Meta: Gay New York (Rules s3)-- DFvQ

[xandromedovna]

CW homophobia, biphobia, sexual harassment, hostile work environment, racism

As originally conceived, Rules was intended to be a show about heterosexuals doing straight people stuff. And while there are references to queerness in the first two seasons, there are few explicitly queer characters. Because the first two seasons were establishing the characters’ relationships to each other, their relationships to others outside their group weren’t really explored. But with s3, we start to see them interact more with the world around them, and given they live in NYC, their social context is a lot queerer than they might have expected. The queer characters in Rules are often props to showcase the characters’ tolerance for difference (or lack thereof) instead of complex subjects in their own right, but this does change somewhat as the show progresses, especially if you consider some of the mains to be queer.

 

Even in the first season, we know that gay people exist in this universe (which should be a given but in 2000s shows very much wasn’t). Jeff is on a softball team and mentions a lesbian who plays with them, although “for as bad as she was, she may as well have been straight” (1x7). In later seasons we meet her (Brenda will be getting her own post) when she agrees to be the surrogate for Audrey and Jeff. Brenda does have on-screen relationships and is allowed to express attraction to other characters, but as a recurring character she doesn’t usually get sustained attention other than as a plot device for Jeff and Audrey.

But until then, the first three episodes of s3 induct us into a much queerer New York than we’ve seen so far. In 3x1, titled “Russell’s Secret”, Audrey discovers that Russell’s a closet theatre queen: loves Broadway musicals, edits a Bernadette Peters fanzine, the works. He tries to hide this from the guys but predictably Jeff finds out. Meanwhile, Adam and Jennifer are taking dance lessons, and many of their problems stem from the fact that they’re making Adam lead and Jennifer follow when it would likely work much better the other way around. We know this because, to Jennifer’s frustration, Adam and the male instructor (with Adam as follow) have much better dancing chemistry than him and Jennifer, which Russell and Jeff also find out about. Audrey calls out the homophobia of the boys’ supposed friendships:

Audrey: For one brief shining moment I had theatre buddy Russell and sweet husband Jeff, and then just like that it’s back to ‘you have feelings’, ‘you like things’, ‘you’re gay’, ‘no you’re gay’, what are you guys, 8? […] Shut up! Why are all male friendships based on insulting each other, huh? I think it’s very sad that you go through life just looking for ways to cut each other down. (3x1)

The next episode introduces us to Timmy, Russell’s new male assistant since he is now forbidden from having female assistants. (Ironically, this does not stop him from sexually harassing him.) When Timmy and Russell first meet, both of them identify as straight. However, even in their next episode together they are romantically paired, if only as queerbait. This will become a theme throughout the show, but the party at which they pretend to be together is illustrative of their entire dynamic. Before we talk about that party though, we need to introduce its hosts.

In the next episode, Jeff makes a new friend, Brad, at the gym, whom Audrey and Jennifer immediately clock as gay. When Jeff is awkward about having a gay friend, Audrey accuses him of being homophobic. He tries to combat this claim by going with Brad and his gay friends to a bar with Adam in tow. What’s interesting about this arrangement is that Jeff is noticeably out of his element whereas Adam fits right in. Adam is at ease sipping his ‘girly’ drink until he gets noticeably embarrassed by Jeff’s homophobic antics. The bi coding of Adam plays out as unintelligibility in this space; it’s clear from his “heat-seeking” shirt and preening in the mirror that he’s trying to get sexual attention from the other guys, if only to prove how cool and attractive he is considering he has a fiancée (3x3). When Brad tries to set Adam up with his friend, Jeff tries to set the record, well, straight:

Brad: What do you think about Adam and Roger?
Jeff: Yeah no no no, Adam’s not gay.
[they watch Adam check himself out in the mirror]
Brad: Are you sure?
Jeff: No, I’m not.
Brad: I just can’t tell anymore, and that haircut doesn’t exactly scream “I like girls”. (3x3)

Whereas Jeff’s discomfort in the space shores up his heterosexuality, albeit through homophobia, Adam’s comfort in the space reads to the others not as tolerance but queer belonging. This points out how heterosexuality is primarily defined by its incompatibility with if not hostility towards queerness.

Brad and his partner Jackie become recurring characters throughout the season up until Audrey and Jeff mortally offend them at a dinner. Brad and Jackie are a somewhat stereotypical masc/fem couple, where Brad is a ‘guy’s guy’ (so much so Jeff doesn’t clock him) and Jackie is a nelly queen, which simultaneously shows the breadth of queer experience but also conforms to heteronormative models of gender roles in relationships. Similar to many of the gay characters in Will & Grace (NBC, 1998-2006, 2017-2020)—also set in NYC and the most successful queer show to date when Rules premiered—Brad and Jackie are affluent with large social networks. The best illustration of this is the party they throw in their apartment that all the leads attend as well as many of Brad’s clients and their dates. While Jeff and Audrey are busy hiding from Jennifer and Adam, Russell is hitting on all the women as Timmy chases after him trying to prevent him from getting kicked out of the party. As a cover, Russell tells their hosts and an annoyed Jerry Rice that he and Timmy are lovers, which frustrates Timmy:

Timmy: Why am I pouting in the corner? Well, sir, it might be because they’re out of the bacon-wrapped scallops I so enjoy, or, perhaps it’s because everyone in the room thinks I’m a voracious, insatiable homosexual who can’t do any better than you. (3x5)

When Timmy gets fed up with Russell’s bullshit, he storms out of the party shouting, “I am from SOUTH FREAKING AFRICA!” (3x5). This causes Jerry to try and set Russell up with his friend Matt. (And no, Timmy and Russell don’t resolve anything this episode, which is a theme for them.) The next episode, Audrey and Timmy have a plot that uses their workplace drama as a metaphor for a bi affair. Audrey begs Timmy to leave Russell and come work for her, culminating in a car scene in the rain where Audrey realizes, “you are never going to leave him, are you?” (3x6). Thus in Timmy’s first three appearances, he’s set up as Russell’s love interest both metaphorically and literally, but because he’s a man, this function is refracted through corporate culture and comedy.

At any rate, the addition of Timmy, Brad, and Jackie provides opportunities for the leads to find themselves in queer spaces. The gay bar and house party they attend with Brad and Jackie spatialize queerness in ways that decentre the previous heteronormativity of the first two seasons, although ultimately reinscribing it by the fleeting nature of the focus on these spaces. A similar approach surfaces in the episode where Russell and Jennifer send Adam on a wild goose chase to a lesbian bar. Ironically, Adam is a hit there: “got some bad news, your man’s gone lesbo” (3x12). Between this and Jennifer running into her ex Patty, the episode juxtaposes the two M/F relationships and their respective discomforts in queer places; Jeff is uncomfortable because he and Audrey don’t quite belong—Jennifer is uncomfortable because she and Adam do.

Ultimately, s3 seems intent on showing that despite Jeff’s ‘everyman’ characterization, he’s not bigoted (at least intentionally) and can tolerate life in a city where women are people, people of colour exist, and queers are normal. While these characters are ultimately in service of the character development of a cishet white man, they also leave space for a world much more diverse than implied by the previous seasons.