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Post by Shan on Jan 28, 2007 16:22:27 GMT -5
I've seen a lot of discussion in ljland about the "de-gaying" of Zach (meaning, I guess, that he was portrayed as straight in this episode). I was wondering if anyone picked up on that, and if so, if you can indicate what shows that, because I totally don't remember that. I don't recall Zach expressing a sexual preference of any kind in this episode actually. When did Zach get to actually be gay? I only remember the Jackie-types spitting and hissing, but I thought they were just acting bitchy, as usual, and his being "different" made him an easy mark for the meanest things the Jackie's could think of to say. I do remember his "love who you are" speechifying to Claire but I thought that was just about his geekiness or non-popularness, not about being gay. I really never got "Zach is gay" in any clear sense FROM Zach, so watching Godsend didn't "de-gay" him for me at all because, as far as what I can remember, not only did he not express a sexual preference in THIS episode, he didn't express one in any other. However, I freely admit that a) I miss things because my kids bop around and interrupt when I'm watching and b) my gaydar is totally non-functional.
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Post by Sara on Jan 30, 2007 14:06:29 GMT -5
I've seen a lot of discussion in ljland about the "de-gaying" of Zach (meaning, I guess, that he was portrayed as straight in this episode). I was wondering if anyone picked up on that, and if so, if you can indicate what shows that, because I totally don't remember that. I don't recall Zach expressing a sexual preference of any kind in this episode actually. When did Zach get to actually be gay? I only remember the Jackie-types spitting and hissing, but I thought they were just acting bitchy, as usual, and his being "different" made him an easy mark for the meanest things the Jackie's could think of to say. I do remember his "love who you are" speechifying to Claire but I thought that was just about his geekiness or non-popularness, not about being gay. I really never got "Zach is gay" in any clear sense FROM Zach, so watching Godsend didn't "de-gay" him for me at all because, as far as what I can remember, not only did he not express a sexual preference in THIS episode, he didn't express one in any other. However, I freely admit that a) I miss things because my kids bop around and interrupt when I'm watching and b) my gaydar is totally non-functional. A lot of the discussion stems from an interview Kring did early in the show's existence in which he stated one of the characters was gay; most speculation even then focused on Zach. Aside from the instances you cite (ie Jackie's nasty remarks), one could argue his use of the term "coming out" when he asked Claire if she was going to tell her parents about her powers and his "not a chance" denials both when Claire questioned if he was flirting with her and asked if he'd be her date to Homecoming were also indicators as to which team he played for. And while it's not strictly canon, on Zach's MySpace page (which from all appearances is run by the producers and/or NBC) he puts "not sure" for his orientation. Not to mention, if you want to get stereotypical, he lists Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Velvet Goldmine as among his favorite movies. Then, after this article appeared online Kring issued the following statement to the same web site: I am very sorry this has caused concern for the readers of your website. It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach’s character being gay. We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end. But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you stated, Heroes is a big, sprawling drama and there is no reason to believe that a gay character will not be represented on our show in the future. It is my hope than we do, we do it with honesty and dignity. That will certainly be our attempt.The last I heard, most figure the "behind the scenes" folks to be both the actor's manager and someone in the upper echelons of NBC itself. But the upshot is you're both right in saying that Zach's orientation was never made explicit, or even alluded to in any significant way. So in a way it's hard to argue they "changed" him to be straight when he wasn't ever truly established as gay to begin with.
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Post by Shan on Jan 31, 2007 1:20:25 GMT -5
When did Zach get to actually be gay? I only remember the Jackie-types spitting and hissing, but I thought they were just acting bitchy, as usual, and his being "different" made him an easy mark for the meanest things the Jackie's could think of to say. I do remember his "love who you are" speechifying to Claire but I thought that was just about his geekiness or non-popularness, not about being gay. I really never got "Zach is gay" in any clear sense FROM Zach, so watching Godsend didn't "de-gay" him for me at all because, as far as what I can remember, not only did he not express a sexual preference in THIS episode, he didn't express one in any other. However, I freely admit that a) I miss things because my kids bop around and interrupt when I'm watching and b) my gaydar is totally non-functional. A lot of the discussion stems from an interview Kring did early in the show's existence in which he stated one of the characters was gay; most speculation even then focused on Zach. Aside from the instances you cite (ie Jackie's nasty remarks), one could argue his use of the term "coming out" when he asked Claire if she was going to tell her parents about her powers and his "not a chance" denials both when Claire questioned if he was flirting with her and asked if he'd be her date to Homecoming were also indicators as to which team he played for. And while it's not strictly canon, on Zach's MySpace page (which from all appearances is run by the producers and/or NBC) he puts "not sure" for his orientation. Not to mention, if you want to get stereotypical, he lists Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Velvet Goldmine as among his favorite movies. Then, after this article appeared online Kring issued the following statement to the same web site: I am very sorry this has caused concern for the readers of your website. It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach’s character being gay. We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end. But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you stated, Heroes is a big, sprawling drama and there is no reason to believe that a gay character will not be represented on our show in the future. It is my hope than we do, we do it with honesty and dignity. That will certainly be our attempt.The last I heard, most figure the "behind the scenes" folks to be both the actor's manager and someone in the upper echelons of NBC itself. But the upshot is you're both right in saying that Zach's orientation was never made explicit, or even alluded to in any significant way. So in a way it's hard to argue they "changed" him to be straight when he wasn't ever truly established as gay to begin with. Hrm...thank you for the research, I really DO appreciate it! But my comments to the people affiliated with the show who put the material OUT there (i.e., the material that's NOT in the show): I barely have time enough to watch the show itself, nevermind spend several times the air-time each week hunting down the writers' cyber-explanations of the REAL meaning of the story, after the fact. For instance: Claire, as far as I can remember, hasn't declared her orientation one way or the other. But are there "Claireblogs" out there listing HER sexual ambivalence or favorite movies? I don't think so. I mean, one of my favorite moves is "Desert Hearts" but that doesn't make me a lesbian. It helps, of course, that she's a cheerleader, so we viewers never question her orientation. (Which may be why that one VM episode surprised us so much. ) My upshot: IMHO, if the writers can't tell the story in the time and venue alotted each week, they're not doing their job. And if it's relevant to the story, PLEASE have the character clarify their sexual orientation, or at least their ambivalence. It's not that difficult. It only takes a word or two and doesn't have to be a huge deal. If it's part of the story, just do it. If it's not part of the story, I don't care who is gay, straight or confused. They've given us enough issues to guess about that ARE relevant to the storyline; they don't need to pussyfoot around with an issue that ISN'T.
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Post by fish1941 on Jan 31, 2007 1:50:51 GMT -5
I've seen a lot of discussion in ljland about the "de-gaying" of Zach (meaning, I guess, that he was portrayed as straight in this episode). I was wondering if anyone picked up on that, and if so, if you can indicate what shows that, because I totally don't remember that. I don't recall Zach expressing a sexual preference of any kind in this episode actually. I don't recall Zach ever being established as gay. I only recall Jackie making nasty insinuations about it. And I thought this was done to indicate Jackie's negative personality. Which is why I'm confused about the uproar over his sexual orientation.
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 31, 2007 8:34:29 GMT -5
When did Zach get to actually be gay? I only remember the Jackie-types spitting and hissing, but I thought they were just acting bitchy, as usual, and his being "different" made him an easy mark for the meanest things the Jackie's could think of to say. I do remember his "love who you are" speechifying to Claire but I thought that was just about his geekiness or non-popularness, not about being gay. I really never got "Zach is gay" in any clear sense FROM Zach, so watching Godsend didn't "de-gay" him for me at all because, as far as what I can remember, not only did he not express a sexual preference in THIS episode, he didn't express one in any other. However, I freely admit that a) I miss things because my kids bop around and interrupt when I'm watching and b) my gaydar is totally non-functional. A lot of the discussion stems from an interview Kring did early in the show's existence in which he stated one of the characters was gay; most speculation even then focused on Zach. Aside from the instances you cite (ie Jackie's nasty remarks), one could argue his use of the term "coming out" when he asked Claire if she was going to tell her parents about her powers and his "not a chance" denials both when Claire questioned if he was flirting with her and asked if he'd be her date to Homecoming were also indicators as to which team he played for. And while it's not strictly canon, on Zach's MySpace page (which from all appearances is run by the producers and/or NBC) he puts "not sure" for his orientation. Not to mention, if you want to get stereotypical, he lists Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Velvet Goldmine as among his favorite movies. Then, after this article appeared online Kring issued the following statement to the same web site: I am very sorry this has caused concern for the readers of your website. It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach’s character being gay. We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end. But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you stated, Heroes is a big, sprawling drama and there is no reason to believe that a gay character will not be represented on our show in the future. It is my hope than we do, we do it with honesty and dignity. That will certainly be our attempt.The last I heard, most figure the "behind the scenes" folks to be both the actor's manager and someone in the upper echelons of NBC itself. But the upshot is you're both right in saying that Zach's orientation was never made explicit, or even alluded to in any significant way. So in a way it's hard to argue they "changed" him to be straight when he wasn't ever truly established as gay to begin with. Thank you for clarifying this. So I guess what people were reacting too was this statement that was issued and not anything that was in the episode itself.
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Post by Shan on Jan 31, 2007 13:44:40 GMT -5
A lot of the discussion stems from an interview Kring did early in the show's existence in which he stated one of the characters was gay; most speculation even then focused on Zach. Aside from the instances you cite (ie Jackie's nasty remarks), one could argue his use of the term "coming out" when he asked Claire if she was going to tell her parents about her powers and his "not a chance" denials both when Claire questioned if he was flirting with her and asked if he'd be her date to Homecoming were also indicators as to which team he played for. And while it's not strictly canon, on Zach's MySpace page (which from all appearances is run by the producers and/or NBC) he puts "not sure" for his orientation. Not to mention, if you want to get stereotypical, he lists Hedwig and the Angry Itch, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Velvet Goldmine as among his favorite movies. Then, after this article appeared online Kring issued the following statement to the same web site: I am very sorry this has caused concern for the readers of your website. It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach’s character being gay. We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end. But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you stated, Heroes is a big, sprawling drama and there is no reason to believe that a gay character will not be represented on our show in the future. It is my hope than we do, we do it with honesty and dignity. That will certainly be our attempt.The last I heard, most figure the "behind the scenes" folks to be both the actor's manager and someone in the upper echelons of NBC itself. But the upshot is you're both right in saying that Zach's orientation was never made explicit, or even alluded to in any significant way. So in a way it's hard to argue they "changed" him to be straight when he wasn't ever truly established as gay to begin with. Thank you for clarifying this. So I guess what people were reacting too was this statement that was issued and not anything that was in the episode itself. And, re-reading, it seems less the writers screwing around than BEING screwed around with by the execs, so it seems I was unfair and ranty about the writers.
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Post by Sara on Jan 31, 2007 15:34:55 GMT -5
Hrm...thank you for the research, I really DO appreciate it! But my comments to the people affiliated with the show who put the material OUT there (i.e., the material that's NOT in the show): I barely have time enough to watch the show itself, nevermind spend several times the air-time each week hunting down the writers' cyber-explanations of the REAL meaning of the story, after the fact. For instance: Claire, as far as I can remember, hasn't declared her orientation one way or the other. But are there "Claireblogs" out there listing HER sexual ambivalence or favorite movies? I don't think so. I mean, one of my favorite moves is "Desert Hearts" but that doesn't make me a lesbian. It helps, of course, that she's a cheerleader, so we viewers never question her orientation. (Which may be why that one VM episode surprised us so much. ) My upshot: IMHO, if the writers can't tell the story in the time and venue alotted each week, they're not doing their job. And if it's relevant to the story, PLEASE have the character clarify their sexual orientation, or at least their ambivalence. It's not that difficult. It only takes a word or two and doesn't have to be a huge deal. If it's part of the story, just do it. If it's not part of the story, I don't care who is gay, straight or confused. They've given us enough issues to guess about that ARE relevant to the storyline; they don't need to pussyfoot around with an issue that ISN'T. Actually, Claire does have a MySpace page as well. She doesn't indicate her orientation, but she does list Gilmore Girls, The Shield and Lost among her favorite shows and Say Anything, Monsters Inc., An Inconvenient Truth, and (of course) Unbreakable as among her favorite films. Just as an aside, it's worth noting that the folks behind the show have, from the start, used the internet to tell stories they don't have time for on the show: namely, the online comics. They even introduced an entirely new character online about a month ago, featured this character in an extra scene shown during Deal or No Deal and on the NBC web site, and will finally bring them onto the show itself to interact with the characters we know and love sometime in February (I presume they'll work in the character's backstory to some extent on the show as well). I'm not saying it's necessarily the right way to go, but they've definitely been using the internet all along to enrich the story we get on our television screens. Which is why I try to share tidbits when I can in my reviews and in the discussion threads.
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Post by Shan on Jan 31, 2007 21:50:37 GMT -5
Hrm...thank you for the research, I really DO appreciate it! But my comments to the people affiliated with the show who put the material OUT there (i.e., the material that's NOT in the show): I barely have time enough to watch the show itself, nevermind spend several times the air-time each week hunting down the writers' cyber-explanations of the REAL meaning of the story, after the fact. For instance: Claire, as far as I can remember, hasn't declared her orientation one way or the other. But are there "Claireblogs" out there listing HER sexual ambivalence or favorite movies? I don't think so. I mean, one of my favorite moves is "Desert Hearts" but that doesn't make me a lesbian. It helps, of course, that she's a cheerleader, so we viewers never question her orientation. (Which may be why that one VM episode surprised us so much. ) My upshot: IMHO, if the writers can't tell the story in the time and venue alotted each week, they're not doing their job. And if it's relevant to the story, PLEASE have the character clarify their sexual orientation, or at least their ambivalence. It's not that difficult. It only takes a word or two and doesn't have to be a huge deal. If it's part of the story, just do it. If it's not part of the story, I don't care who is gay, straight or confused. They've given us enough issues to guess about that ARE relevant to the storyline; they don't need to pussyfoot around with an issue that ISN'T. Actually, Claire does have a MySpace page as well. She doesn't indicate her orientation, but she does list Gilmore Girls, The Shield and Lost among her favorite shows and Say Anything, Monsters Inc., An Inconvenient Truth, and (of course) Unbreakable as among her favorite films. Just as an aside, it's worth noting that the folks behind the show have, from the start, used the internet to tell stories they don't have time for on the show: namely, the online comics. They even introduced an entirely new character online about a month ago, featured this character in an extra scene shown during Deal or No Deal and on the NBC web site, and will finally bring them onto the show itself to interact with the characters we know and love sometime in February (I presume they'll work in the character's backstory to some extent on the show as well). I'm not saying it's necessarily the right way to go, but they've definitely been using the internet all along to enrich the story we get on our television screens. Which is why I try to share tidbits when I can in my reviews and in the discussion threads. I appreciate "enrich" but not so much "exec-wank"
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Post by Lola m on Feb 4, 2007 14:28:06 GMT -5
Erin - you always ask such good questions in your reviews!
"Godsend" really felt like it was a moment at the crossroads ep to me, so I liked how you kind of summed up where everyone was and what kind of decisions they are facing. As you said, "can those on the list actually save the world, or will they destroy it, accidentally . . .? ". I think the second half of the series will get even more ambiguous and murky on that topic. We'll explore even more of the dangerous possibilities inherent in having a whle bunch of people with powers that no one, including them, really understands.
And all this while still trying to deal with Sylar and keeping New York from blowing up.
Loved your connection of Mohinder's voiceover about imposing order on chaos to the experiences of the characters. HRG trying to control Claire, Nathan trying to control his public image, Hiro seeking the sword that could help him "control" his power and the power struggle between Niki and Jessica.
I found it very interesting, considering the theme of control, that this was the first time Peter felt unhappy about his power. The first time he saw that he might need to worry about his part in all this. Seeing, perhaps for the first time, the full implications of what Hiro would no doubt describe as "with great power comes great responsibility".
Godsend, or curse? Order, or chaos? Excellent questions, Erin! Excellent!
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Post by artemis on Feb 5, 2007 18:03:53 GMT -5
i figured that the popular kids implied zach was gay because they saw that as an insult. it seems that a lot of high schools are that way.
i never saw any evidence one way or the other of him expressing a sexual preference himself.
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Post by Queen E on Feb 12, 2007 7:06:33 GMT -5
Erin - you always ask such good questions in your reviews! Hee! Thanks for that; I have to say, I've got a lot of questions; each episode seems to open up more and more to ask! No kidding; talk about pressure! Redefining yourself plus learning how to use your power plus learning how to use your power responsibly? Yikes. We've seen the full range, from embracing (Hiro, Peter) to outright denial (Niki, Nathan). The one who seems to have had the least trouble, so to speak, is Claire; she's accepted what she can do and now seeks answers on why and what it means. Maybe because she still is a teenager and is still figuring out who she is anyway; her power represents just another piece of the puzzle. As for Peter and Hiro, that initial excitement has given way to a more sober understanding of the implications, which we've seen them deal with in subsequent episodes. Oh, definitely! How scary, especially for someone like Peter, to contemplate that he might in fact change the world by destroying it. I thought it was interesting, too, that in "Distractions," Simone makes an oblique reference to September 11 by saying that the world would "never recover" if Peter is not defused and all of New York goes up in flames. Of course, I still think that it's possible that Peter is not, in fact, the "exploding man." That his dream is not a vision, but a reflection of his fears, that he'll fail in his "great responsibility." I'll just have to wait and see! And thanks, Lola, for your excellent comments; sorry about the delay in responding!
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