On October 3rd, NBC launches a new gay sitcom, vibrantly Sean Saves The World. Wait, it’s not a gay sitcom. It’s just a sitcom with a gay in it. According to Sean Hayes of Will & Grace fame, this is the sitcom that ushers us into the post-gay era.
Wait, what? I did not receive the memo announcing that we are living in the post-gay era. Did you? I really need to get on that Gay Mailing List.
I get what’s happening here. It’s an effort to be the Life-Imitating-Art breakthrough that Will & Grace was. Show the world that being a gay parent is no big deal and it will become no big deal. According to the creator, Victor Fresco, gayness is incidental in this show.
Apparently, so is humor.
From what I can gather from the trailer and a few pilot scenes, the show is a series of banal one-liners that would be funny delivered sporadically over a few drinks at a cocktail party but unbearable when thrown at you relentlessly like balls from a baseball pitching machine.
I’ll tune in if only to bear witness to the incomparable Linda Lavin who plays Sean’s overbearing mother. I saw her in The Lyons on Broadway and she was phenomenal as a caustic, self-centered Jewish mother. I wanted to jump on stage and drag her out for a drink where we could be sardonic and quick-witted together. It was a shanda when that show closed, I tell you.
The cast of Sean Saves The World includes an eccentric boss, a white lady co-worker and a black male co-worker and a humorless teen; a formula that, in this supposedly evolved, post-gay era, chafes likes a skin rash. If you’re going to make a gay show that isn’t gay, at least make it original.
I’d love to be living in a post-gay era. Truly, I would. I’d love to tell you that being gay does not impact me as a parent. But I can’t. And I don’t want this show to pretend that being a gay parent is a non-issue. Make it funny, but make it real. That is what’s required in this not-yet-post-gay era.
Will you be watching Sean Saves the World? Will you play a drinking game where you take a shot every time someone refers to being gay only to go to bed stone sober and resentful that you’ve wasted 22 minutes of your life?
Let’s check back in October and compare notes. Perhaps we’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Tag your pics #villageq to be included in the family album at 
Is this post-gay world also the post-race world people keep telling me about?
Also, I am irrationally happy with your use of the word shanda.
Shanda is a connector, for sure.
I suppose it’s possible that the trailer is designed to appeal to a variety of audiences, while the show might be marginally better. I’m not holding my breath though :/
As in ‘post-gay era’ is straight talk for, ‘the gays won’t hurt you.’ But I’m not gonna hate…just yet.
The post gay thing annoys me.
People who should be funny and are not funny annoy me.
Linda Lavin does not annoy me.
Linda Lavin should hold a master class on funny.
Maybe in Hollywood it’s a non-issue? I know that other shows have made a huge difference in the ways that people have viewed other families that aren’t the same as their own (Cosby Show, etc.-can’t pull shows out of the air on a whim. I’m not a FREAKING GENIE)… I hope that having shows that have gay/lesbian parents and multi-cultural families (ARE there any of those?) will ease the less open-minded people of the world into being accustomed to it. I haven’t had enough coffee. This comment sucks. I blame Vikki and her angry comments above. She got me all riled about funny people being non-funny anymore and now I can’t concentrate. Hope I don’t fall into the non-funny category. Sigh.
The Cosby Show is a good example of how to help the world adjust their definitions of normal though it didn’t work so well with the loud, multi-colored sweaters. They could only do so much.
Also, blaming Vikki for failed comments is enough to retain your status as Funny. Let that be a lesson to everyone.