Anyone here watching BIG LOVE on HBO? There's a closeted gay guy on the show who is pretty twisted. I'm hoping they do something with him being gay sometime soon. So far they have only revealed he was gay and that a handful of people know but keep it to themselves. I'd be interested to soo what he's like when he's in a relationship or having a hook up with a guy. Is he even more twisted or does he relax a little?
Submitted by
on Tue, 2007-08-21 22:45.
I checked with HBO at the start of the season
That's not good news...
Albee is fairly
Albee is fairly deplorable. I don't find anything redeeming about his actions and hope that the gay storyline falls to the wayside. I want more consistently positive representations of gay men in the media and I think that the exploration of Albee's sexuality, if not handled delicately, could be damaging, as we don't have enough positive reps of gay people on TV to counter the poorer ones.
Fairly? Alby IS deplorable
I'm always for a positive gay character but the reality is that if we're gonna be portrayed correctly we have to be portrayed from all angles. There are bad gay people out there just as there are bad straight people. The good thing about Alby's character is that he's not bad because he's gay, he's bad because of the way he was raised.
I have no dount BIG LOVE can handle a gay storyline in a delicate way...I mean...look at the show's subject matter. Their doing a good job handling plural marriage.
If this were a different
If this were a different world, I'd agree with you. But it's not. Jeffrey Dahmer wasn't a serial killer because he was gay but his sexuality is often cited as having some influence upon his actions. Priests who molest young boys aren't pedophiles because they are gay, but the church has no problem showing one as symptomatic of the other.
I also have no doubt that HBO could handle the gay storyline in a delicate way, but does it really matter how well they handle it? This current society is not one that pays attention to nuance, to sublety, to anything that might enable them to see that Alby as a gay man and Alby as a pretty rotten human being are mutually exclusive.
We do have to be presented from all angles, but for every positive representation of us, I can find five that portray us as pedophiles and abominations and as just another stereotype. TV and film can present a serial killer as a straight man or a child molester as a straight woman. No one would bat an eye. No one would presume that all straight men are serial killers and that all straight women are molesters. Gays in TV and film aren't evaluated from the same perspective. Give me some more positive examples now so that we can get it to the point where the negative examples have no relevance.
The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA?
Right now, I'm more interested in what evil Rhonda (yay! my favorite character!) suggested to Heather (Tina Majorino) a couple of weeks ago, i.e., Heather's harboring secret lesbian feelings for Sarah. Something about Heather's expression told me that Rhonda hit the target, and it really makes sense in the context of the show. Heather's about the sweetest character on "Big Love," so if they're gonna dive into gay issues next season, I'd rather see it through her character than Alby, who, at this point, is one top-hat and twirly mustache away from being Snidely Whiplash.
By the way, can we just say that "Big Love" improved like 100% this season? I always loved the cast, but the first season was kind of disappointing. This season, though, everything came together, and its been one of the best shows of the summer. I'm sad the season's already almost over!