Chron.com – By Roger Catlin – Hartford Courant
Gay people on TV are old hat.
By now, Entertainment Weekly reports this week, 61 percent of college freshmen, who grew up with Will & Grace, approve of gay marriage. The finding in the national poll is up 10 percentage points from a decade ago.
A turn around the dial will bring you gay story lines in daytime soap operas, same-sex dating on MTV shows like Next and A Shot of Love With Tila Tequila, and prominent gay characters on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters and several cable shows — FX’s Nip/Tuck, HBO’s The Wire and Showtime’s The L Word.
Suspected of being gay is no longer the guaranteed laugh it was on TV anymore, even on macho shows like Two and a Half Men. And characters like George on Grey’s Anatomy or Barney on How I Met Your Mother can be credible as virtual Lotharios, even though they are played by gay men.