 by Michael Jensen
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"Samantha Who?" forgets how not not to do gay storylines
ABC's Samantha Who?, starring the surprisingly funny and appealing Christina Applegate as a woman with amnesia (as well as the amazing Jean Smart) is a sitcom I quite like for its witty writing and engaging characters. Or at least I like it most of the time. Last Thursday's episode contained a gay storyline that was so clunkily handled, I suspected my remote had malfunctioned and changed the station to Fox without warning. In the episode Samantha (Applegate) forces her best friend Andrea (the hilarious Jennifer Esposito) to finally meet Tony Dane (McKinley Freeman), the pro basketball player with whom she's been carrying on a texting-only relationship. Sam also forces her ex-boyfriend Todd (Barry Watson) to accompany her and Andrea to the bar where they are meeting Tony. Later when Todd excuses himself to use the men's room, Tony follows.
Despite the fact that there is plenty of room, Tony chooses the urinal right next to Todd, clearly making Todd uncomfortable. Tony then leans over to have a long gander at Todd's privates, thereby freaking the other man out.
Todd then races out of the men's room, grabs Samantha and the clearly unglued fellow reports that Tony is gay. When Tony first checked out Todd's junk, I was rather taken aback and told myself there was no way he was going to turn out to be gay after doing something so creepy and stereotypical. Surely the writers of the show knew how offensive this would be? But, no, after some amusing bits where Samantha and Todd try to get Tony to come out as gay, we eventually learn that Tony is gay and wants Andrea to be his beard, something she is willing to do in order to be part of his glamorous lifestyle. Jennifer Espoito and Christina Applegate There are a couple of issues here. I suspect the show needed to communicate quickly that Tony was gay hence the checking out Todd's junk in the men's room. I've no doubt the writers never meant to offend. However, it's still wrong as it plays right into a bunch of gay stereotypes: gay men as predatory; gay men as constantly hitting on straight men; gay men not being able to restrain themselves from leering at other men. It also bugged me that Tony was yet another African-American being portrayed as at least closeted, if not actually on the Down Low. Had Todd not figured out Tony was gay, it seems quite possible Tony would never have told Andrea he was gay. Are there black guys on the Down Low? Sure (and so are lots of white guys, but that's another story since the traditional media doesn't call that the Down Low). But I find this especially troublesome since there are so few men of color on TV , not to mention how often we've seen African-American men portrayed this way. After all, there are millions of perfectly well-adjusted gay men of color, but we hardly ever see them. Do I see this a burn-them-at-the-stake offense? No. But Samantha Who?'s writers do need to be aware of these stereotypes which is why I have reached out to the network with my concerns. Submitted by on Mon, 2009-03-30 16:33. |
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I think you nailed it...
The gay stereotypes you listed are exactly why this type of story is so offensive. I can already see straight men at home telling themselves, "See, I knew gay guys scam on me when I use the men's room." That makes me wonder, do any straight guys actually watch Samantha Who?
I also agree that the writers probably didn't mean to offend. They were trying to come up with a quick and funny scenario to expose Tony. Perhaps in the future it might be a good idea when they're writing a gay themed episode, to have a gay writer give it the once over. That shouldn't be too hard of a task.
Not to sound TOO stereotypical...
ummm...
i feel like you're missing the point of why it is offensive...
i will requote Michael when he said "However, it's still wrong as it plays right into a bunch of gay stereotypes: gay men as predatory; gay men as constantly hitting on straight men; gay men not being able to restrain themselves from leering at other men."
sure, there are men who do this. then again, there are those who don't. (i think it's innapropriate...heck, i'd rather someone just ask me flat out to see my shit) i just think in this day and age, especially when we're all fighting so damn hard just to get married or adopt kids....and acceptance levels are pretty high and there will always be jerks who don't care one way or another....but why reinforce this? yes, it happens. we know this. stereotypes are out there, but this is one that doesn't do ANY favors. it's not a friendly or funny thing for a guy to realize another man is peering over at his penis while he is pissing.
damn, hope that made sense. if not, well....sorry about that.
Sorry - Find the whole show offensive.
The bathroom scene didn't
The bathroom scene didn't really bug me all that much. It happens. I laughed.
However, it did surprise me that there were two specific situations that seemed slightly more offensive that Michael DIDN'T address...
1/ Todd's sense of utter disgust at being checked out by another dude.
2/ Samantha's line about curing gay people "which you can TOTALLY do, I saw it on The Bible Channel..." Now, it could be said that the line was meant to be sarcastic, but Applegate delivered it with just enough earnestness that it left me wondering if Sam really WAS that stupid.
As for gay writers, the laugh-out-loud hysterical Marco Pennette is a producer and, judging by some of the Ugly Betty-esque zingers the scripts are littered with, one would have to assume he had more than a passing glance at this script.
I'm confused -
genuinely, non-sarcastically confused. We should be upset by the leering that happened on Samantha Who? on the same day a "Sexy Guys of Sci Fi" column came out on AE with a bunch of partially undressed to barely clothed mostly straight actors showing us their bodies? Also our daily dose of some pretty hot guys in their briefs posing provocatively ends a daily column here...though i would hardly call us predatory (your point 1), points2 and 3 (the hitting on straight men and the leering part) loses some credibility with me. I almost always agree with you Michael and totally love reading anything you write, but this one has me genuinely confused by you guys here at AE. Do we leer or don't we? Again, not being sarcastic at all in that question.
Cheers.
FB
P.S. I loved both the Sci Fi column and the daily briefs guy very much btw...i will fully confess to leering at today's briefs guy. :)
There is a difference
joke is on (some) straight men
I second that. Models & actors are paid to being leered at.
But actually - and I'm flagging my polemic feminist flag here ;-) - it's only on the surface that they are laughing at the gay guys. They pretend that it's the gay guys who behave indecently and their own uncomfortableness is totally justified - so other straight guys can chuckle in relief not to be in their situation. In the end - they only fear that some men might treat them like they treat or want to treat women. I see some irony in that
It is unbalanced
If there was more of a balance, the scenes wouldn't annoy me so much because let's face it, there are plenty of men who do leer at the urinal.
But to have gay men be the villians, predators or bitches, basically the negatives, more often than not, with a very small amount of gay characters having any kind of intergrity, is frustrating and offensive.
It is like having a friend who playfully teases you. Once in awhile is fine, you can laugh at yourself, you do the same back. All the time? It's hurtful and you have to wonder how much respect they have for you.
Bathroom Scene & the DL
My interpretation of the bathroom scene, before going in Todd vehemently denied being on a “date” with Samantha, and went on a rant about how they were just friends and nothing more. Tony seemed to raise his eyebrows at this. I figured this speech by Todd led Tony to believe that he was gay as well, and that led to the urinal peek. Not defending the scene, just my interpretation.
In regards to Tony being on the DL, I would think that had less to do with him being an African American, and more so that he was a major basketball star. How many openly gay major NBA stars could there be? I don’t follow the sport, but I’m guessing none? Unfortunate as it is, keeping him on the DL is very true to life.
Oh, that's a really good
Oh, that's a really good point about Todd's speech prior to the bathroom incident. I hadn't even thought of that. That actually makes a lot of sense.
That would paint Tony as slightly less lecherous and predatory, and more inappropriately flirtatious... something we can all probably relate to from time to time. Either way, it made for a chuckle, even if how Todd and Samantha handled the situation made them look slightly less "hip" than they've previously been presented as being.
I also totally understood Tony being on the DL... he's been presented on the show as being a VERY well known NBA player, and this would (sadly) probably be exactly the kind of life he'd lead.
Something tells me this subplot isn't over, since Andrea agreed to be his beard at the end of the episode as opposed to ending things.
They did the exact same