WBW - March 4, 1996

Weasel Boy Weekly
for
March 4, 1996

The Matt Fielding Mantra

What is the fascination with Matt?

Maybe I can explain what it is..

See, when I was growing up in the little north eastern Canadian town of like 1500 people, I thought I was the only gay person in the world that didn't want to be a girl. Isolation like that can make somebody crazy.

Matt Fielding is one of the first characters in television that is gay, but that's not the characters primary function on the show. Usually, gay characters are there simply for shock value, like on friends, in which we know nothing about the lesbian women, except that they're lesbians. Gay people are begining to get sick and tired of being the new minstrel show of the 90s. Black people will understand what I'm talking about, as will Asians. In the old days in Hollywood, Black characters were just for comic relief.. you know.. watch any movie from the forties, and the only black characters were bafoons and clowns.. just there for the "nice white people" to react to in horror or amusement. Asian characters were the same... always laughing and carrying... like in the old Jerry Lewis movies where any Asian Character was simply there to do tricks with cleavers in restaurants. (remember the Bruce Lee story)

Anyway.. Matt is a regular functioning character, who actually has aspects other than his penis for us to know about. He's in Medical school, he's helped out alot of the other characters before, and he's also gay. He's honestly the kind of role model I never had as a kid... and regradless of the fact the Doug Savant isn't gay himself, nor are any of the guys playing gay characters, it's good that gay kids growing up now don't have to live with nothing but gay comedy roles like the ones in movies like "To Wong Foo" or the new Robin Williams flick "the Bird cage", where all gay men seem to be flying Queens.

It gets frustrating for me when I'm told I don't "look" or "act" gay. This comes from people thinking that gay men carry on like Helen Roper all the time because of movies like the afoer-mentioned. With characters like Matt on television, maybe people will at least believe that it's possible to be gay, have straight friends and maybe even like football. And have careers other than female impersonation.

I'll say something funny next week... I promise..