A Note on "Will and Grace"

Recently, I attended a lecture by two actors in a film, sponsored by my school's gay-straight alliance . I have not seen the film, but from what I gathered, one of its goals was to portray gay sex realistically on film.

One of the actors said that while the character of "Jack" on Will and Grace could have been powerful, it really was not, because Sean Hayes, the actor playing Jack, had not yet come out of the closet. This was upon the heels of a discussion about how there was a stigma on gay men in Hollywood/the acting industry.

I can see where the actor is coming from: Sean Hayes was in a position to be a role-model for GLBT men and women, to show that you could be GLBT* and succeed in Hollywood, that the character of "Jack" was acceptable on-screen as well as off. Instead, maybe he even became the symbol of shame at being GLBT, or of repressing one's identity. He did come out and openly embrace his sexuality after the show was over, by the way.

I think that maybe Sean Hayes embodied a contradiction between obligation to self (career and not wanting stigma of being labeled as gay) and obligation to community (ability to serve as role-model). This contradiction expresses itself in many different ways for many people who belong to many different communities. In my own life, I sometimes feel this contradiction, but it is all subsumed under the rubric of my relationship to God, because ultimately, if my purpose is to serve Him, then I must ask myself about my relationship to myself and my community as ways of growing closer to God.**

I think this contradiction appears on a microcosmic level when it comes to our relationships with our families, who are our micro-communities. Balancing our relationships with ourselves and our families is a very hard task - which is probably why it is one of the Ten Commandments, and one of the two commandments for which God promises long life. ***

I have also been wondering something else about community: If we identify with a communities values and goals, as well as with community members, and actively work to advance those goals and to engage in positive and meaningful relationships with the community members, do we get to identify ourselves as part of that community? If I have many African-American friends, live in a predominantly African-Ameircan neighborhood, and am working to fight defacto segregation in Baltimore, can I identify myself as part of the African-American community? If I go to shul every week, most of my friends are Jewish, and I run a pro-Israel blog, but I was born and remain a practicing Christian, can I identify myself as part of the Christian community? If I have many GLBT friends, love reading GLBT fiction****, and spend my spare time advocating for GLBT rights, and can I identify myself as the GLBT community?

To take this a step further: In the cases mentioned above, can I identify myself as African-American, as Jewish, or as GLBT? In a post-modern world, where there is no objective arbiter of right and wrong, and where each person has the right to define themselves, it would seem the answer is yes. and yet I am not sure if that is an answer I feel comfortable with.

For the record, I do believe in God as sole arbiter as right or wrong, but am applying post-modern standards in this note because they are the standards used most often by current secular society, and I have no wish to impose my religious views on the reader.


* That's gay, bi, lesbian, transgender. Apologies to people who identify as queer or other identities that are not in the acronym.
** When did I become such a religious fanatic? Someone get me a pair of Castro jeans!
*** The other one is not taking baby birds from the nest while the mother bird is there. There arguments on a) why these two b) what does this show about mercy and animal rights in Judaism? c) is long life metaphoric?
**** flawed: How does one define GLBT fiction? using the expression "trans fiction" however, would have continued the FALSE equation society makes, that trans=gay