Announcing the 2008 AfterElton.com Visibility Awards

Like many previous TV sci-fi leads, Torchwood’s Captain Jack Harkness is handsome and charming. But unlike virtually every other TV sci-fi character, lead or supporting, Captain Jack is also openly bisexual. Ironically, this “small” change served to help make the science fiction genre, long the ultimate bastion of straight men, accessible not just to GLBT people, but also straight women, who also enjoy the show’s alternate take on sexuality. The character of Jack was conceived in association with John Barrowman, the openly gay British actor who portrays him. Where does the outspoken, ribald John Barrowman end and the brash, confident Jack Harkness begin? No one really knows, but enthralled AfterElton.com readers will no doubt long continue to try and figure it out.

Torchwood is revolutionary not just because the producers dare to put openly bisexual (or in Jack’s case “omnisexual”) characters in the formerly sacrosanct setting of sci-fi; it’s also that it presents these bisexual characters in such an amazingly matter-of-fact way. There’s no apologizing, no minimizing, and no moralizing — just good, old-fashioned romance and adventure.  Perhaps this was only possible in the U.K., a country without American Puritanism. But however it happened, it’s a welcome relief. And a special shout-out to second-place finisher, Brothers & Sisters, which is surely one of the most gay-positive shows American TV has ever produced.