The “gay friend” character in movies and television shows is a time-honoured tradition. And by “time-honoured” I mean “from the past 20 years or so because before then gay people did not exist/were rarely portrayed in film and TV”.

Still more often relegated to the “friend” role rather than taking centre stage, Hollywood has at least realised that every Oprah needs a Gayle, every Xena a Gabrielle, every Noddy a Big Ears.

Here are 10 of my favourite LGBTI characters from films and TV shows of present and past.

---

Anthony Marentino - Sex and the City
Charlotte’s man-pal Anthony Marentino was of course the secondary gay BFF character, playing second fiddle to Carrie’s bestie Stanford Blatch.  But whereas Stanford was an irritating, unpleasant looking queen who made Liberace look straight, Anthony was a breath of bitchy air. His pithy one-liners were always brilliantly delivered and his facial expressions hilarious. The fact he and his long-time nemesis Stanford ended up marrying in the second SATC feature film was one of the final nails in the thrice hammered coffin of what was once a brilliant show.



Jack McFarland - Will and Grace
I really wanted to hate Will and Grace. On the surface it looked like a show I could really get down with hating. Debra Messing has annoyed the pants off my pants area since Ned and Stacy; the dude who played Will is so blah I can’t even be bothered looking up his real name; and at the time it first appeared on our screens I had pretty much reached my quota of sitcoms about whiny, single people in New York being whiny and single. And yet to this day I remain glued to the couch in pantsless joy every time there’s a Will and Grace marathon on. Why? Karen Walker. Why else? Jack McFarland. The former remains one of my favourite television characters of ALL TIME, and the latter somehow managed to be hilarious and not at all annoying despite being the walking definition of everything wrong with the general portrayal of gay men in film and television.



Hollywood Montrose - Mannequin
Mannequin is one of those movies that contribute to my belief that the 1980s were actually the vivid, sexist, unfashionable dream of an American teenager named Cindy. Which is not to say I dislike it. As a child I watched it so many times the VCR could probably have played it without the tape, and it solidified my pre-teen determination to grow up and marry Andrew McCarthy. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a clip on the Interwebs that does the movie’s resident homosexual – Hollywood Montrose - justice, but you can see him here in the trailer looking glasses-tastic and not in any way ridiculous.



Leon Carp and Nancy Bartlett Thomas - Roseanne
My enduring love for Roseanne has already been well documented in this here column, so I won’t bore you any further by ranting at you about how it is the greatest show ever made and anybody that thinks differently should take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror. Not only was Roseanne one of the first prime time shows to feature a (GASP!) lesbian kiss, it was also one of the first shows to portray LGBTI people as more than walking clichés. There was Leon Carp, Roseanne’s boss and reluctant friend; Nancy Bartlett, Roseanne’s bisexual bestie played by the brilliant Sandra Bernhard; and also Bev Harris, Roseanne’s infuriating mother, who came out of the geriatric closet towards the end of the series.



Damian - Mean Girls
Oh, Mean Girls, you came and you came and you gave without taking. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to convince anybody about the genius of Mean Girls. After all it was written by she-who-must-be-worshipped Tina Fey, stars she-who-must-be-locked-up Lindsay Lohan when she still had a promising future (and her original face), and features some of the funniest moments in teenage movie history. Teen queen Damian is my favourite thing about the movie, apart from Lilo’s impressive rack and Fey’s brilliant script.



(Continued next page)