A Queen always beats a Straight

Since all my blog entries seem to be about television shows lately it must mean one thing...May sweeps! Tonight marks the series finale of "Will & Grace" on NBC. As previously established here on ol' Bloggy McBloggerson, I do live in an urban bleeding heart bubble. So when a show hit the airwaves eight years ago about a gay man and his straight female roommate I wasn't scandalized, or even all that interested. Don't hate me for my limited world view. It just didn't seem like that big of a deal. A season or two in I caught an episode and was hooked by the sharp writing and how they captured that catty, sparkling and often shallow world of fags and their hags. I especially liked that they also managed to work some real character development in there without sacrificing "the funny". They did deal with some heavy stuff, but you never felt like you were watching a "very special" episode of "Will & Grace". The cast was all top notch and the guest stars including Gregory Hines, Harry Connick Jr and perhaps funnier than anyone, ever, Alec Baldwin, made the show worth watching. It sure as hell didn't hurt that James Burrows directed every single episode they ever shot.

There has been buzz that the finale will be more "far reaching" than most which makes me suspect they're going to go all "Mad About You" on our asses and do some time jumping...hopefully it doesn't have the sad, melancholy tone that one did. I didn't even really care about the characters on "Mad About You" and that finale made me want to slit my wrists!

There has been a lot of talk in the media about how "Will & Grace" isn't relevant anymore. When I see these stories and oped pieces I'm reminded of two things. One: that I didn't think it was relevant *at all* in the beginning and Two: how wrong I was.

You see, five years ago I worked for in post production and distribution for a film company that worked in large format (like Imax, kind of). I was in charge of operating the large format film projector in our office's screening room. Really big film, really big projector and usually, really big technical problems. One day, I had a technical problem and called our tech support guy who should have done one of two things; walked me through the problem over the phone or tell me that it was not fixable and to give up. Those were his options. Instead, he went with this, "I think your negative energy is affecting the equipment.  Will you say a prayer with me right now over the phone so we can send the equipment the right messages?".  When I turned him down he got all snotty with me. So, I offended a co-worker because I refused to pray over a machine with him.   Banner day for me. A few weeks later he came into the office to give me a crash course on repairing the equipment. We sat in the dark of the screening room and he told me he got rid of his TV that week. Because TV was what was wrong with this society. Because instead of shows like "Leave it to Beaver" we were stuck with things like "that garbage Will & Grace where a gay man lives with a straight woman!" This smelly, hateful, born again, homophobic ASSCLOWN was actually angry that a show like "Will & Grace" was on the air. He blamed it for the downfall of society! I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, I wanted to come up with a really good lesbian joke about "Leave it to Beaver". Instead, I told him that the year before, on Halloween, my friend Chelsea and I went to a costume party as two characters from "Will & Grace" - Karen Walker and her maid Rosario. I told him that I got drunk on martinis and that all the gay guys there thought my tits were fabulous.

OK, I didn't say that last bit, about my tits, even though it was true.

So, "Will & Grace" was relevant and more importantly, it was well crafted, funny television that gained an audience far larger than the bigots would assume. Families, kids, old people, straight and gay alike have enjoyed this show over the last eight years. I like that kind of quiet, humour laced progress. Almost as much as I like a good martini. And my fabulous tits.