One Utah

I admit it - I’m hooked on BBc America’s Torchwood. I’m not the only one - apparently it’s their highest rated show. Last night’s episode Captain Jack Harkness was one of the best they’ve done yet, demonstrating their usual mix of sci-fi and character growth; Torchwood is also unique in having an openly gay man, playing an openly gay character as their leading man. John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack, is an out and proud gay man.  His charater, Captain Jack, was originally written as a bisexual who prefers men but we have yet to see his character (in Torchwood at least) actually connect sexually or romantically with a woman.  In the episode, They Keep Killing Suzie, he says to Gwen, “I had a boyfriend once who used to come into a room like that.  He was a twin.  Twin acrobats . . . . I’ve got to write that book . . .” 

In the latest episode, Captain Jack Harkness, set in the 1940s, Captain Jack meets the real Captain Jack Harkness and we learn he stole his identity to pull off a con job.  In the course of the episode, Captain Jack and the real Jack Harkness make a short, but very real emotional connection - including a gentle, tenuous hand holding, a series of shared smiles and glances and, at long last, a dance and a passionate yearning kiss.  It was a perfect and - for almost gay person - eminently recognizable moment.  The actors did a brilliant job of portraying the emotions of the moment.  The real Captain Jack Harkness - in the moment the two men stepped together to dance - laid his head on Jack’s shoulder, closed his eyes  and had an expression of utter fulfillment and peace.

It is “that moment” that so many gay people can recount with a sense of utter release.  “The first time I kissed a man . . .” or “the first time I danced with a woman . . .”  It’s a moment in which one at long last is able to simply be one’s self.  It resonates into the core of one’s being.

Torchwood has an honest sexual quality to its plots and characters - Russell T. Davies who created it refuses to call it Doctor Who for adults but it’s an accurate description.  Rather than sensationalistic, Captain Jack’s sexuality is treated in a very matter of fact way, as is the sexuality of the other characters.  Gwen’s relationship with Rhys is portrayed in an honest and at times painful way - they both the relationship changing and failing but cannot bring themselves to acknolwedge it.  They fight, they love, and when Gwen has sex with someone else, she feels the need to confess.  Rhys’ resulting anger is both understandable and tragic - a wedge between them when what she really  needs it forgiveness since she’s already angry enough at herself for both of them.  When Owen falls in love with Dianne - and loses her - he is willing to do anything, risk anything, including the destruction of the world, to get her back.  Ianto breaks every written and moral rule to save his girlfriend.  Tosh breaks the rules when she falls in love, risking her career, her life, he safety.  Again and again, Torchwood asks: What would you do for love?  And again and again the answer is - anything no matter how much it hurts. 

So when Captain Jack and Jack Harkness step together into that dance and the room falls silent and they kiss and then are parted, we are reminded - anything for love.  Life is too short to not do anything for real love, real happiness.  And the price of real happiness is at times high, but it doesn’t have to be and a fleeting moment can be as long as an eternity.

A great many of the people involved in creating and writing Torchwood are openly gay.  The moment when the men dance together is “that moment” that so many gay people experience - a moment of suddenly letting go of repression and embracing themselves.  That first tenuous love affair, with its yearning and aching quality, the first exchange of understanding glances, the first touch of skin on skin, the kiss - they aren’t the experiences heterosexuals can know for the simple reason that few if any heterosexuals ever deny that portion of their identity.

Andrew Sullivan wrote once that even in a completely gay friendly society, gay people will feel a sense of dislocation.  To at long last be free to dance with the person to whom you are attracted, to feel safe enough to kiss them, is an experience instantly recognizable to gay persons - a moment of sudden and unexpected wholeness.  It’s not about sex - it’s about self.

This entry was posted Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 1:02 pm and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Human Rights, Queer, Sex, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.