Two days ago a friend sent me a picture of Gale Harold, one of my favorite actors. His new hair is cut extremely short, for him. I wondered what role he's doing that brought about an uncharacteristic almost military look. Like any red blooded filmbuff I checked Imdb, a database for all things movie or TV. When I searched for the new series Hellcats, in which Gale has a recurring role as law prof there were no pictures or mention of him. Next, came a Google image search for a short haired Gale. There was nothing there but Queer as Folk photos, head shots from other films, magazine articles, and TV series in which he's appeared. That brought smiles to my face. Somewhere, mention was made of videos on YouTube. A search led to interviews I hadn't seen, a few cuts from 101, the pilot episode of QAF, and a really big smile lit my face, I'm sure, because it's happening now, just remembering. The way I felt when Justin tells the first man he has sex with, ‘I love you." Knowing the feeling of rejection when Brian tells him, "I don't believe in love..." Honest, forthright, blunt as Brian always was, like I wished I'd received and I’d been as honest as Justin was. I couldn't help smiling as I thought about each episode, as it moved across the screen and one event and experience after another, experiences I'd had as straight woman not to mention life experiences I'd had as a child, teen, and young adult. A friend who had a comic book collection, how I grieved when Classic Comic Books disappeared from the market. How I didn't tell anyone because I thought it was stupid or wrong. I really didn't have anyone to tell like Michael Novotny tells his best friend from childhood, Brian Kinney, and his buddies who know of his passion for comics, especially Captain Astro. I was stunned when Brian tells a grieving Micharl, "Your mother doesn't know shit. Captain Astro was your childhood; you grieve as long as you want." How I'd given anything to have had someone like Brian who would understand my feelings and refute something Michael's mother, Debbie said Michael cared more about a comic book figure than real people. That scene gave me permission to feel what I did about other similar incidents in my own life. I'm not a man. I'm not gay. But here was a show about five gay friends who actually talked to one another, knew each other well enough to call a friend on an issue, and Brian Kinney who constantly pushed them to be the best homosexuals they could be. I translated that to myself as, Be the best person you can possibly be. Don't ever deny who you are, what you think and how you feel. As Brian said to Justin's father, "That's not love. That's hate." Over time I’d come to see I was denying myself those same rights. A totally new concept, to me, it opened up more ways of thinking about others, myself, and my childhood than I ever had. For those reasons and many other similar experiences I had watching the show, QAF was never a "gay TV show." It was a story about five complicated, human gay men, still boys, in many apects, who mature over the course of the series and help each other and the chosen family they are all forced to find if they are to have a sense of belonging, acceptance, and knowing they are loved unconditionally. Only Michael’s, of the five, had a family who could give them that,. Dysfunctional and lost, at times, they find their way in life and become who they most are. For a while, they became the family I wished I'd had. Gay people I know well saw the series from different perspectives, as did those of us who joined forums like Queer as Folk forum and discussed each episode as it unfolded in the next week. Being there gave me contact with many new people, new viewpoints and exposure varying age groups, many women and a surprising number of newly "out" young boys, teens and young adults as they found their way after seeing Queer as Folk, a television show written and produced by gay people, for gay people, and about gay people. Men, especially. Didn't find the women as well written or people I could identify with as easily as the five main male characters. Only one of "new" experiences, new friends, new writing, fan fiction, and novel length stories, and a new therapist, Queer as Folk marked a time of beginnings, the start a new era, a time for the seasons that were to come in the next six years. A time for becoming healthier in ways for which I’d longed since I was since I'd known my family wasn't like other families.
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