of important ways.

Flashing back a mere nine months to the start of the current broadcast season, the outlook wasn't so rainbow rosy. Will & Grace had ended its eight-year run the previous spring, taking with it one of the few central gay characters on television and leaving no clear new "gay on the block" in sight. A GLAAD survey of the current season found that “broadcast television networks continue to underrepresent their LGBT audience … The number of LGBT scripted representations on the six major broadcast networks will comprise only 1.3% of all series regular characters on the networks' 2006-07 schedule.”

An AfterElton.com article last fall did note that Brothers & Sisters, created and written by out playwright Jon Robin Baitz and with an openly gay executive producer, Everwood's Greg Berlanti (who replaced Marti Noxon), was to feature a gay character. Even so, the outlook for the show seemed dire, given high-profile cast replacements (Betty Buckley wife-swapped for Sally Field, Jonathan LaPaglia expressed unease over playing gay and was replaced with Matthew Rhys), rumors of backstage squabbling among its starry cast, and other changes made right up until the pilot's premiere.

The pilot itself held little promise in terms of furthering gay representation on television. Gay brother Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) was only one in a very large cast, and while clearly out and accepted by his family, was the only one of the five Walker siblings to attend a family dinner without a significant other. He also appeared to have little life beyond his career.

Then Kevin met Scotty (Luke MacFarlane). “Oh, my God! You're gay!” Scotty declared, upon realizing that the straight-laced, traditionally straight-acting attorney who had been prepping him for a deposition played for his team. The two enjoyed an instant flirtation and while such chemistry in real life often does lead to something more physical, on television it rarely does.

But this time it did lead to more when Kevin and Scotty kissed. Twice, in fact, in a single episode, which itself is a gay TV milestone. And unlike the controversies surrounding thirtysomething and Dawson's Creek, there was no advance warning from the network, no hyped up “special episode” designation, no public outcry, and no advertiser panic.