There have been a few articles popping up lately talking about the lack of gay characters in feature films, and how television currently seems more liberal that Hollywood.
I do not get TV, everything I watch is on DVD or bought off iTunes so I have not been watching “Brothers and Sisters”, or a majority of the other shows that have gay characters, and I wish I had more time to watch them. Perhaps I will catch up in a few years. However there are two prominent gay characters on TV that break the stereotypes, and in my modest opinion are trail blazers.
The first is ‘Detective Shakima Greggs’ from HBO’s “The Wire” (which I am only on season 2 so please bear with me and my lack of knowledge of the past 5 years of character development).
Sonja Sohn plays a wise cracking, dedicated and stunningly beautiful lesbian detective in the series. She works the streets, befriends informants, and does her job – no questions asked. She has a partner who dislikes her job and wants her to quit, so ‘Kima’ as she is called, juggles her ‘lives’.
The way the character is written is not as wonderful as how the other characters who interact with her are written. They are open, understanding, there is no judgement, not male chauvinist jokes behind her back. She is who she. I am sure life is not that liberal in Baltimore, but it is refreshing to see how highly she is thought of by her colleagues and peers, all of whom are from complete different backgrounds and ethnicities.
The second is also from “The Wire”.
You all know I am talking about Michael K. Williams ‘Omar Little’. Omar is a bad ass thug on one hand, and the sweetest most sensitive soul on the other. He has grown up on the streets, and spends his time running around Baltimore robbing the drug lords, and hurting anyone who hurts the people he loves. He is technically one of the good guys, but you know why the drug lords fear him.
Season one saw his boyfriend get brutally murdered and the devastation Omar showed was tear inducing. Even in Season 2, he still talks about his boy with such pain in his eyes.
He is one of those TV characters that everyone can get behind. I have spoken to many people who love the show, and everyone sites Omar as their favourite character. And these are all straight men.
I love how the only people who call Omar ‘faggot’ are the drug lords and drug dealers, the technical bad guys of the show (how funny most of the actors playing the ‘bad guys’ also appeared in “Oz”, the gay fantasy drama) as though, by using that hateful word, they are underlining just how morally corrupted they are.
On one hand the writers deserve every accolade bestowed upon then (but not at the expense of ‘Battlestar’ please) but on the other, this character would not have worked as well, or be so loved had it not been for Williams fearless performance. Something I hope is not forgotten come Emmy time (it will be but I can hope).
However the best thing about Omar is that he make so apologies for being gay, in fact, on the streets of Baltimore where there is so much homophobia, he is out and proud.
