Gay in the Writer’s Room

Television has certainly come a long way in terms of gay content with current hit series such as Brothers & Sisters, Torchwood and Ugly Betty prominently featuring gay characters and storylines on a regular basis. For the writers on these shows, having well-written gay content as an everyday part of their job is a luxury that is unfortunately not afforded to all writers working in television.

How do writers handle a creative environment where gay characters are reduced to stereotypes or completely non-existent? Are the studio and network executives who are calling the shots to blame for this lack of quantity and quality gay inclusion? Or might some fault lie with gay writers themselves, including some who declined to share their experiences for this article? Or does blame lay on both sides?

Several television writers (including the author of this article) as well as some prominent television executives shared their experiences with AfterElton.com to help TV viewers understand more about life as a gay person in a medium that projects an image of liberal mindedness that isn’t always reflected in the end product.

Homophobia Close to Home

David A. Lee and Daniel Vaillancourt, writing partners (and spouses), have had both positive and negative experiences with gay content in television. While on the staff of MTV’s Undressed, an anthology series exploring the sexual relationships of college students that aired from 1999-2002, Lee and Vaillancourt say they “lucked out” with their first staff job by actually receiving the mandate from out MTV President of Entertainment Brian Graden to have gay stories make up 1/3 of all stories told on the series.

Post-Undressed, however, they didn’t always feel the same sense of luck and soon realized that they were coming up against more resistance in their quest to create projects with gay characters and content. In fact, they believe it is gay writers and producers who are frequently more concerned about the “gay thing” than straight producers. Vaillancourt and Lee believe these gay writers and producers worry that the inclusion of gay characters and/or material will be the thing that stands between them and the green light needed from a network or studio for a new TV show.

While pitching a one-hour drama pilot to the networks, Lee and Vaillancourt worked with two producers – one gay, one straight – and it was the gay producer who was leery about including a gay character in the project. At the point when it seemed the project was on the verge of being sold to a “fairly large network,” the gay producer said they would have to change the gay character to a straight one. “Is this a condition of the sale?” the duo asked. The gay producer responded, “I think it will be.”

The writers had never heard that directly from the network/studio and “we felt this was coming directly from the gay producer.” Wanting to see their project move forward, they begrudgingly acquiesced and made the change, while “quietly” creating another character that would later be revealed as gay if the project were to reach the air.

Unfortunately, even with the character change, the pilot did not sell. The experience, however, led Lee and Vaillancourt to conclude that homophobia ironically exists not only with straight writers, executives and producers but with some of the gay ones as well.

David A. Lee and Daniel Vaillancourt

A Dead End in 90210

As a writer on Fox’s Beverly Hills 90210, I was not the only openly gay writer on the writing staff and the environment in the writers’ room could not have been more comfortable. However, that changed during the show’s final season when the writers attempted to get a gay storyline approved by 90210 Executive Producer Aaron Spelling.

During the earlier part of the series, Donna (Tori Spelling, Aaron’s daughter) had a romance with Noah (Vincent Young) for several seasons while also having an on-again/off-again relationship with David (Brian Austin Green). Once it had been announced in early 2000 that 90210 would end its 10-year run, the mandate from the network and studio was that Donna and Noah break up so Donna could reunite with David, thereby providing a lavish wedding and fairy tale ending for the series finale.

However, once the Donna and Noah characters broke up, the writers faced the problem of what to do with Noah. Never more than a supporting character, and with little time to convincingly pair him up with one of the existing female characters, the writers came up with a 5-episode arc wherein it would be revealed that all along Noah had been repressing feelings for men. By the end of the proposed fifth episode, he would have come to terms with the fact that he was gay and, at the close of the series, his character could go out on a strong note.

The writers felt the storyline to be progressive (for the times) and would quite possibly give 90210 a little of the extra buzz that had been missing from the show the last few years it had been on the air.

As was procedure with all storylines, an outline was sent up to Spelling’s office while the writers waited to hear his reaction. It didn’t take long for word to get back that the entire story had been shot down. The writers were told by an executive to come up with a different storyline. The official reason? It wasn’t the “right” story for the show to tell at that time.