"The O.C"'s Gay Legacy

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I found this article and decided to share. There are some points I didn't even notice before. So enjoy!

"The O.C"'s Gay Legacy
by Locksley Hall, Contributing Writer
April 9, 2007

Earlier this year, Fox aired the last episode of the once-hit teen drama The O.C. Created in 2003, the show was the brainchild of screenwriter Josh Schwartz, who at 26 had become the youngest person in network history to create and produce his own one-hour series. Pitched to Fox as "the new Beverly Hills 90210," the show was the story of a young man from the wrong side of the tracks who is taken in by a wealthy family living in Orange County, California . It offered the promise of plenty of glitz, glamour, and (heterosexual) romance.

Schwartz has stated that he saw this commercial surface as a "Trojan horse" strategy, however, by which to sneak in a show with a more intelligent, offbeat sensibility. The show's quality varied widely over its four seasons, with most critics seeing the second and third seasons as the weakest. But at its best, it did live up to Schwartz's aim. And it did this partly through a series of story lines that helped to make the teen show landscape more open to gay characters.

A Secret Revealed

The O.C.'s first big gay plotline came in Episode 12 of the first season, "The Secret." During the pilot episode, viewers were introduced to Luke Ward (Chris Carmack), a square-jawed jock who went to high school with the main characters. Luke had been shown to be a homophobe and a bully, continually taunting Seth Cohen (the geeky son of the show's main family, played by Adam Brody) as a "queer."

In "The Secret," the spotlight is put on Luke's family, including his younger twin brothers and his parents, Carson and Meredith Ward, who appear to be happily married. A successful car dealer, Carson seems to be a pleasant father, although we learn that he is often away on business trips. Later in the episode, he is inadvertently outed - first to Luke, then to the whole town - after he is seen passionately kissing his business partner, Gus. Luke, understandably, is very upset.

This episode did several things. By giving the show's most overtly homophobic character a gay relative, it demonstrated that even people who think they hate homosexuals may have someone close to them who is gay, without their knowing it. It showcased - and mocked - the homophobic attitudes of conservative Orange County by putting those attitudes in the mouths of shallow socialites and dim-witted high school students who the main characters can't stand.

If anything, the show goes a little overboard in excusing Carson's deception of his family. Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), Seth's father and the moral center of the show, tells Carson not only that coming out was the bravest thing he could do, but that he is "the kind of father any kid would be proud of."

The follow-up to this episode was mostly focused on its effect on Luke. With his father's outing, he fell from lead bully to virtual outcast in his clique. This brought out his more sympathetic side, but also took a toll on him emotionally (as did his parents' impending divorce and various negative developments in his own love life). In Episode 24 of Season 1, he drives while drunk and has a car accident. He opts to leave town for a fresh start with his father, who is moving to Portland after his divorce. (The younger Ward brothers, Eric and Brad, stay behind with their mother).

In the first episode of Season 2, Luke is shown apparently having settled into a new life in Portland, while his father is now living as an openly gay man. Throughout the series, Carson Ward has been shown as a supportive and caring father. The viewer is encouraged to see both of the characters' futures as positive and hopeful.

"Total Homosexual Undertone"

Although it did not involve any overtly gay characters, another theme that was important from the first season was the relationship between Seth Cohen and Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie). Hailing from Chino, Calif, Ryan arrives in Orange County as an outsider and a borderline delinquent, and is taken in by the wealthy Cohen family.

From early promo shots that show Ryan and Seth lounging opposite each other, shirtless, on matching pool recliners, there were hints of a homoerotic current between Seth and Ryan. As the show developed, this manifested itself in the admiration that geeky, talkative Seth had for strong, silent Ryan, and the increasing emotional dependence that he seemed to have on him.

Ryan, in turn, was quick to protect the unpopular and skinny Seth whenever he was in danger of being beaten up. By Episode 24 of the first season, it seemed clear that the writers were aware of the subtext between the two characters and were playing it up deliberately. In one scene, Seth walks in on Ryan changing and, flustered, asks him whether he works out.

For many viewers, though, it was the first season finale that cemented the gay subtext that seemed to underlie Seth's feelings for Ryan. In the episode, Ryan's ex-girlfriend, Theresa, is pregnant with a child he thinks is his own, and he decides to move back to Chino to help her look after the baby. This news devastates Seth, even though he himself has a girlfriend, Summer (Rachel Bilson). When Summer tries to tell him that he still has her, Seth angrily responds that it's not the same thing.
Deciding that he cannot bear life in the O.C. without Ryan, Seth gets on his boat and sails away. His apparent choice of Ryan over Summer even drew the attention of Conan O'Brien, who brought it up to actor Adam Brody in an interview before the show's second season:

O'Brien: I love the show, and I have something to confess. I watch the show, and I think your character on the show, Seth, seems really obsessed with Ryan, to a degree sometimes that seems a little weird. Anyone who watches the show knows that there's this other character, and he's your age, and just because he, like, gets a girlfriend or something, your character gets so flipped out that he gets on a boat and runs away.
Brody: I'm telling you, you feel that way because I think it's true. I think Seth is in love with Ryan. I don't know, I really, I mean...
O'Brien: You think it's a little bit of a - maybe a slightly gay undertone.
Brody: [overlapping] Every time I read ... total homosexual undertone! Every time I read the scene ... a script, I'm like, OK, for sure, next scene they're making out.

The O.C. was a show that loved its meta references, and Conan's reaction even made it into the dialogue of the second-season premiere. Hearing that Seth has run away and is now staying in Portland with Luke and Carson Ward, Seth's grandfather states: "I don't get it. His best friend leaves, so he runs off with another boy and his gay dad. You gotta admit, sounds kind of strange."

Season 2 actually expanded the range of subtext for the ambiguously gay Seth, as a new character, Zach (Michael Cassidy), enters as a rival for Summer's affections. Zach is "the WASP version of Seth" with many common interests, and at times it is unclear whether the two boys are more interested in Summer or each other.

When Seth expresses surprise at Summer dating Zach, Ryan says, "A second ago, you wanted to date him." At one point Zach asks Seth, "You're going to hook up with a guy?" On a trip with Zach and Summer, finding that their hotel room has a double bed, Seth exclaims, "Zach and I are getting cozy tonight!"

Finally, Summer, irritated at the amount of time her ex and current boyfriend are spending together developing a comic book, accuses them of having turned into "Kavalier and Gay." (This is a reference to the characters of the novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - made funnier by the fact that in the novel, Sam Clay, who shares the same initials as Seth Cohen, actually is gay.)

Unfortunately, and perhaps partly to offset all of this, Seth seemed to develop an obnoxious, homophobic or just insensitive side. When Carson Ward was outed, Seth's principal response was to gloat that Luke (who for so long had called him gay) now had a gay dad. Being beaten by his friend Anna at Skee-Ball, he tells her, "OK, clearly, you're a lesbian."

When lead character Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) took her much-publicized dip into bi-curiousness in the second season, dating a female character called Alex (Olivia Wilde), it didn't take Seth long to react with the usual drooling frat-boy jokes about hotness and threesomes. He then became bizarrely preoccupied with breaking the couple up and getting Marissa back together with Ryan, her ex-boyfriend. When he partly succeeds and makes Alex upset and jealous, he jeers, "That is one angry lesbian!"

One positive thing about Seth, however, is that he did enlarge the possibility of what an attractive male lead could be like. Unable to defend himself physically, a man of talk rather than a man of action, he represented an alternative kind of masculinity to that embodied by Ryan. The show played with jokes about his feminine characteristics without saying that it was bad to be that way or that he needed to change.

When the friends decorate Marissa's room in Episode 24 of Season 1, Seth does the painting while Summer does all the building, heavy lifting and wiring of electronics. In a way, Seth's relationship with Summer was reminiscent of what the writers of Friends did with Monica and Chandler: give the ambiguously gay male character a girlfriend who is more macho than he is.

Picking up Where Dawson's Creek Left Off

Despite Marissa Cooper's exploration of bisexuality, there were no significant plots with overtly gay male characters in Seasons 2 or 3. The show kept up its queer (and camp) factor, however, with scenes like the surreal opening of Season 2, where the Cohens' house is being remodeled by construction workers who are all buff, shirtless and look as if they could join the Village People. A bewildered Sandy Cohen says to the foreman: "Could you please try to convince the fellas here to wear something in a shirt? My neighbors have started to refer to my house as The Manhole."

This scene (and other minor references in Seasons 2 and 3) marked the beginning of a much more playful way of dealing with homosexuality than the serious, issue-based takes of previous teen shows such as Dawson's Creek. In doing so, The O.C. moved past the Very Special Episode vibe of story lines such as the outing of Luke's father.

One of the most striking things about the gay aspect of the Season 2 opener is that there is no particular reason for it to be there. Indeed, a gay sensibility often seemed to be brought into The O.C. as something that was just there - very much as it is in life. This was a notable contrast to Dawson's Creek, where gay men would be brought in only for the specific purpose of interacting in some way with Jack, the main gay character.
Of course, the fact that shows such as Dawson's Creek had already broken new ground and reduced the shock value of having a gay character were part of what allowed The O.C. to be more casual about the subject. And Dawson's could arguably be called superior in terms of gay visibility because it did have a main character who was consistently gay, which The O.C. did not.

But what The O.C. lacked in depth in its treatment of gay characters, it made up for in breadth, particularly when compared to shows such as the WB teen drama One Tree Hill or the Australian soap Neighbours. Both shows brought in significant queer characters at the same time that The O.C. was airing, but those characters only appeared for a limited time in very specific "gay" story lines.

Moreover, those characters were quickly written out, and both shows went back to being a place where everyone was heterosexual. In a way, this only reinforced the idea of homosexuality as something foreign and exotic. In contrast, The O.C., with its frequent and casual, if superficial, references to gay themes in Seasons 2 and 3 helped to show homosexuality as something that is simply part of the landscape.

The Final Season Brings Gay Closure

In Season 4, the show's last, the use of queer men as minor characters really took off, pushing the envelope as to the amount of gay affection that could be shown on a teen drama. In Episode 6 of the fourth season, female character Taylor (Autumn Reeser) "hires a homosexual," Roger, to pretend to be her boyfriend in order to convince Ryan she's not into him.

Meanwhile, Marissa's younger sister, Kaitlin (Willa Holland), discovers that Connor, a popular boy at her school, is gay. When Ryan finds Roger and Connor in bed together at Kaitlin's party, his only concern is that Roger is not cheating on or lying to Taylor. Once assured that he is not, he leaves the two boys to get on with it. Later, they are seen at the party openly arm-in-arm.

An intriguing story line in episodes 11 and 12 dealt with Summer's hippieish male friend from college, Che. Though there had been no indication up till then that he was gay, in Episode 11, he has a dream that convinces him that Seth is his soul mate. As a result, he stares at a picture of him and begins tentatively putting the moves on him. Later, in Episode 12, he realizes that his dream wasn't about Seth at all, but about a girl. Although the scenario is played for laughs in some ways, it is notable how relaxed Che is about the idea that his soul mate might be a man.

The show's finale actually featured a gay male couple, Todd and Patrick, as a prominent part of the plot. The Cohen family has finally had enough of Orange County and wants to move back to their old home in Berkeley, Calif, a house that Todd and Patrick now own. When Seth (who is tall and dark) and Ryan (who is shorter and blond) turn up at the house hoping to persuade the owners to sell, the door is answered by Patrick (tall and dark) and Todd (shorter and blond).

In a show so rife with meta references, it seems unlikely that the introduction of a Seth-and-Ryan look-alike gay couple was an accident. For those viewers who were hoping for an ending where Seth and Ryan finally come out and get together, it's a last nod, a bit of closure to the subtext between them. As is Todd's insistence to Seth and Ryan: "You're an adorable couple, but this house isn't for sale."

As it turns out, though, the Cohens and their circle are not so easily got rid of. Through a series of plot twists, Kirsten Cohen (Seth's pregnant mother) winds up giving birth in Todd and Patrick's house. Then Julie Cooper (Marissa's mother) turns up determined to have the latest of her many weddings in their backyard. Since Patrick is a midwife and Todd turns out to be a wedding planner, the two men are automatically drawn in to help with these proceedings.

There is a certain whiff of Queer Eye - of fairy godfathers who live to serve the straights in all of this - which only increases when Patrick finally tells the Cohens that he and Todd have decided to sell the house back to them: "You had a baby here, you had a wedding. ... This is your house. We're just living in it." Since childbirth and legal weddings are two things unavailable to a gay male couple, this could be read as a faint suggestion that Todd and Patrick are somehow less of a family, their claim to a home less important, than the Cohens.

Since the demands of the plot would mean that any people living in the Cohens' old house would have to move out, though, it seems unfair on the whole to complain that the story line is homophobic. There is an amusing sense throughout the episode of Todd and Patrick playing straight men to the Cohens' craziness and inappropriateness, as Kirsten first asks to use their toilet and then starts giving birth on their carpet, while Julie turns up with a huge wedding party in tow. The two men exchange looks as Julie's wedding is interrupted by a speakerphone call from her ex-lover, and in one scene, Todd walks in on Taylor and Ryan making out on one of his beds. "OK," he says and then turns to go. "What is it with you people?"

In addition to their resemblance to Ryan and Seth, Todd and Patrick bear a resemblance to Kirsten (blond) and Sandy Cohen (dark), who from the beginning have been presented as a committed, loving, married couple. It is very noticeable in one scene, when Todd raises his hand, that he has a wedding ring on.

In his recent interview with AfterElton.com, producer Greg Berlanti talked about a shift in the television landscape caused by a new generation of younger executives with more liberal attitudes. Josh Schwartz was the youngest executive producer in network TV history when The O.C. premiered, and he helped to move the teen drama past the earnest Dawson's Creek-era treatment of gay sexuality to a point where being gay simply wasn't a big deal.

This relaxed, "anything goes" attitude sometimes had its negative side effects. The handling of Marissa's bisexuality could be described as a bit too throwaway and casual. But it also meant that queer teens got to tune into a mainstream show that consistently and matter-of-factly acknowledged the existence of queer sexuality, whether it was through significant gay characters, passing references, camp surrealism or the sustained and jokey use of gay subtext between the male leads. Not too bad for a show that aired on the Fox network.

source

[alex.stef]

after i first read it, i wondered who and why would write an article on this theme and make such a deep analysis of the plot and some scenes.
but after seeing the source i understood. anyway...
i think that some aspects were taken to extreme;very much. i never saw the relation between seth and ryan in such a way. i always saw them as 2 brothers. it's true that seth was more efeminated that normal (not too much, tough), but... come on!... let's be serious!

thx for posting,by the way :P

[evander]

i thought loads of those scenes were hilarious and i enjoyed them even though i "don't swing that way"

the OC was amasing show. It managed to extract humor from life situations weather the are gay or streight...

I bow to the comic relief.

As far as this text goes, there are always people who will overanalyze to prove their point.

To me Seth Cohen is... awesome.. and a younger version of Chandler Bing. A young guy who is soft and funny.

Just because he's soft doesn't mean he is gay. I bet there are rough homosexuals out there too.

[goAlex]

I really love Adam. I think he's the coolest.


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Jess
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