Ask the Flying Monkey! (April 15, 2008)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey!

Q: Is Leonardo DiCaprio gay? I could swear I remember reading way back when, around the time of What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993), that he came out in an article in The Advocate. Of course since then, Leo's gone on to major stardom and a "thing" for skinny models. Am I crazy, or do I remember correctly? — Carl, Seattle, WA

A: It’s possible you’re crazy. But it’s also possible that Leonardo invented a time machine, went back to the day he gave that interview to The Advocate, and murdered the writer, thus preventing it from ever being written. But you, of course, somehow remember the previous time-line, which means a time-machine-driving, laser-wielding Leonardo DiCaprio will soon be coming after you, too.

For your sake, let’s hope it’s the former.

While it’s true that Leonardo did play gay in Total Eclipse (1995), the Flying Monkey thinks that's as close to being gay as DiCaprio gets.

DiCaprio in Total Eclipse

Q: Any word on when the musical episode of Ugly Betty is going to air? ABC would be cruel to make us all wait to see the gayest show get even gayer!! — Erik, Stanford, CA

A: Bad news, Erik. The musical episode of Ugly Betty, which was to have been written by out songwriters and partners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, has been cancelled. The Monkey contacted ABC and was told that due to the writers’ strike, the musical episode was off the dance card this season, though it still might happen next year.

The cast of Ugly Betty

But your question got me thinking about “musical episodes” in general. No, the tradition didn’t begin with Steven Bochco’s disastrous singing cop show, Cop Rock (1990); if anything, credit goes to the 1968 show That’s Life, which had its characters break into six or so songs every hour episode. But shows like I Love Lucy had incorporated musical interludes into their traditional plot-lines even before then. Since then, plenty of shows, from Happy Days to The Simpsons, have done all-musical episodes.

The modern “musical episode” tradition began in the late 1990s when shows like Ally McBeal, 7^th Heaven, The Drew Carey Show, and even Oz began to showcase the form. I confess that after the first few of these, they started to feel like rip-offs. But I’ve since revised my opinion, deciding that I like musical episodes so much that I don’t care that they’re ripping each other off.

My favorite musical episode, hands-down, is “The Bitter Suite” (1998), from the third season of Xena: Warrior Princess. Why? Not only is the music kick-ass (written by Joseph LoDuca, nominated for seven Emmys for his work on Xena), the episode itself resolved an explosive, season-long feud that had been building between the two main characters: Xena had asked Gabrielle to kill her own evil daughter, but she hadn’t been able to do it, which led to the evil daughter killing Xena’s son.

Gabrielle (Renée O'Connor) & Xena (Lucy Lawless) in "The Bitter Suite"

In short, Xena’s musical episode wasn’t just a gimmick as in so many other shows (Buffy, for example), but was, rather, integrated seamlessly into the plot-line. In fact, the producers acknowledge in the Season Three DVD commentary that they couldn’t think of any other way to resolve such a deep-seated conflict; they absolutely needed the heightened drama that a musical episode brings, and it shows.