Tobias 's Queen Mary

[prog]

Has anyone written a treatise on the (male) homoeroticism of Arrested Development? Once the show gets going, it has gay-sexy-jokey streaming from no fewer than three characters. At first you're like, "Boy, this show sure does like to wink at teh gay", but then you see that this humor is textured entirely differently for each of the three; it's not (entirely) the "ha ha good thing we're not gay" stuff that any guy-oriented sitcom can sledgehammer around for a cheap laugh. The writers put a lot of thought into making it nuanced. (And funny enough that I laugh like an ape.)

I'm starting to suspect that Gob was supposed to be openly bisexual, and that it just never come up as an overt statement during in-show conversation. (Then again I'm only midway through season 2.)

Comments

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well, it's very specifically a running joke with Tobias that pretty much everything he says and does suggests that he's into men, starting with Episode One (when he's on the boat with the drag queens). I suspect it's no coincidence that David Cross himself is gay.

I don't remember it with the other characters, but I'll believe you.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It it were just that running joke with Tobias, I wouldn't find it noteworthy in this way. But there's also the Bluth's lawyer, who continually drops references (albeit often with the narrator and editor's help) to his after-hours adventures, and Gob, with his matter-of-fact connections with the "Hot Cops" troupe (which nobody ever asks him about) and occasional brief scenes where he appears to be flirting with one of them.

That's a whole lotta gay for a rather small character ensemble, is all I'm sayin'.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's no coincidence that David Cross himself is gay.

This is news to me... he says in mail to Gawker that he "was in a 3 and a half year long relationship with [his] girlfriend". But maybe that was a joke?

Portia de Rossi, however, is gay (currently living with Ellen Degeneres).

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Hm. With Cross, it's perhaps hard to tell when he's being serious. I suspect I was in fact fooled by one or another of his implications (or assertions?) that he's gay. Apparently he did date Mary Lynn Rajskub, with whom he worked on Mr. Show. So, there you are.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Another David Cross quote: "I used to go on stage in 'character' and try to get the audience believing that I was gay, or nervous, or retarded, or whatever and make the place get uncomfortable before continuing."