AfterElton.com - Jon Robin Baitz: Not Your Usual TV Writer (page 2)

Jon Robin Baitz: Not Your Usual TV Writer (page 2)
by Drew Mackie, September 25, 2006

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Baitz also suggested that perhaps the lessening of a gay presence on television could result from writers growing accustomed to making shows fit a more profitable business model. “I realize that the corporate structure has so much more pressure than the artistic part of the business… Things simply get ground down. Frankly, if you do it for too long and you'll find yourself agreeing to anything.”

After watching the Brothers and Sisters premiere last night, some viewers may fear that Kevin will fall victim to the “gay eunuch” trend that so often renders the token male homosexual into a catty, sexless sounding board for his straight companions. For example, Kevin is conspicuously the only Walker sibling not to bring a significant other to the big family dinner that ends the pilot. Furthermore, Baitz explained that he nixed the plotline that was to serve as Kevin's major struggle this season: a divorce from his wife after having declared his gayness and an ensuing custody battle.

Fear not. Baitz promised that Kevin's story will be a compelling one. Instead of the original set-up, subsequent episodes will depict Kevin embarking on a significant relationship with a new character.

"In the series, we're trying to develop one of the most viable and attractive love stories with [Kevin and] a very unlikely man," Baitz said, noting that much of Kevin's drama will be derived from being attracted to a man whose concepts of masculinity differ from his own. "There's only so much plot. Part of the choice [in writing television] is to pare things down and hone them. [Kevin's original story] seemed less interesting than evolving a live storyline that has him confront his true nature and ask 'Am I a homophobe?'"

The theme is an intriguing one — and certainly one with more dramatic weight than ones of sexually self-discovery that so often underlie coming out narratives. This gay character, it seems, made the first steps towards openness long enough ago that he's comfortable in his own skin to start looking toward a more grown-up relationship.

“He has a strange aloofness about him,” Baitz explains. “It's not that he's uncomfortable with his sexuality. He has a voracious sexual appetite, but he's also had in the past a problem committing himself to intimacy and exposing himself to it. His challenge in the show, in this season, is to open his heart to that.”

In addition to Kevin, Brothers and Sisters also offers Calista Flockhart in a role starkly different to the one with which most TV viewers are familiar. Flockhart's character on Ally McBeal charmed both gay and straight audiences and created much discussion over the present state of feminism. This show, however, features the actress as Kitty, a Republican political pundit about to make the transition from a radio personality to one who speaks her conservative views on a televised news commentary show.

“I didn't want to make conservative light. She's not,” Baitz said, though he promised the character would be nonetheless endearing. “Oh, god yes, she's as dry as a martini and incredibly self-mocking. Calista is blessed with perfect comic timing, you see more of that.”

Baitz admitted to being unfamiliar with Flockhart's work on Ally McBeal. Instead, he felt that Flockhart, a longtime friend, would be right for the part based on her on-stage performances in plays like Bash.

It's a remarkable challenge for a writer: not only to transform a TV icon like Flockhart into a new character that would probably launch into a tirade against her previous TV persona for loose morals, single motherhood and those famously short skirts, but also to find the humanity in someone whose political ideals clash with his own.

“As for creating the conservative, it's my attempt as a man who's no longer interested in party ideology to try to understand the qualities in a conservative that I could relate to — like the quality of protecting the constitution, which is a very conservative idea... How does someone of good conscience operate in a flawed system they still believe in?” Baitz asked of Kitty and her politics. “I understand the men, but when it's a woman, when it comes to the war, I find that very hard to reconcile. There's more tension in her character.”

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