Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (September 12, 2008)

SUMMER DAYS DRIFTIN’ AWAY, BUT UH-OH THOSE SEPTEMBER NIGHTS
Hard to believe, but we’re already on the cusp of my least favorite season. Tans fade. The hot UPS guy stops showing up in shorts. Things wither and die.

Every year around this time, I have a Pavlovian response that results in my breaking out in a cold sweat accompanied by an unshakable sense of impending doom. The trigger? The phrase “Back to School.”

It’s not like I had such a bad time of it in high school. It’s just that I’d rather be forced to have root canal while listening to Republican Convention speeches than relive a single minute of those insecure, confused years (and one guess what I thought I was “confused” about).

So it’s definitely ironic how much TV I watch that’s set in high school. Dawson’s Creek, My So Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The O.C., Gossip Girl, I’ve seen ’em all. And it doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure out that, like many other gay men, my enjoyment of these shows has something to do with vicariously re-experiencing those emotionally scarring high school years at a safe remove.

I’m particularly drawn to the strong-willed, unflappable heroines who are so often at the center of these shows. I wish I had been a Buffy Summers or Veronica Mars, navigating the cliques and social mores of my school without a care for what others thought about me.

Gossip Girl offers another type of satisfaction — with its designer-clad, spoiled-rich, martini-swilling students, it transforms high school into a glamorous, escapist fantasy.

And that’s part of the reason I was so surprised to find myself hating the new 90210. It clearly wants to be a Gossip Girl retread, but instead comes across like the pathetic little sister playing copycat. None of the 90210 gang have the allure or appealing self-assurance of a Serena or Blair. And instead of escapist entertainment, I found it an oddly depressing remembrance of things past I’d hoped to suppress.

New 90210 cast members from left to right: Tristan Wilds,
Shenae Grimes, Dustin Milligan, Jessica Stroup, Ryan Eggold,
Anna-Lynne McCord, Michael Steger

Early in the premiere episode, there’s a scene at a lacrosse tryout where the coach says to a couple of players, “C’mon guys. You can make out later! Let’s keep playing.” In other words, he belittles a couple of jocks by implying they’re gay. I know that kind of trashtalking obviously still occurs in schools, but that hardly makes it necessary for this show to perpetuate it. I was especially bothered that it came from a teacher, one who the show clearly wants us to find the likable, caring “Mr. Holland/Dangerous Minds” type of mentor.

I found myself wondering how a gay student on that team or in that teacher’s class might have felt. Which only drew attention to a bigger problem — how in a premiere episode that was crammed full of new characters and storylines, no room could be made for a gay student.

Oh, there are spoilers out there hinting that someone might be gay at some point (much like there also were a year ago about Gossip Girl), and I’m pretty sure that will prove to be the case. To their credit, all of these high school shows eventually introduce or out some gay character. But none of them seem to manage to include a gay character right from the outset, and the more that happens, the more irritated I am by it.

For one thing, by keeping these characters hidden from view and building up to some big “reveal,” these shows imply there’s something shameful and secretive about being gay. Of course, many teens today are in fact struggling with those feelings. But one of the enormous changes between the days of Dawson’s Creek and today is that schools are far more likely to have proud, well adjusted gay teens who are fully out to their peers. And yet TV still can’t manage to show us one of them.

I’m particularly bothered by 90210 because in so many ways it’s trying to distance itself from the old 90210 and present itself as fresh, hip, and contemporary. That’s apparent not only in the parking lot sex scene we get mere minutes into the premiere, but even in the choice of school musical we see students rehearsing — the edgy, rock-scored Spring Awakening.

Of course, Spring Awakening, despite being a show about sexual oppression and set during the 19^th century, actually manages to include gay characters. In comparison, the so-called “new” 90210 seems very dated indeed.

Next page! Chuck & Larry playing at a high school near you!