Glee: All Those Emmy Nominations, Still No Gay Dads

by Michael Jones · 2010-07-13 08:46:00 UTC
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GleeGlee has it all, right? Delicious, guilty pleasure storylines. Madonna, Lady Gaga, and (upcoming next season) Britney Spears episodes. Guest stars like Neil Patrick Harris, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. And, as of this month, a whopping 19 Emmy nominations, making it television's most acclaimed show for 2010.

But here's one thing Glee doesn't have, at least yet: two men playing character Rachel's gay dads.

The show makes no bones about Rachel Berry having two gay parents. They were referenced in the pilot, and in many a show since. An image of them even popped up once in a small little picture frame. On Rachel Berry's Facebook page (yes, fictional TV characters have Facebook pages, and in the case of Rachel, she has almost 102,000 friends), she even says, "I have two gay dads that I LOVE! Mwah mwah!"

You know who else would love your gay dads, Rachel? Nearly every viewer of Glee. That is, if we were given the chance to see them on the screen.

Broadway World is now suggesting that actor John Barrowman is lobbying to be one of Rachel's dads. You might know Barrowman from his work on the BBC, including the dramas Doctor Who and Torchwood. He also popped up this year in a stint on Desperate Housewives. And in one of those ironic side notes of show biz history, Barrowman was also up for consideration to play Will in the TV series Will & Grace. But the producers thought that (the openly gay) Barrowman was too straight, and instead gave the part to (the openly straight) Eric McCormack. Ah, irony.

So could Barrowman become one of TV's most anticipated gay characters?

"I have no idea if I'll be in it, I met with their casting people and I said I'd love to be in it — I'd be good as one of Rachel's gay dads!" Barrowman told Broadway World.

Sure, Barrowman wasn't on my radar screen when it came to the question of who could play Rachel's gay fathers. But I'm just happy that maybe, just maybe, the folks behind Glee get that it's time for the show to bring the two fathers out of the closet. As Cristian Asher wrote here on Change.org a few weeks ago, it seems like a gaping hole in the show's storyline that Rachel's dads have been hidden for so long.

"We’ve seen every other parent among the lead kids, now, and even Sue gets to have a sister. Throw us a bone, guys — you’ve created the greatest paean to musical theatre fetishism the TV world has ever seen, and you’ve denied us the two gay characters who could really make the most of it!" Asher wrote. And he's right.

Keep putting the pressure on the folks at Glee to show us some great gay parents.

Nineteen Emmy nominations this year. That's a pretty strong feat for such a new TV show. Now here's hoping that next year, Glee wraps up two additional nominations — for the two guest actors who might play Rachel's queer parents.

Photo credit: Rachel Barry on Facebook

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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