Mitch Hewer as Maxxie on Skins

In a continued effort to bring you all that is important in the world of gay entertainment and ensure that you are being spoon-fed images of gorgeous, commoditized manflesh, we present the newly-minted AfterElton Briefs. Following the usual assortment of carefully-selected news items, interested readers can find a refreshing pic of a hot man in underwear after the jump. Yes, we're serious.

• Fans of randy British teen dramas rejoice! Skins, a beloved (and racy!) nighttime soap featuring Mitch Hewer as gay teen Maxxie, will premiere on BBC America in August.

• John Barrowman took second place as Britain's cheesiest celebrity, barely nosing out Graham Norton but losing to former EastEnders star Shane Richie. The contest was run by a cheese company who should probably put themselves on the list next year for devising such a pungent promotion.

• And speaking of Barrowman, could he be on the list of Doctor Who companions who might be killed off (if you listen to rumors) in this weekend's big finale?

• Good news: Both Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight have made the Emmy nomination "short lists". No, I'm not making fun of their stature.

• Gay video retailer (and porn distributor) TLA is coming under fire for making Heath Ledger's full-frontal in I'm Not There the selling point for the DVD in their catalog. On the one hand, the pickle-shot in question is certainly news to me. On the other, a dead guy's junk is a pretty trashy way to sell a DVD.

And today's Briefs are brought to you by...

Well, we thought it was just another strange bit of TV gossip to be taken with a pinch of salt. However, it seems not! As previously mentioned in the blog last week, George Michael will be sending himself up big time in the BBC’s forthcoming Extras Christmas Special.

If the promotional clips currently doing the rounds on the Internet are anything to go by, the show’s Christmas special will be a highlight of the beeb’s Christmas TV line-up. And, as usual, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant seem to have once again pulled out all the stops. Well, considering this episode is going to be the show’s swansong, we should blooming well hope so! The one-off show sees 44-year-old Michael mocking his own well publicized behavior, including spoofing his own past drug and public bathroom sex antics. We all know it’s been an up and down year for Michael, but the singer certainly hasn’t lost any of his sense of humor!

Whilst the net has been flooded with rumours flying around for months about which A-listers will feature in the last ever episode of Extras (Prince? Will Ferrell?), we’ve managed to find the newly released trailer. Enjoy!

Update: Yes, this did happen a few years back. I was tipped off by someone to it (coughMICHAEL!cough) and assumed that the ep had aired here in the States recently, which isn't even the case. So yeah, it's old and I air-balled this one -- sorry! But it's still an interesting topic that had never been discussed here on the site and one that is still an issue (with Knocked Up, etc).

A minor controversy has bubbled up recently a long time ago over the use of the word "gay" to mean -- well, it's not entirely clear what it was supposed to mean -- on the cult fan-fave Doctor Who series.

According to Nicklas Johnson, who has been charting both sides of the fan response to the word's use, this is how things started:

About 5 minutes and 25 seconds into Aliens of London, we were presented with this exchange between the Doctor and Rose atop an apartment building in London:

Rose: she slapped you!
Doctor: 900 years of time and space and I've never been slapped by someone's mother.
Rose: your face...
Doctor: It hurt!!
Rose: You're so gay!

Now mind you, Doctor Who has a massive gay fan base and the writer and executive producer Russell T Davies is himself gay. So it's hard to believe that Russell intended this remark as some sort of affront to gays.

This kind of reminds me of when The Maltese Falcon was adapted for the screen and the way that they decided to communicate to the audience that Peter Lorre's character was gay was to have him slapped by another man (apparently, you slap a woman or a gay guy and punch a man -- write this down, folks, it will be on the test). But I don't think that's the point here.

Fan response has been across the board, from those who feel it's offensive to those who feel that it's simply the way people talk, and everything in between. Davies himself has said that the word gay is constantly evolving, arguing, "It seems to me that we're becoming people who complain about the use of the word gay, much as people *used* to complain about the word gay, because it no longer meant 'happy'. No words stay static."

Interesting, though not entirely convincing or relevant, argument. What do you think? Is "gay" an insult? Or is it more insulting when negative reactions imply that it should be?