MovieChat Forums > Slings and Arrows (2003) Discussion > Those poor poor homosexuals

Those poor poor homosexuals


The attitude of the show seems to be that gay men can and will have sex with women, and will always do so under the right circumstances, and they're just fooling themselves if they think they can't. The show doesn't seem to have the same attitude about straight guys having sex with other men.

In my experience, it's a hell of a lot more likely in the theatre for a straight guy to try it with another guy than for a confirmed gay guy to jump into bed with an actress, but "Slings & Arrows" flies in the face of that, and is a gift to all the "ex-gay" ministries.

Not only does Oliver sleep with Ellen, but Romeo (David Alpay) in Season Two is introduced as a complete gay male (talking about "Queer as Folk" and everything) who falls in love with his Juliet (Joanne Kelly) while rehearsing, has his first male/female sex with her, and stays with her, despite the fact that "people will laugh."

Bravely sticking to this switch from a gay to a straight life is ludicrously portrayed as an act of integrity in the face of inevitable scorn. Hey, we all know that society wants us to be gay.

People will laugh, all right. Underneath the supposed tolerance (the two silly old farts who sing the ersatz Noel Coward songs at the beginning and the end) there's a very interesting refusal on this show to take homosexuality seriously, either as a real sexual orientation or as a possibility for any meaningful relationship between two normally attractive adults under the age of fifty.

There's not even the slightest hint that Oliver had any kind of sexual relationship at the time of his death (Ellen jokes about his wanting to die in the ams of a cabana boy, tee hee), and he himself says in an interview that he's lonely, with no relationships. That's the way gay guys end up on this show -- as Cyril and Frank, two fey old sisters, clinging to one another in a non-sexual way in late-life desperation. One of them can never enter the United States, because of an "ill-timed fellatio" on American soil.

Maybe if Oliver had stuck to Ellen and not backslid he wouldn't have died that ridiculous early death and would be leading New Burbage instead of pathetically haunting his straight successor.

Not only does the fading (and probably never really beautiful) Ellen Fanshawe have no trouble picking up any young hottie she wants, even though she treats them miserably, but they never walk out on her. She kicks them out, with flowers and engagement rings in their hands. Oliver, the artistic director of a major theatre company, can't even get laid.

You've got two choices, gay guys: either switch to women while you're still cute (like David Alpay's character) or end up old, lonely and ridiculous, passing out in the street and getting run over by meat trucks, or calling each other "dearie" and "duckie" and being minstrels for the straight actors, entertaining them with your little stories and songs. You're either straight or you're sad or you're comic relief.

Everybody knows there's a lot of homosexuality in the theatre; the show is stuck with that. Being stuck with it, this is what they've decided to say about it.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. Gandhi.

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I went to a college that was a majority gay (or at least bisexual). I was probably one of the few straight guys there.

Anyway, in my experience, with all the gay men and lesbian women I've known both there and in later years, having worked in film and been close to a lot of others in the arts (theater, dance, fashion, etc.), most gay guys I've known have at least experimented with women at one time or another. (Same goes for lesbian women experimenting with men, save only one I know well - my best friend - who for certain has never been with a man in her life.) I think it's probably easier for a man whose already gone through the self discovery, trauma of coming out, and all of that, to be open to experimentation or just be generally more fluid in their sexuality, than it is for most straight men.

A lot of gay guys - though definitely mostly into men and only interested in lasting relationships with other men - will under the right circumstances 'get busy' with a women, if for no other reason than, 'why the hell not?'

Oliver and Ellen's hook-up was clearly just that sort of thing. A moment of intensity fueled by the success of the show they were in and large doses of alcohol.

The guy who played Romeo was clearly bi, but probably still somewhat confused about his own sexuality. Probably when he discovered he liked men, he figured he must be 100% gay, or fell into playing that role for a while, possibly due to peer pressure. I saw that sort of thing a lot in college with both gay men and lesbian women, who now that we are in our 30's, in some cases are now married to members of the opposite sex. They probably were bi all along, but during those late-teen to early 20's years, fell into a role as gay or lesbian. It seems a pretty true situation to me.

As for the older gay couple, I don't know why you call them "desperate." They're just an old couple, it seems to me. How else should they be portrayed? Are an old straight couple any different at that age?

As for Ellen, she is still very good looking. I'd definitely 'go there.'

_________________

Brude

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As for the older gay couple, I don't know why you call them "desperate." They're just an old couple, it seems to me. How else should they be portrayed? Are an old straight couple any different at that age?
They're not a couple. That's my point. They're just two old queens joined at the hip because otherwise they'd have nobody to talk to. They aren't lovers, and there's not the slightest reason to think they ever were. They (and Oliver) represent the inevitable lonely end of the gay man. Alpay's Romeo dodges that bullet when he jumps the fence for Juliet.

I just think it's a rare theater company that has no confirmed homosexuals under the age of sixty. New Burbage (with the partial exception of the author of "East Hastings") seems to have none.

It has gay men who will "go there" with a woman but not a single straight man who will sleep with a guy. The one time one does, it's Richard Smith-Jones, who ends up in bed with the author of East Hastings and a girl, suggesting that even the musical theatre queen will have a threesome with a female. And even Richard requires a lot of alcohol and drugs.

Am I to believe that no previously straight man at New Burbage would have looked at David Alpay and said "hmmm, maybe"? Well nobody does.

Although there are references to Oliver being with men, you never see it (as you certainly see Ellen being pursued by one hot twenty-something man after another). Darren Nichols is presumably gay, but he never seems to have a boyfriend or get laid. There's certainly no reference to Geoffrey ever crossing the line with Rosenkrantz back when he was Guildenstern.

You can rationalize anything you see on the show. Now how are we rationalizing the things you do not see? This show handles homosexuality in a way that is ever so careful to stroke the sensibilities of the straight audience.

There's a bonus for middle-aged women of dubious charms, too, who are told that young men are falling all over themselves for Burns. I'd believe Ellen Fanshawe has young studs lining up around the block a hell of lot more easily if she were played by somebody juicier (or more compelling in the Shakespeare scenes) than the woman who just happens by merest coincidence to be Mrs. Paul Gross.

Burns isn't beautiful, Fanshawe is a dingbat off the stage, and we never see her do any particularly charismatic stage acting that would cause anybody to be snared by her mystique. To make Ellen's sex life credible, they turn handsome young men into very stupid putty. It's a wish-fulfilment fantasy for armchair cougars.

I don't even believe all Geoffrey's rhapsodizing about the specialness of Ellen, and that's in spite of the fact that Gross is married to the woman playing her. Show, don't tell. If there's any reason Ellen Fanshawe deserves to be besieged by handsome men (or, for that matter, by high-powered talent agents or TV producers, as she is) it's not apparent on the show.

No doubt the Gross's were happy about the strokes to Burns's ego, and no doubt straight people watching the show are happy about the way it panders to them, but any gay person who's been around the theatre can note the omissions.

Health reform passed. Is your grandmother dead yet?

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This is all very articulate. Brude's moderate rebutal is excellent. Quite frankly, I did find the Romeo sexual U-turn a bit corny. But, boy! why so angry? Why the need to -unjustly- slam Burn's physique, to see the old R and G dearies as a deprecating portrait of all older gay couples, to consider Oliver's absence of narrated sexuality (save the slip that matters) as sure proof that he "can't get laid"?
Is her sex life such a grand ode to the lasting charms of the heterosexual woman? Can't a old couple bring comic (and sarcastic) relief AND be gay? Doesn't the lack of a known relationship help define his narcissistic and monomaniac character?
Everything is political, sure, but reading every aspect of a work of fiction as a pamphlet for this or that is really not empowering anyone. Everybody is more or less pathetic on this wonderful show, just like in real life. So there.

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So in the absence of any evidence that the gay characters have sex lives, I'm just supposed to assume it? Why? I'm not asked to assume it about the straight characters.

Their passions and dalliances are all dramatized, and since the rule they've established is that sexual relationships are not banished to the wings on this show, the corollary is that sexual relationships that are not seen haven't happened. At the very least, the show has absolutely no interest in so much as hinting that gay ones are going on.

My question is, why have they neutered all the gay characters? My answer is, because they're making a show about a theatre company and they're pandering to a straight audience's discomfort with seeing theatre people portrayed as the mixed sexual bag they are. They've paid tribute to reality by including gay characters, but they've also paid tribute to bigotry by cutting all their dicks off.

I bring up Burns because it seems to me that a show which hurls hotties at Paul Gross's fading wife has no business pretending that every gay person at New Burbage goes home to a cat and a bottle. I'm perfectly willing to allow the straight creators and cast their wish fulfillment fantasies, and in return for that I believe they can bloody well allow me the reality of my community's actual lives.

The point isn't that the old couple are "deprecating" or that Oliver is. The point is that they are it, the whole enchilada. Sure there are gay men who can't get a boyfriend, sure there are gay men who grow old alone, effeminate and acerbic. But that's not all that's going on in our world, and especially not in the world of the theatre.

Off in the background somewhere in Season One is a rather hot Laertes. Could he not have been seen snogging with Fortinbras at Ellen's party? Would that have killed anybody? As a matter of fact, I see no good reason in the world why a gay character should not have been fully and fruitfully sexual right up in the foreground. You may not give a damn, but the omission is glaring.

And to add insult to injury, the gay characters still young enough to get it up aren't even consistently gay. Why am I mad? Why wouldn't I be? The creators all have theatre experience, and they know better. Maybe they thought it was big of them to include gay characters at all.

Health reform passed. Is your grandmother dead yet?

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As to the question of why did Oliver (gay) sleep with Ellen (a woman)...it had nothing to do with any attraction to Ellen and everything to do with Oliver's attraction to Geoffrey! Oliver is clearly in love with Geoffrey. Geoffrey loves Oliver, too, but not romantically. To make matters worse, Oliver and Geoffrey's relationship is complicated by the fact that Oliver is also jealous of Geoffrey for his talent and jealous of Ellen, too because she does have a romantic relationship with Geoffrey. So Oliver slept with Ellen to destroy that romantic relationship and possibly to destroy Geoffrey, too. Oliver ended up lonely and alone not because he was gay, but because he was insecure and spiteful.

As for Martha Burns - the first time I watched "Slings and Arrows" I thought the relationship between Ellen and Geoffrey felt a little forced. But as I watched the series again I realized Geoffrey's relationship with Ellen is actually the heart and soul of the show! Geoffrey demonstrates over and over again that he is a slave to Ellen and he will do anything for her. Even Ellen doesn't seem to realize how devoted to her he is - that's why she was so surprised that her revelation of her one night stand with Oliver is what pushed Geoffrey over the edge. You didn't agree, but I thought her performances on stage were terrific! She was especially compelling as Lady Macbeth. And as Ellen Fanshaw, a fading diva, she exuded an overt sexuality - that's what attracted the younger men. You spend a lot of time lamenting the fact that we don't see a lot of overt sexuality between the gay characters. But I think there's also something else going on here. We're so used to seeing depictions of men of Paul Gross's age falling for pretty young women in their twenties that we're unaccustomed to the notion that a man in his forties might be in love with a woman his own age.

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I have no problem with Burns's age, whatever it is. Her IMDb bio doesn't give it, so perhaps the person hung up on it is not myself.

But I could probably compile a list of actresses her age, or even older, whom I'd like very much in this part, and totally buy Geoffrey's adoration. In fact, since Gross's year of birth is known (1959), here are some actresses I could probably buy in the role who were born the same year as he: Patricia Clarkson, Tracey Ullman, Emma Thompson, Amanda Pays, Marcia Gay Harden.

Not all of these women are raving beauties, but from what I've seen of their work I have a strong hunch they could have shown me the Fanshawe charisma the show lamely talks about. I realize I've named some expensive talent, but the fact that they exist tells me there must exist an affordable and effective Ellen Fanshawe of something around Burns's age.

I'm just not impressed with Burns herself, on any level, and since Ellen as written is not only sexy and talented but a vain ditz, the problem is compounded. The vanity and ditziness annoy me while the redeeming brilliance and sexual charisma are not in evidence.

Health reform passed. Is your grandmother dead yet?

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[deleted]

I have a thought - This is NOT a large, metropolitan setting we're talking about. People often come and go. The characters who stuck around and made their home with the New Burbage co. are from a generation that doesn't accept the fluidity of human sexuality as readily as the younger set. That and the fact that it's a small town makes it more realistic to have fewer openly gay people.
The younger set, however, is not absent. The contracts change every year, especially with the addition and subtraction of younger players. The Romeo and Juliet leads, for example. The town has got to be used to gay people by now. Abingdon, Virginia, home of the Barter Theatre, can't be any bigger, and trust me, it certainly is.

We don't even see gay actors being discreet among the locals, and that's what we'd see if your argument held true. It's not that the theatre would have any fewer gay actors, or that they'd have to be closety among the company.

In fact, the older gay characters are open with their sexual orientation. The two older players couldn't be any campier if they tried (actually, they are trying -- hard). And nobody seems to be in any doubt about Oliver's sexual orientation either. We hear that he used to trick plenty, and he obviously found the guys locally.

The show could, if it cared to, portray the community as unwelcoming to gays. It doesn't even bother to. You're (and I don't mean this unkindly) making it up. Neither the town nor the theatre is portrayed as a milieu that couldn't handle gay relationships or hot gay guys.

As a matter of fact, the little clique David Alpay starts out with, and quits for a chick, is openly gay. We just don't get to know any of the members besides the one that turns straight. And if gay affairs, partnerships and trysts are going on, we aren't ever confronted with them. The gay characters we do get to know are pathetic, aging, dead, or all three ... when they're not on the road to straighthood.
And let's not forget, this isn't an academic setting of young people who are experimenting and more open with their sexuality than an older generation.
Are you kidding? This is exactly the setting where younger people are experimenting with their sexuality, and where they can be more open than anyplace before in their lives. In fact, we do see such experimenting (though not with homosexuality). In an academic setting, where's the first place you go to find homosexuals? The theatre department, no? Well New Burbage is one big theatre department, with no football team and no frats.

And in my experience the "experimenting" is at least as likely (or more so) to be on the part of putative straight people trying out a gay experience than confirmed gay guys with a "Queer as Folk" fixation trying out heterosexuality, but except for Richard Smith-Jones's aftermath (and Richard is supposed to be completely haywire) we see only the latter.
And YES, the viewers may have been a little less comfortable with an in-your-face gay relationship.
That's no excuse for pandering to them at the expense of the show's reality or humanity. Every day you see people whining on the "True Blood" boards that they don't want to see Lafayette kissing Jesus, or Alex seducing Talbot. These people don't desert the show, however. There's plenty of heterosexual stuff for them, however much they complain.

Nobody is suggesting that "Slings and Arrows" should have been a predominantly gay show, but neither should it censor out sexually active gay people, or portray them in a comfortingly negative way, or imply that they can be "fixed" with the proper application of Shakespearean blank verse.
It's sad that there wasn't one, that's one of my few disappointments with the show. But that's reality for now until we become an even more accepting society.
I think they did the audience a disservice by assuming they couldn't handle it. I think the audience would have been fine. If you ask straight viewers in advance whether they want to see gay content, of course they're going to say no. But once they do see it, they often handle it extremely well, especially on a show without any nudity or explicit sex.

And even when those things are in evidence, you might be surprised. 50% of the audience for "Queer as Folk" was straight women, and they absolutely grooved on the gay sex.
But I am pleased with them having gay characters at all. It would have been downright ridiculous of them not to.
It would only have been a little more downright ridiculous. I think a show about a theatrical repertory company that handles the gay issue this timidly is already a little ridiculous.
Also, where Romeo is concerned, it's very sweet. It can be seen a a wish fulfillment but we mustn't forget - people fall in love with whoever they happen to. And for those people, doing R&J together made it happen. I think that's sweet, if a little over the top. I find it difficult to believe that that sort of thing doesn't happen in reality.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but on this show it's only the gay Romeo going straight for Juliet, not the straight Edward II going gay for Piers Gaveston. If this were just a general principle, the latter could have illustrated it just as easily, and with less unfortunate connotations.

In the context of the way homosexuality is treated on this show, I don't find it particularly sweet. It virtually reads as an endorsement of "reparative therapy." Since you seem to admit the straight audience is being coddled in its prejudices, you have to notice how this conversion coddles them in a superstition that homosexuality will always be reversible in the right circumstances.

To those who have been borne the burdens of such an attitude, it's a little more bitter than sweet.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

Mind you, I bought the show on DVD, which I don't do a lot. It's the only show like it, so I can't hate it too much. But this one aspect does really disappoint me, partly because S&A is created by exactly the kind of people who ought to know better. I think of all the gay people who passed through their lives as they themselves toiled in places like Stratford, and how surprised those people might be to see how little impact they made, how squee the writers apparently found their lives, and how easily they'd be tossed overboard as subject matter to appeal to largest possible number of straight people.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

As far as acceptance, status, and (God knows) numbers, the GLBT community has absolutely nothing on the straight community, and I don't think any cachet it might have would would cause anybody essentially straight or bisexual to turn his/her back on the opposite sex for very long.

I've known innumerable people who married and had children before they decided that life wasn't for them. I've also known bisexuals who settled down with women after sowing plenty of wild oats with men (and they never stopped checking hot men out, either).

What I have never met is a person who remained confirmed in his homosexuality, in violation of other impulses, because of peer pressure or a liking for bons mots and good clothes. I think that must be nearly a myth.

Furthermore, gay people I've known would never have tried to prevent anybody bisexual who wasn't one's own boyfriend from sleeping with someone of the opposite sex. They might try to intervene if he suddenly announced he was damned and was going to the Come Into the Light Ministries to be cured of his sin. But stop somebody you know as gay from experimenting with the opposite sex? Never in a million years.

So anybody out there who isn't sleeping with the gender he'd like to sleep with is most likely not sleeping with the same gender. The latent heterosexual, trapped by society in the wrong role, and forced to live a gay lie all his days, will, if he ever does appear, be riding a unicorn.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

That's the second time you've mentioned "Chasing Amy," a movie I hated and don't remember very well. I do think political lesbians used to (I don't know about now) conflate sleeping with women with the political opposition to the patriarchy, and I suppose they might try to argue a woman out of sleeping with a man on "sleeping with the enemy" grounds, but I've never seen it. Not that I would have. But I think I'd have witnessed at least one instance of it happening among male gays if it were the least bit prevalent. Maybe you know of a specific instance, but I do not.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

I don't understand what you're saying. Are we not allowed to believe in the greater likelihood of that which we have either witnessed than of something we've never seen? Have I not the same right to doubt there are lots of people somehow forced to live homosexual lives while secretly lusting after people of the opposite sex that you have to believe such people are numerous?

I agree that sexuality is fluid to some degree, but we're not talking about inclination, I think gay people who are so inclined will sleep with members of the opposite sex without encountering much stigma about it. We're arguing about alleged pressure from a subculture, and how much power it has. I do not believe that homosexuals as a group have the same whip hand as the heterosexual majority, to force anybody who ever self-identified as gay to remain so.

To me that up-ends reality. Heterosexuals have all the weapons in the world to enforce heterosexuality (this show, with its carefully included and carefully omitted messages, is an example of that). How the gay community is empowered to forbid it I don't know. What percentage of the gay community do you guess is in this category: cruelly thwarted in their desires for the opposite sex by the power of their companions?

And if any gays in their circle disapprove, are there not millions upon millions of approving heterosexuals willing to take the place of their former friends? The law suddenly offers them equality. Society suddenly offers them visibility and validation. The church suddenly approves of and welcomes them. All doors suddenly swing open. What have gay people got to counter that? The Pet Shop Boys?

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

What accusations? And sure, I believe it's possible. Just not prevalent. In fact, I believe it has to be rare. I'm not attacking you, and I'm not angry. I'm sure you're a lovely person.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

I enjoyed the conversation.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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<< This is all very articulate. Brude's moderate rebutal is excellent. Quite frankly, I did find the Romeo sexual U-turn a bit corny. But, boy! why so angry? >>

The reason it becomes upsetting to see gays and lesbians watered down and presented in such a limiting way is, It's kind of like how black actors were once potrayed in film/TV. They might BE there, but their characters certainly weren't going to be delved into too deeply or specifically, for fear the mainstream audience would freak out. So it was all very diluted, sexually neutralized, and condescending, which is of course insulting.

There are other reasons the shows overall approach to either minimizing or castrating the gay/lesbian characters into being either miniscule, or bi:

1.) The main (false) claim from the Religious Right considering homosexuals to be "sinners", or trying to deny them civil rights, is this supposed premise that being gay is some kind of a choice. By showing the gays who are sexually active on the show falling into bed with women or somehow switching over to being bi/straight once they've "found the right woman", it perpetuates this stupid myth. And that myth is trotted out and used against gay people ALL THE TIME, to damaging effect.

2.) Homosexuals make and have made HUGE contributions to the arts, dance and theater, throughout history. But in so many backstage dramas, they're proportionally minimized. For instance, in the 1977 film The Turning Point, there isn't a gay or lesbian character in sight...except for ballerina Shirley MacLaine's husband, who she married to "prove he wasn't gay". Slings & Arrows at least has some central gay characters, but they've been shown as unhappy, alone, or capable of swinging over to be straight. Which is just such a rude ripoff, considering what homosexuals have given, and continue to give, the theater.

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[deleted]

Was she ever established as a lesbian? I missed that.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

What I recall is that she was a perfect candidate for it, and it was not established -- that this was a show where even the techies didn't get to be dykes. If they don't say it, I'm not going to assume it just because she doesn't wear a lot of makeup. I didn't bring it up, because in my experience lesbians are very good at fighting their own battles. But I saw her as somebody who was conspicuously not said to be a lesbian.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

They more than did justice to the sex lives of the heterosexual characters, and they made sure every character who had a sex life on the show was heterosexual.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

It's what they wrote, and writers tend to write with a very high level of intention. And people writing television series get plenty of input along the way, to call attention to what they have and have not written. So yes, I do think it's intentional. But it so happens I don't give a rat's ass whether it was intentional or not. The fact is that they portrayed homosexuals in the theatre in a way I find offensive, and "oops" is not a sufficient defense. Sins of omission are still sins, and this show has sins of commission as well.

The Republican Plan: repeal all reform; collect payoffs; go yachting (but not in the Gulf).

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[deleted]

[deleted]

[deleted]

... except that two of the supporting cast are implied to be an older gay couple, and not only do they have the steadiest relationship in the whole CAST (no fighting, insecurity or estrangement), but they are lots and lots of fun and obviously mainstays of the company. There's nothing lonely or pathetic about them.

As for Ellen, it's made pretty obvious that Oliver "went there" as a gesture of directorial power. As she put it in the first season, "He doesn't even LIKE women!" I don't know where you got the idea that he COULDN'T get laid, since we only see him alive for ONE EPISODE, and he's working most of that time. Did you expect him to have a spectral romance with the ghost of a handsome leading man?

As for the Romeo guy, I got the impression that he wasn't gay so much as bisexual and working out his sexuality. Perhaps he had had sex with guys, liked it, and didn't realize yet that he could go both ways.

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[deleted]

I agree with you, ffordegroupie. Oliver even said that sleeping with Ellen was not about sex, it was about control (S01E04 Outrageous Fortunes, with Geoffrey in the prison cell).

Sidenote:
Can anybody tell me why the first three pages of this thread look like a monologue? What happened to all the posts by posters other than ducdebrabant?

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I noticed the monologue as well, faeneth88. I think ducdebrabant must have been attacked by those who disagreed.

I see ducdebrabant's points, but ... the show is what it is. And in my opinion, it is one of the most fantastic shows I've ever seen. I'm coming from both and acting and writing background, and I love Shakespeare, so, not surprising. The first episode was also aired almost ten years ago, so Ducdebrabant maybe be judging it out of its time frame.

Perhaps there is room for a production that addresses the issues that Ducdebrabant is talking about. Put that passion to good use, Ducdebrabant, and make it happen!

On a side note, I think the actress playing Ellen is perfect casting. She is hot, she is talented, and I love the way she seems almost surprised by the fact that younger men fall for her. I wish they were still making this show!

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[deleted]

I pretty much agree with every point you've made in these posts. Let's use gays to add color to the show, but let's not examine that gay stuff too much.

A couple people have brought up that Oliver slept with Ellen as a way to use his assert his directorial power. It seems to me it would have been much more believable if he had tried to seduce Geoffrey. Maybe he wouldn't have succeeded, but it's much more likely a gay director would hit on a MALE actor than a female actor. I think that would have made Geoffrey's love/hate relationship with Oliver more interesting.

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This is a really good, well articulated discussion (despite the deleted posts, which I'd have been interested to read). I have to agree, as much as I really love this series, that it gives a pretty unrealistic and lopsided view of the probable array of sexual orientations in a theater like this. (That said, I was surprised to note that the casts and direction of the last two shows in which I performed contained not one out gay man--and I didn't get any particular vibes of hidden or self-denied gayness, out of all the 15 or so adult male actors, except possibly from one, who was apparently happily married for more than 30 years, with three children, so he's certainly identifying as straight. Very unusual in my experience, for casts to be that devoid of gay men. I am, of course, happy for guys to be whatever orientation they are, just want them to be happy. Or miserable, if they're real sh*ts.)

Anyway, it would have been nice to have a little more glbtq romance or canoodling, but, as with ducdebrabant, that doesn't destroy my enjoyment of the show, which I quite love.

To me, it was pretty clear (especially by the end of the series) that the main reason why Oliver slept with Ellen was his love and longing for Geoffrey. He pretty much says as much at one point in season three. He couldn't have Geoffrey, but could somehow enter this enchanted seeming space that Geoffrey and Ellen had going, by sleeping with her. It doesn't say much for Ellen's character that she went along with it, but it's not hard to imagine that, fueled by alcohol and maybe other mind-altering substances, and with the excitement of their great triumph, the unexpected novelty of Oliver actually wanting her in that way, and the turn-on of his power of position, she might have misguidedly let it happen. It was clear that there was a potent bond amongst the three of them anyway, which can kind of blur the lines, in a weird situation. And Oliver was not an unattractive person, especially with his hair on;-).

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S&A is most definately a favourite of mine, but quite sadly, I have not been able to find Season 3 to view. I was quite curious as to where they were going to take this. This is so brilliantly written and cleverly acted, I don't understand why it did not get more runnings.

Like others have mentioned, it's a disappointment to see so many posts removed and yep, curious as to where the discussion was leading and where the thoughts were going.

Out of curiosity, what play was addressed in Season 3?

I particularly enjoyed how whatever play they were performing, was also happening in real life all around them. They kept the continuity strong, and they maintained the integrity of the structure of the design, keeping those threads running. It's pure brilliance!

As for the topic of gay representation, being a topic as hot as politics, it's often addressed with raw emotion and gets personalized. Why? This isn't a serious documentary, it's just a wonderful series including comedy and satire and irony,...drama of life and drama within theatre...

As such, I have no problem with how things were represented. Life isn't fair, all movies and TV series won't be fair, nor will all make everyone happy with their choice of representation. Truth is, sure, this can be one particular representation, and the opposite could be another. This is just what they chose to run with. Enjoy it for what it is.
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Sic vis pacem para bellum.

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I believe the show was planned for three seasons only; they wrap it up rather well at the end of Season 3, which brings us a terrific take on "King Lear."

Yes, indeed, this is one wonderful show. Best show about theatre ever.

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Yes, indeed, this is one wonderful show. Best show about theatre ever.
Though you could practically say it's not really about the theater, as there's no real, full bodied gay people in it. And what kind of a theater world would there be without gay artists?

The show creates a very artificial environment in that sense. And Yes, it's uncomfortably obvious, and really awkward to ponder why it was done that way.

I do love the show, though, despite that failing.


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Well, Oliver, ghost though he may be, was quite gay, and clearly rather in love with Geoffrey (for which I cannot blame him one tiny bit), and there is the lovely middle-aged couple - the supporting actors. One of whom sings the opening and closing numbers over the credits.

I was in theatre myself, in the US, not Canada, for many, many years. Still get my hand in, here and there.

I'll agree, if there were no gay characters, that would be odd, and off, but I cannot consider it a failing in the actuality, given three gay regulars in a smallish core cast.

Of course it's about theatre! Where else does one worry about making, and remaking, 400+ year-old magic?

ETA - and there is the gay coterie among the Romeo & Juliet cast, as well. Including the Romeo, even if he tries his hand at switch-hitting.

Oh, right. So, she secretly trained a flock of sandflies.

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