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

In interviews, Baitz discussed how ABC from the start was fully supportive of his handling of Kevin's character. “Nobody raised an eyebrow,” he told AfterElton.com. “It wasn't even remotely controversial.” But in his blog, he also indicated his understanding of what really dictates network decisions – the ratings. ABC might have received its share of enraged letters from gravely offended homophobes – and make no mistake, they did – but what mattered was that people were watching, the audience grew week after week, and the network was pleased enough to order a full season. “ Now that we know we are here for a while, “Baitz wrote, “we are getting bolder.”

“Getting bolder” apparently meant not only going into more complex emotional and psychological terrain for the Walker family, but giving Kevin some serious action in the bedroom. AfterElton.com contributor Christie Keith's recent overview of gay sex on TV noted that, unlike on cable where explicit gay sex scenes are acceptable, we never got to see Kevin actually engage in the “act”.

But Kevin clearly went to bed with Scotty as well as with his next boyfriend Chad (Jason Lewis), all indicated by tasteful bedroom scenes in which the men either undressed and locked lips before the deed, lay back and relaxed just afterward, or simply woke up together in the morning. Refreshingly, this is pretty much how the show handled sex for all of the characters, avoiding treated the gay characters any differently.

Pushing the gay sex envelope further, a road trip episode even found Kevin picking up an army man at a bar near a military base, an incident for which he felt no shame, suffered no punishment, and was looked upon by his siblings with envy.

By then it was becoming clear just how revolutionary this character was. Finally, here was a gay man on network television allowed to be sexually active (unlike, say, Will Truman), who was not a villainous psychopath bent on destroying his family (see Andrew on Desperate Housewives), nor a neutered saint whose role was to the better the lives of the straight people around him (see Kyle on The Class). And Kevin wasn't just having sex; he was immersed in realistically portrayed relationships that extended well beyond stereotypical scenarios and “very special” episodes.

Trouble in Kevin's relationship with Scotty, for example, initially appeared to stem from Kevin's internalized homophobia, manifested in his palpable discomfort with Scotty's more flamboyant demeanor and penchant for public displays of affection. This was interesting but fairly conventional “gay” material for network TV, which often (and most comfortably) connects gay characters to drama surrounding the closet. But Kevin and Scotty's problems were soon revealed to be far more complex, connected to disparities in background and finance, as well as Kevin's fear of intimacy and commitment.

Similarly, when Kevin met Chad (Jason Lewis), the show initially seemed to be trafficking in well known stereotypes – that of the closeted celebrity who refuses to come out because of career concerns (see Grant Show's recent appearance on Dirt), and that of closeted men in general, who claim, as Chad did, that they're not really gay, they just like to sleep with men.

And then something unexpected happened. Chad did decide to come out. In part, what ultimately doomed this relationship was Kevin's narcissistic belief Chad came out solely to be with him, along with his fear of being suffocated by a relationship he's not sure he's ready to handle.

As these relationships demonstrated, part of what made Kevin a groundbreaking character was that he was something of an ass. He was often an ass with the men he dated, including his crash and burn first date with Senator McCallister's brother, Jason (Eric Winter). And he was sometimes an ass with his family, hitting an all-time low when, to test the paternity of a young woman claiming to have been sired by the Walker patriarch, he pulled her hair out at a family dinner party.

But these flaws established Kevin as a three-dimensional human being, rather than a stock character or stereotype. By providing Kevin with issues common to many relationships and not necessarily tied to sexuality, the show made it easier for a broad audience to relate to him. Rather than laughing at the gay guy, viewers just may have found themselves identifying with him.