Noah's Arc: Is America ready for a Black Gay TV Drama?

Hell no. I was gonna try to soften the blow with some hopeful bullshit, but the bottom-line is ... 'hell no' just about says it. Slated to hit this fall on LOGO, Patrik-Ian Polk's steamy new drama is gonna have grandma fanning her church hat and talking to the Lord.

So yeah, hell no.

In this country . . . where people are so desperate to find meaning in their lives that they flock by the thousands to worship a curious water-stain beneath a bridge because it kinda sorta looked like somebody . . . can we expect reason to prevail? In a country . . . where over half its population believes that two boys fuckin' each other in the ass is scarier than four more years of Bush bullshit . . . can we expect compassion? In a country . . . where a nauseatingly high number of its slave descendents believe that two boys fuckin' each other in the ass is so repugnant that it actually alters the definitions of 'oppression' and 'equality' in their brains . . . do we even have a prayer? Yeah. Our own people lynched us on that one. But lesson learned. So what. So what if the Theocratic States of America isn't ready to see the lives of Black Gay Men played out on TV screens across the nation.

Fuck 'em . . . we're coming anyway.

We're coming because we're proud, and have rich cultural traditions that even we are just beginning to understand . . . we're coming because it's about fucking time we assumed our rightful position at the same table as everyone else . . . and we're also coming because we pay too goddamn much for cable to not have a TV show about us. Would white folks in Nebraska pay, if all cable offered was The Jeffersons? Why should we be the only group who has to cuddle in the shadows? Why should so many of our brethren feel pressured into being someone they're not, 'living in sin' in its truest sense? When I put my arm around my boy at the Laundromat, or at the movies . . . why do I get annoyed stares and accused of 'flaunting' my sexuality?

Fuck that. Fuck that. Fuck all that. We can't ask for shit anymore. We can't just expect people to do the right thing anymore. We have to be proud and in their face with it. Simply put . . . we just have to be.

So ... yeah ...

Noah's Arc is big. Huge. It's going to make an enormous splash in the public's face, but like even the worst of storms ... it'll blow over. Once it does the sky will be brighter, the path clearer, and the rainbow landscape of television will sport a warm, cinnamony, earth-tone. Check your local cable provider . . .