Best. Gay. Week. Ever! "The Walking Dead" Needs a Gay Character!

SO I'VE GOT THIS THEORY...
This week I had the great misfortune of seeing the steaming pile of dog doo doo that is the Robert Downey Jr./Zach Galifianakis "comedy" Due Date which opens this Friday. The movie, director Todd Phillips' follow up to The Hangover, had been on my radar due to a trailer that had Ethan, Galifianakis' character, reading rather gay. Check it out in case you missed it.

Having suffered through seen the entire movie, I can report that the it presents Ethan as ostensibly being straight, if only by having him say in a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment that he once dated a woman. Otherwise, he's pretty much neutered if effeminate throughout the film.

As for the sort of casual homophobia typical of these sorts of comedies (see The Hangover) there is refreshingly little of it present here, although the movie does let the word "faggot" fly once. But at least it comes from a rather crazed fellow as opposed to coming from Downey's character. Mostly the movie seems to have it in for odd, effeminate men. 

So what's my theory? That had this movie been made ten years ago, Ethan would've been so flaming that moviegoers would've needed fire retardant suits to sit through it. Obviously, I can't prove something like that, but nonetheless I'd wager the movie would've been so homophobic, it would've made Wild Hogs look like a love letter in comparison. 

In fact, Due Date felt like it was dying to make Ethan a creepy gay guy flouncing all over the place. One who would no doubt probably try to get into Downey's pants. 

Why do I think the movie wanted to go the homophobic route? Mostly because there were so many moments that felt set up for an anti-gay joke that you could practically hear the audience straining for the homophobic punchline: Ethan discussing his new "perm" and the fact he needed to get a new hair stylist right away, his need to masturbate before sleeping (which he does right in front of Peter; truly an "ewwww" moment), not to mention the way he treats his little dog and flounces all over the place.

Basically, this reads like a gay character set up for all sorts of gay jokes the director decided not to follow up on. As I already said, this is impossible to prove, but let's just say my "anti-gay" radar was pinging wildly. 

So why didn't the movie go there? Let's call it The Dilemma factor. While Due Date was shot and likely edited long before the brouhaha kicked up over the Ron Howard/Vince Vaughn flick, I think the feelings of the GLBT community to this sort of blatant homophobia has finally entered the Hollywood consciousness.

Thus I suspect that Phillips and others involved in the movie have either become enlightened about the issue thanks to 'mos speaking up or knew there would've been a ferocious backlash if Ethan had been something approaching the John C. McGinley character in Wild Hogs. (Based on The Hangover, I'm going with option "B" as opposed to actual enlightenment having suddenly overtaken Phillips.)

In case you missed the lovely Wild Hogs, McGinley played a creepy state patrol officer who, upon seeing John Travolta, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen skinnydipping together, strips off his clothes and joins them ... to have sex. 

The predatory gay scene from Wild Hogs

My point is that while the reaction of the gay community doesn't always match up exactly with the offense — we haven't even seen The Dilemma yet after all — it is the fact that we've been reacting at all that has caused things to even change in the first place. Somehow I don't think the Phillips and Howards and Beckers (he did Wild Hogs) would've dropped the creepy gay comic relief on their own.

Just as I don't think Hollywood is going to drop the "That's so gay!" shtick without a whole lot of prodding on our parts. Perhaps we'll get it wrong sometimes, coming off as strident now and then, but you can't make a gay-positive omelet without breaking a few homophobic eggs. 

Next page! I want a gay brain dead zombie?