The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From: The Backlot

39. 

Andrew Wells,

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Actor: Tom Lenk

2001-2003

Previous rank: N/A

When a character’s introduction to a TV series comes in the form of a Wizard of Oz reference, he’s clearly someone gay fans are going to want to watch. Although Andrew was ostensibly a classmate of Buffy and the Scooby gang, he wasn’t introduced until Season 6, as part of a mini big-bad, a “Geek Trio” of former Sunnydale students turned super-villains (at least in their own minds). Andrew’s evil genius claim to fame, we’re told, was unleashing “demonic flying monkeys” to attack the school. Even so, it was clear he wasn’t so much into being bad as pining over head baddie, Warren. And who among us hasn’t been there, joining some club or fraternity we hated just to cozy up to that hottie correspondence secretary?

Andrew’s great change of heart came in the classic Season 7 episode “Storyteller,” when, camera in hand, he sets out to chronicle  the recent trials of “Buffy, Slayer of the Vam-pyres,” from his own highly skewed perspective. After annoying the hell-mouth out of his interviewees, he eventually confesses to his misdeeds and sets out on a poignant, if comic, path to redemption.

Although he never identified himself – or was labeled by others – as gay, his sexuality was fairly obvious to anyone with eyes and ears. It was obvious, say, when his video camera barely paused on some hot girl on girl action, instead lingering over handyman Xander. Or in double entente-laden dialogue (sample: “I’ll find it if I have to check every hole in my body — and yours!”). In this sense, Andrew was an early case of what became a common, and irritating, TV stereotype: the guy who remains clueless about his own sexuality despite the fact that everything him about his shrieks “gay.” And yet, his part was so hilariously written – and adorably portrayed by out actor Lenk – that we couldn’t help but be won over. How could we not love someone with a Star Trek reference for every occasion, not to mention a tendency to fantasize over Scott Bakula?

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From: The Backlot

40

Leon Carp

Roseanne

Actor: Martin Mull

1991-1997

Previous Rank: N/A

Leon Carp first appeared in the third season of the ABC sitcom Roseanne. He was the uptight supervisor at Rodbell’s Diner where Roseanne was employed as a waitress. He’s a by the book, customer is always right, must punch in on time kind of manager, and that obviously leads to a lot of comic conflict with Roseanne. It’s eventually revealed that Leon is gay and while Roseanne has no problem with it, she does use that fact to her advantage occasionally. For instance, threatening to out him to his boss in order to get him to ease up on the rules at the diner. Roseanne and Leon are never exactly friends, but they do come to respect one another, and Leon eventually joins Dan’s poker circle. Leon also meets and marries the more easygoing Scott (Fred Willard) and at the end of the series they announce they are going to adopt a Romanian baby.

Leon is significant as a character because the way Roseanne meets, interacts with and comes to respect him: Through the workplace.  It was a perfect comic reflection of how much of middle America was encountering gay people for the first time, through out co-workers.

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From: The Backlot

41

Nolan Ross

Revenge

Actor: Gabriel Mann

2011-present

Previous Rank: N/A

When Revenge premiered, it brought with it one of the rarest specimens seen on TV … a bisexual man. Nolan Ross is part social gadfly, part genius entrepreneur, and part Ethel Mertz. As faithful sidekick to the show’s put-upon heroine, Nolan has been with her every step of the way in her plan for vengeance and has put his own life in jeopardy many times to fulfill the promise he made her father years ago.

A technical wizard, he’s used his vast knowledge of computers and hacking to cause mayhem and upheaval among the jet set of The Hamptons, all while dressed to the nines in sartorial splendor.

His personal life, however, leaves something to be desired. His first hookup on the show was with Tyler,  the show’s (first) psychopath, a man  whose hobbies include smashing his head into wooden posts, blackmail … and murder. Season Two saw Nolan expand his horizons, starting a relationship with his company CFO Padma, a sweet and supportive woman who it’s revealed was being blackmailed into trying to take Nolan down. Sadly, she joins Tyler in the afterlife, bringing Nolan’s record to 0-2.

Not all of Nolan’s paramours are dead, however. His former boyfriend Marco visits … but let’s just say we’re all hoping that Nolan manages to make some better choices in Season Three. And that he still manages to look like The Gay Gatsby.

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

42. 

Chris Keller

OZ

Actor: Christopher Meloni

1998-2003

Previous Rank: 25

HBO’s prison drama was not for the faint of heart. Over six seasons it presented the life, loves and shankings behind the bars of Oswald State Correctional Facility (nicknamed “Oz”).  Seductive bisexual psychopath Chris Keller was perfectly suited for this violent world, but his love for the less violent Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) at least partially redeemed him.

The sometimes tender relationship between these two damned souls was the heart of the series and drove a lot of the drama: Keller and Beecher’s frequent break ups and misunderstandings often had a body count. Still, when things were briefly good, like their Season 3 New Year’s Eve reunion, they were very very good.

But by season four they were back to trying to destroy one another, Beecher starts sleeping around – and Keller retaliates by killing Beecher’s lovers. (Hot as Beecher is, you really don’t want to be rebound guy).

Still, viewers never stopped hoping Keller and Beecher would find their way back to one another.

But there are no happy endings at Oz. By series end, Keller leaps over a balcony to his death and Beecher is put on trial for his murder. Viewers never got to see the outcome of that trial.

Oh well, we’ll always have that full frontal nudity to remember Keller by. Thanks HBO! 

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

43. 

Mickey McGuire/Mickey Milkovich

Shameless

Actors

Ciaran Griffiths (UK), Noel Fisher (US)

2007-2012 (UK); 2011-present (US)

Previous Rank

N/A

Are you the sort of guy who’s always been attracted to, shall we say, “bad boys?”  Do we have a prize-winner for you.  Mickey Milkovich, the budding psychopath of Showtime’s Shameless, is what one might politely call “a piece of work.”  (Ciaran Griffiths originated the role, called Mickey Maguire, in the British version of the series.) A sneering, violent criminal from a family even more dysfunctional and warped than the Gallaghers, Mickey originally was just a guy who regularly stole food from Kash, the local grocer, with whom teenage Ian Gallagher was having an affair.  When Ian went to Mickey’s house to confront him, however, their simmering passions exploded into sex, and eventually something dangerously close to love.

It’s always problematic to romanticize pathology or brutality (see also: Karofsky & Kurt from Glee or Beecher & Keller from Oz), but Noel Fisher’s scorching sexuality made Mickey always understandable, if not likable.  (He beats up the guy Ian is doing under the bleachers, only to readily drop trou and assume the position for Ian to continue.)  The dysfunctionality continued as Mickey’s father caught Ian and Mickey together, and made Mickey have sex with a prostitute while Ian watched; Mickey even had a quickie with Ian a scant hour before getting married.  But the most stomach-punching moment may have been at the climax of season 3, when Ian, broken-hearted, enlists in the military and leaves Mickey behind, and the audience realizes from Mickey’s shell-shocked expression that it wasn’t that Mickey didn’t love Ian enough; it’s that he loves Ian way more than even he may have realized. \

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:   The Backlot

44.

Marc St. James

Ugly Betty

Actor: Michael Urie

2006-2010

Previous Rank: 12

Marc St. James was not meant to stay on ABC’s Ugly Betty. In fact, he was supposed to be one of many assistants MODE Creative Director Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) fired every episode. But Marc, in all his curly-haired glory, became an audience favorite…and landed the gig permanently.

And thank Madonna he did. As Slater’s main watchdog, Marc was comedic gold, delivering one-line zingers—typically about Betty’s (America Ferrera) homely appearance— and frothy slapstick week to week. Marc personified the inner fashionisto inside all of us. And he was pretty damn cute, too.

But underneath all of Marc’s flamboyant bravado was a young man yearning for self-discovery. Sound familiar? It was because of this, not any of his flair, that Marc became a hero.

He fought for self-love when he painfully came out to his less-than-accepting mother in season one. He fought to be with whomever he wants, particularly when he finally accepted his love for Cliff—a hairy chub who doesn't fit into Marc’s fashion-centric world—in season two. Marc fought for Justin, Betty’s closeted nephew. He fought for Wilhelmina. He even fought for Betty—well, sometimes.

Yes, Marc might be television’s funniest fashion savant. But he’s more than that: He’s a fighter.

A fighter in Fendi, no less.

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

45. 

Waylon Smithers

The Simpsons

Voice: Harry Shearer

1990-present

Previous Rank: N/A

Our beloved Waylon Smithers is the neat, officious, and fanatically devoted personal assistant and adviser to Springfield’s legendary evil mastermind, C. Montgomery Burns, and he could not be happier about it. Every 104-year-old multi-billionaire needs someone to keep his nuclear power plant running, hop into his model airplane at gunpoint, and remind him when his heart stops beating again, and Smithers performs these duties admirably. He is the quintessential gay assistant, perfectly in control, willing to do anything no matter how demeaning, and criminally overlooked by his boss/obsession.

It has never been made explicitly clear whether Smithers is into all guys or just Mr. Burns, but he definitely loves his boss, which is good enough for us. Once he’s had the fantasy of Mr. Burns flying in through his bedroom window while he sleeps, there’s really no going back. But who can blame him? The greatness of Smithers is that he is the only one who understands how truly excellent Mr. Burns is and will work dawn to dusk to keep the villainy going. When we become eccentric billionaires, we can only hope we have someone as sycophantic as Smithers to lend a helping hand and assure us that the audience isn’t saying, “Boo!” It’s saying, “Boo-urns!”  

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

46. 

Marco Del Rossi

Degrassi: The Next Generation

Actor: Adamo Ruggiero

2002-2008

Previous Rank: 39

“Marco, all these pretty girls, and not one you like?” Oh, Mr. Del Rossi, you just don’t get it. Your son, Marco, can’t be bothered with all those pretty girls because he is the resident GTIC (Gay Teen in Charge) of Degrassi Community School. Viewers first fell in love with Marco when he appeared in season 2 as the shy, uncomfortable boy who hid his sexuality by pretending to date Ellie. That had predictably catastrophic results, but he became seared onto our hearts forever as we watched him come out to his parents, fall for a hot nuisance of a hockey player in Dylan, and grow into a confidant, out student body president crusading against idiotic blood donation laws, all while we forgave each of the severely questionable hairstyles in between.

In many ways, Marco can be considered the precursor to these proud, out glee clubbers we see today because when he made his debut eleven years ago (Eleven! The passage of time!), he was a somewhat rare specimen: the gay teen who was not a victim. Sure, he suffered enough unfortunate drama to last a lifetime, it’s Degrassi after all, but he was also popular, outspoken, and eventually self-assured, existing in a high school that ultimately treated his gayness as a fact of life rather than a reason to be an outcast.  

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

47. 

Jodie Dallas

SOAP

Actor

Billy Crystal

1977-1981

Previous Rank: 40

Billy Crystal is probably best known for hosting the Oscars, and starring in When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers. But the comedian really burst onto the scene with his turn as gay son Jodie Dallas on the ABC sitcom, Soap, which ran from 1977 to 1981.

Jodie Dallas may not have been the first gay character on network TV (that prize goes to Peter Panama, played by Vincent Schiavelli, in another ABC series called The Corner Bar (1972-3)), but he was arguably the first to make a substantial cultural impact. Many gay men of a certain age probably remember watching the show as a child and being secretly overjoyed to see someone like them on the small screen.

Unfortunately, the show became something of a rallying point for conservative Christian groups seeking to flex their media watchdog muscles. The National Council of Churches helped to organize a boycott against sponsors of the show, ABC reportedly received 32,000 letters of complaint before the premiere, and eight out of 195 ABC affiliates refused to air the show. The network, to its credit, refused to bow to pressure and carried the controversial series for three years.

Always successful in the ratings, the show was arguably done in by the steep discounting ABC had to do to fill commercial slots. According to executive producer Susan Harris, ABC carried the sitcom essentially without corporate sponsorship

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

48. 

Ray Gillette

Archer

Voiced by: Adam Reed

2009-present

Previous rank: N/A

Ray Gillette is only one of two animated characters to make our list of greatest gay TV characters. Why did he make the cut? Perhaps because he (and the show he’s on) is so damned funny. ISIS Agent Ray Gillette is sarcastic and prone to various gay stereotypes, but despite some questionable behavior like renting a Malaysian house boy, he’s also one of the most likable agents at ISIS. The FX series being a broad comedy, Ray’s back story is constantly being amended for comic effect. Over the course of four seasons we've learned that he was a college cheerleader, that he won a bronze Olympic medal for slalom skiing, and that he was once married to a lesbian that he met at a “pray the gay away” camp. No doubt we’ll learn many more weird facts about Ray before the series ends.

One running gag has been Ray’s paralysis. Thanks to Archer’s negligence (most plots on this show are driven by Archer’s negligence), Ray is injured and then confined to a wheelchair. Only it is discovered that he’d actually been faking and could walk. Then, in a cosmic comeuppance, Ray is injured again, and this time he really is paralyzed. Archer doesn’t understand why Ray is so upset by this. After all, he “already had the chair.”

In season four Ray had his lower body replaced by bionic prosthetics, allowing him to walk again. Of course, Archer fries the CPU controlling Ray’s legs with a defibrillator in the season finale, so as it stands now (or doesn’t), Ray is back in a wheelchair

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

49. 

Steve Jinks

Warehouse 13

Actor

Aaron Ashmore

2011-present

Previous Rank: N/A

Oh Jinksy. Warehouse 13 ends next year after an abbreviated six episode fifth season, and it’s such a shame because we were just starting to get to know Agent Steve Jinks. The character was introduced at the start of the third season, recruited to the warehouse for his as yet unexplained special power — he always knows when someone is lying. He’s also a Buddhist and gay, though we’ve rarely seen him practicing either.

Still, Ashmore brings so much fuzzy-headed charm to the character, and he has such wonderful big bro/little sis chemistry with scrappy Claudia Donovan (Allison Scagliotti) that when he was murdered at the end of Season 3 we were almost as unhappy about it as Claudia was.

We cheered when Claudia broke all the rules of the warehouse and used a cursed metronome (don’t ask, it’s complicated) to bring Jinksy back to life.

Good thing, because Jinks is a grounding presence in the cast. There’s that brotherly relationship with Claudia, and he’s often the “straight man” foil to sexy goofball Pete Lattimer (Eddie McClintock). In season 4 we learned a little more about Jinks’ past when his former boyfriend Liam (Charlie Webber) shows up for an episode. The two looked so sexy together that when they make up and have an offscreen “hookup” gay viewers felt a little cheated.

We’re just hoping in the final six episodes Jinks gets another visit from Liam. Our Jinksy deserves a little love. Preferably onscreen!

The 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters

From:  The Backlot

 A few weeks ago we asked readers to name their favorite gay or bisexual male characters of all time. 

Now, after sorting through the thirty thousand plus write-in votes, we have the results, and one thing leaps out at us: you guys certainly have a soft spot for the bad boys! When it comes to television, “gay” and “anti-hero” must to go well together because this list is filled with wily schemers, heartless cads, domestic abusers, street thugs, high school bullies and yes, even a couple stone cold killers. Oh well, at least the guy who ranks #1 is an honest to goodness sweetheart.

A few statistics before we get to the list. Almost every single character in the top 50 came from a show that ran in the current century. The only two exceptions? Roseanne‘s Leon Carp who last appeared on TV in 1997; and the grandaddy of them all, SOAP‘s Jodie Dallas who left the airwaves 32 years ago in 1981. Why the preference for more recent characters? A part of it is probably “out of sight, out of mind,” but it is also true that television overall has just vastly improved in quality since the proliferation of cable, and with that has come an explosion of a multidimensional LGBT characters. There’s just more for gay men to relate to on television these days.

Soap operas might be a dying format, but they still had a surprisingly strong showing on this list, with nine characters coming from serial dramas; five from US daytime and four from as far away as the UK and Germany. And speaking of the UK, seven of the top 50 characters originate from shows produced in that country.

Seven of the top 50 were men of color, including True Blood‘s Lafayette Reynolds, Ugly Betty’s Justin Suarez, The Wire’s Omar Little and Spartacus‘ Nasir. This is a better showing than the last time we conducted this poll.  Age diversity may be the bigger issue. Character ages are hard to verify, but it looks as though only a single character over the age of 40 made the Top 50.

Without further ado, here are the Top 50 Greatest Gay TV Characters…

50. 

Thomas Barrow

Downton Abbey

Actor

Robert James Collier

2010-present

Previous Rank: N/A

He’s Thomas the footman. And no, he’s not proudly letting his freak flag fly with that title. Actually, he’s not even a footman any more. He’s risen in the ranks to underbutler at Downton, a position he fought hard and deviously for. It was a hard road to get there. Poor guy was dumped by his titled boyfriend in season 1. In season 2 he was sent off to the WWI front. (Resourceful Thomas had to sacrifice part of his hand in order to survive and get shipped home.) In season 3 he fell in love with another butler, a handsome cad who rejected him violently, promptly outed him to everyone at Downton and then called the police on him. Tough times.

It’s true that much of the trouble Thomas faces he brings on himself. He can be spiteful and devious after all. But audiences still have a soft spot for him, probably because he helps us imagine how awful it would have been to be homosexual basically any time post classical Greece and pre-Stonewall.

The enlightened treatment Thomas receives from his employers and most of his fellow servants seems farfetched for the early 20th century, but we’ll forgive Downton Abbey for taking historical license. In fact, we wish they’d take a bit more and let Thomas find a little true happiness with another dashing gay gent….