That's why I hated the Ben/Michael marriage plot in Season Four. In my mind, Michael is so attached to Brian he'd never make that ultimate commitment to anybody else. (Or even make it with Brian, for that matter. They're relationship doesn't need conventional labels like marriage because it transcends such.)
But also, it seemed like Michael was giving in to everything everyone had been telling him all along, that his happiness was to be found in a relationship that resembles white-picket-fence heteronormativity as much as possible. And I've yet to see any indication that he has much more in common with Ben than he did with David. Superheroes aside, half the time Ben treats him just as condescendingly as the good doctor ever did. As Vic pointed out in one of my favorite scenes ever, Ben is just a substitute for Brian. But in the last couple of seasons, Cowlip seems to have forgotten that.
Clearly, as best friends of nearly twenty years, Brian and Michael have a much deeper relationship with each other than they ever had with any of their lovers. Sadly, Cowlip seems bent in the final two seasons on undermining this relationship completely in favor of the conventional B/J and Be/M romances. It's the exact same message every sickeningly conventional romance plot of the last 500 years has crammed down our throats--that nothing, nothing is as important as erotic love. All other attachments must bow down before it.
In doing this, Cowlip has totally betrayed everything Russell Davies ever tried to do with the original British Queer as Folk, which was all about rejecting the hard-and-fast heterosexual relationship models that so rarely work for heterosexuals, let alone gays.
no subject
But also, it seemed like Michael was giving in to everything everyone had been telling him all along, that his happiness was to be found in a relationship that resembles white-picket-fence heteronormativity as much as possible. And I've yet to see any indication that he has much more in common with Ben than he did with David. Superheroes aside, half the time Ben treats him just as condescendingly as the good doctor ever did. As Vic pointed out in one of my favorite scenes ever, Ben is just a substitute for Brian. But in the last couple of seasons, Cowlip seems to have forgotten that.
Clearly, as best friends of nearly twenty years, Brian and Michael have a much deeper relationship with each other than they ever had with any of their lovers. Sadly, Cowlip seems bent in the final two seasons on undermining this relationship completely in favor of the conventional B/J and Be/M romances. It's the exact same message every sickeningly conventional romance plot of the last 500 years has crammed down our throats--that nothing, nothing is as important as erotic love. All other attachments must bow down before it.
In doing this, Cowlip has totally betrayed everything Russell Davies ever tried to do with the original British Queer as Folk, which was all about rejecting the hard-and-fast heterosexual relationship models that so rarely work for heterosexuals, let alone gays.
Okay, now I'm ranting, so I'll stop. :)