Two new shows, available by mail, push the envelope with portrayals of gay black men.
By ERIC DEGGANS
Published April 27, 2004
Five years ago, Maurice Townes had a troubling thought: Who will his son look to as a role model in the wider world?
It's a complicated question for anyone. But as a gay black man raising a son in Atlanta, Townes couldn't think of a single character in TV or film who could provide a positive image of life the way he leads it.
"If you're a black, gay kid and you're masculine, there's no one on the planet you would see as an image of yourself," said Townes, 41, noting that some of TV's most popular gay-themed shows - including NBC's Will & Grace, Showtime's Queer as Folk and Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - feature no black characters.
"You might hear of some athletes who might be gay or some celebrity," he said. "(But) to stand before people and say, "I'm gay,' where are the role models?"
That's why, working with a group of friends that eventually whittled down to writer/actor Kevin F. Allen, Townes hatched the idea for The Closet - a TV show about black men living on the "down low," outwardly maintaining lives as heterosexuals, while secretly having sexual relationships with men.
It's a subject that has drawn increasing attention from the mainstream, sparked last year by stories in the New York Times Magazine and Washington Post linking down low brothers to the rise of HIV among black people. Recent episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Oprah, which focused on the issue, have only furthered media interest. But Townes said inspiration for The Closet came largely from Allen, who lived on the down low himself until a loving relationship (and constant complaining from Townes, who hated his friend's dishonesty) convinced him to drop the pretense years ago. Though the series' subject is hardly positive, Townes and Allen hope to present a wide range of gay black characters struggling with this hot-button issue.
"Living the DL life, you're paranoid . . . I have friends who, whenever their family comes to town, they'll get pictures of a woman to put up in their house," said Allen, 37, who eventually fell in love with a man who insisted Allen drop his girlfriend before dating him. "You have to constantly lie to your family and friends. And once you come out of that . . . once you can say, "I'm black, I'm gay and I'm okay with that,' the sky's the limit."
The Closet isn't the only new TV show to deal with the lives of gay black men.
Last year, as newspapers and magazines were raving about the success of Bravo's Queer Eye and Boy Meets Boy, writer/director Patrik-Ian Polk noticed that minority characters were largely left out of TV's gay-friendly summer.
"It's typical of Hollywood to exclude people of color . . . unless it's something that the powers that be can readily identify as something suitable: the 'hood movies, or the silly comedies," Polk, 31, said from his office in Los Angeles.
Already known for his 2001 independent film about gay black men, Punks, Polk found more inspiration after attending a massive black gay pride celebration in Los Angeles.
"I thought, no one's making any programming for this audience . . . who has money to spend," he said. "They would buy entertainment geared to them . . . It was a smart business decision."
So he developed Noah's Arc, a humor-laced drama Polk readily admits is a black, gay Sex and the City. (Of course, some critics said the HBO hit - which was created and executive-produced by gay men - was a veiled take on gay life in New York City anyway.)
Even though a central character in Noah's Arc is just beginning to realize he's gay and interested in men, Polk insists there will be no down low plot lines in his project. Concerned that media are using a single, salacious trend to vilify an entire group of gay men, the writer/director hopes to avoid treading in similar territory.
"I'm not interested in glorifying that lifestyle," he said. "A lot of gay men have this fascination with that . . . they chase after men who identify as straight. I'm writing about characters who abhor that choice . . . (because) it's self-hatred, internalized homophobia. If we do explore it, it won't be in any kind of a positive way."
Both The Closet and Noah's Arc are aimed at balancing TV's traditional portrayal of gay characters, often middle class and white.
Certainly, there have been compelling black and Hispanic gay characters on series such as The Shield, Six Feet Under, The Wire and ER. But such figures rarely command the spotlight for long and often meet tragic circumstances connected to their sexual orientation.
According to statistics from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, among 11 regular gay characters on prime time network series, just one is a minority (Filipino assistant Adam on UPN's comedy Half and Half). Cable TV fares much better, offering six gay characters of color among a total of 23 portrayals this season, not counting reality TV shows.
"A lot of times, executives making decisions are underestimating viewership of communities of color," said Stephen Macias, entertainment media director for GLAAD. "It's a really smart conclusion to try reaching out (to them)."
To that end, producers of both The Closet and Noah's Arc claim their project is TV's first series about gay black men. But both camps also downplay any competition, praising the idea of inviting a multitude of creative voices on the topic.
The shows also share an unorthodox means of reaching viewers: mailing episodes directly to fans on DVD.
Episodes of The Closet are $19.99 to $24.99, or $360 for a full season of 26 episodes. Townes and Allen's Senwotnella Films (read it backward) began distributing the first episode April 13, and plan to release the second in May. They've filmed four episodes so far, and hope to release shows every other week starting in June.
Noah's Arc starts filming next month, with episodes available for sale this summer.
This distribution plan fits a growing trend toward on-demand viewing; thanks to video-on-demand movies and digital video recorders, couch potatoes have less patience for watching a series in weekly appointments.
But both Polk and Townes said such a system also lets them bypass traditional TV outlets, which haven't been receptive to either show.
It's not hard to see the possible downside for mainstream cable and network TV outlets: White viewers could reject their shows because the casts are black, and black viewers could reject their shows because they center on gay men.
Indeed, when the pair pitched their idea to one cable network, Townes and Allen said executives suggested a seismic change: Add more white characters.
"The one thing we do not want to change is the message of the show. A white man cannot play an openly gay black man," said Townes, who hopes to build Allen's career as the first openly gay black star in film or TV (excepting, perhaps, drag queen Ru Paul). "Our job is to put a mirror in front of the down low brothers so they say, "Am I really living like that?' We're saying, stop keeping the secret."
Polk learned the mainstream TV game while heading up Edmonds Entertainment, the film and TV production company owned by R&B star Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and his wife, Tracey. He said series such as Noah's Arc and The Closet push too many buttons (gay issues, race issues, sex issues) for mainstream networks.
"It causes (black people) to confront an array of issues we need to address: our own homophobia and our unwillingness to talk about sexuality," he added. "I don't think the black community is any more homophobic than any other community, but I do think we don't acknowledge or talk about it readily."
To spread the word, producers have turned to the traditional tools for independent filmmakers: the Internet and film festivals.
On Sunday, Townes and Allen brought their first Closet episode to the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival see www.thecloset.tv for updates. They come to Tampa May 20, screening the episode at Madstone Theaters as part of a fundraiser for Central Florida Black Pride.
"The black gay community is a special community . . . who are constantly getting dissed," said J. Ricc Rollins II, an author and former WTVT-Ch. 13 personality who helped bring The Closet screening to Tampa. "There's this new fascination with the down low brother, but so many portrayals aren't factual."
Polk, who plans to debut Noah's Arc this summer at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, remembers when he spotted an indie film called Hav Plenty at a small black film festival and got the Edmondses to buy it. They later took it to the Sundance Film Festival and sold it for seven figures.
"It was a clear, instant profit," said Polk, who circulates news about his latest project on his Web site www.noahsarc.net "It was my proof of what you can do with enough seed money to put together something people might be interested in."
But if there's an Achilles heel for either project, it's the execution.
Townes and Allen, both refugees from corporate America who had never tried making a film or TV show before The Closet, admit they've learned on the job. The first episode is packed with amateur actors - including Allen himself, playing a closeted radio personality - along with rookie mistakes such as drowning conversations in an echo-filled museum, leaden dialogue and telephones that ring way too loudly in the middle of a scene.
The Noah's Arc promotional video clips that Polk features on his Web site are a bit more professional, but some actors are clearly out of their depth.
Still, both projects come to the marketplace borne on a raft of goodwill and high hopes. For the shows' creators, there's the hope these do-it-yourself efforts will lead to larger opportunities; fans are hoping to finally see television start telling their stories.
"The gay characters on our show are not what Hollywood is used to seeing," said Allen. "Usually, they think, "He's feminine. He's swishing.' But I have friends who are on the DL who you would never know are gay. We wanted to show them."
Polk hopes that projects such as Noah's Arc and The Closet can break the silence that makes life difficult for many gay men of color.
"People want to have it both ways: They don't want to accept gay and lesbian black people, but in the same breath, they're not happy about these brothers and sisters living double lives," he said.
"You can't create this hostile environment where these brothers can't be who they are and then feel outraged that they aren't being honest. For me, if the fascination with this down low phenomenon causes us to be more accepting of different sexualities, then it's a good thing."
-- To view: Noah's Arc and The Closet are programs available by mail subscription. For details, see these Web sites: www.noahsarc.net and www.thecloset.tv
