Is a "Fag Hag" backlash brewing?

We've come a long way from the heady days of Will & Grace, when "fag hags" (or "queer peers," as my best college female friend used to say) were all the rage. Back then, fag hags were a great way to give gay male characters on television and in movies a story arc without it involving sex, dating, kissing, or any gay or same-sex interaction at all.

But everyone now agrees we've moved waaaaaay beyond the fag hag, dramatically speaking. In fact, there may even be a fag hag backlash brewing. In "It's Raining Pussy," the most recent episode of Logo's (AfterElton.com's parent company) Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in all the World, Condie Ling (voice by Margaret Cho, the best casting choice since Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl) is Rick's "alternate lifestyle companion."

Alas, her 17th boyfriend has come out, forcing her into a series of increasingly desperate suicide attempts (she is more or less saved at the last minute by a visit from the ghost of a previous suicide-commiting fag hag from the 70s -- but this is definitely not your typical ghost-of-Jacob-Marley type encounter!). This is funny and all, and it's impossible to take offense at it when the show is satire and the whole point of the show is to send up gay stereotypes.

But let's face it, between last year's Adam & Steve and the two scheming fag hags on Ugly Betty, "alternative lifestyle companions" suddenly aren't being portrayed in such a good light. Was this inevitable given the sacharine overkill of the Will & Grace years (the torch of which Debra Messing is still carrying in her recent mini-series, The Starter Wife)? Or is this the start of some kind of open season on fag hags on television and in movies?

If so, count me out. After all, the Kathy Griffins of the world loved us long before the "Modern Love" column of the New York Times. Besides, don't we owe them something for taking us to the prom?