"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.