One Upside of Homosexuality's Advances
[S]traight men humorously acting out their subliminal fear of homosexuality. Those kinds of jokes are rampant elsewhere: whether it's a "Saturday Night Live" skit, the guys needling each other on "Entourage" or a sendup of homophobic hysteria on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," young men on television now make the same kinds of gay jokes that abound in "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year-old Virgin" ("Know-how-I-know-you're-gay?")
Gay jokes, or more specifically, men assuring themselves and each other that they are not gay, mark a new phase in the Will & Gracification of American television. It's not just gay comedians and writers who make fun and revel in campy stereotypes; now everybody can join in. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation recently complained that only 2 percent of the characters on network television are gay or lesbian. Yet in a world where Marissa, the heroine of "The O.C.," can have a lesbian affair, and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is a hit, it surely is O.K. to be irreverent about homosexuality: gays are so accepted and "out there" that they can take the joke. (In fact, they often make the joke.)