‘Queer as Folk’ cast backs Spectrum

While cast members of Showtime’s Queer as Folk discussed the effects of television homosexuality on America last night, Spectrum sought to gain more support in its fight to add sexual orientation to Boston University’s nondiscrimination policy.

Spectrum President Emily Lyman and Vice President Jasmine Gillen-Smith asked cast members to sign their petition. BU alumnus Peter Paige, who plays Emmet on the show, Michelle Clunie (Melanie), Thea Gill (Lindsey) and Scott Lowel (Ted) signed the petition.

“Of course it’s gonna take a fight, I think,” Paige said after the event. “It seems to me that it’s an obvious, human right. If BU would like to move itself into the 21st century, they need to recognize the world we live in, and protect every student who wishes to enroll here.”

Paige said the BU community today and eight years ago has a similarity: gay students.

“I knew a lot of gay students when I was here, and I have no doubt that there are any number of gay students here now who need to be served the way any other member of the student body should be served,” he said.

Beside the added Spectrum support, the cast told a packed Morse Auditorium of the difficulty acting in a “gay” labeled show. A Vice President of the Alumni Board of Directors, BU students and faculty, and Boston residents attended the event.

“The journey we have been through with the show is a microcosm of the journey that is going on in the world, with prejudice, with homophobia, with people not being comfortable with their sexuality,” said Clunie, who is part of a lesbian couple on the show. “I think we’ve all gone through a personal journey.”

Lowel said after he was cast on the show, he was asked not to appear in a series of commercials he was involved with before his work on “Queer as Folk.” He said he felt the only reason he wasn’t asked to return was because of the show.

“As many doors as it is opening, and as much as it is eliminating a lot phobias, when you’re dealing with corporate America, you still have a long way to go, unfortunately,” Lowel said. “There is a danger in doing this kind of show in America.”

Audience members questioned one of the show’s story lines, which portrayed a teenage male with an older man. The audience was also critical of the amount of sex and nudity on screen, which includes full-frontal nudity and anal sex.

“I think the story of Justin and Brian is a real one,” Lowel said. “I think many gay men began their initiation into a gay life with older men. It’s not an unusual thing.”

Clunie said sex on “straight” television shows is just as graphic as the sex on “Queer as Folk” and shouldn’t be criticized.

“We’ve seen a lot of sex coming from men and women, but I guess when you do it with two men or two women all of a sudden people go, ‘Oh, this is a porno,’” Clunie said. “It’s interesting to me, the walls we still have to break down.”

Clunie said more understanding and learning is needed to accept shows depicting homosexuals.

“If it was a series about violence or bloodshed or guns, we wouldn’t be talking about it,” Clunie said. “It would be no big deal. We have seen it so many times, we are numb to guns, numb to violence.”