Ask the Flying Monkey! (August 10, 2009)

Have a question about gay male entertainment? Ask the Monkey! (Please include your city and state and/or country.)

Q: Oh wise and airborne simian, I've noted the massive number of posts on Torchwood over the last couple of weeks, and I wonder if it hasn’t generated more posts than any other topic on After Elton.com. If it hasn't, what subject has? -- Hayden, London, UK

Captain Jack says goodbye to Ianto in Torchwood: Children of Earth

A: First, your salutation made me laugh. Second, the answer is unequivocally yes, nothing else has ever come close to the interest we’ve seen in Torchwood’s “Children of Earth”mini-series – specifically creator Russell T Davies’ decision to kill off the gay character of Ianto. By now, we’ve all made our opinions known ad nauseum, so I won’t get into that again.

But I’ve also talked with a lot of the folks involved with the show, and I confess I’m surprised by what seems to be a serious disconnect. They all insist that there is nothing widespread or organic about the negative response we’ve seen here at AfterElton.com – that it’s just a few big-mouthed nay-sayers, and that it’s all just an irreverent tempest in a teapot anyway.

They’re welcome to their opinion, but it sure doesn’t seem like it to me.

Q: I was just wondering if John Cho has ever played any gayroles? -- Megan,NY

A: Some people saw a gay subtext in Cho’s 2005 series Kitchen Confidential, about mostly male chefs at a New York restaurant (some also saw gay subtext in Cho’s break-out roles in American Pie and Harold & Kumar, but that’s a whole other story!).

The handsome actor also had a small role in bisexual director Gregg Araki’s 2007 stoner comedy Smiley Face, and Sulu, the heterosexual character he plays in the new Star Trek, was originally played by a now-openly-gay actor.

But has he ever played an openly gay character? As chance would have it, I happened to see John just last weekend, at an event where he was promoting his new series Flash Forward (which, for the record, is pretty good).

When I asked him if he'd ever played a gay character, he had to think for a long time. But finally, he did remember one. "It was a short film called Among Others," he says, that came out in 2000.

I asked him if his boastful, over-sexed loser-character in the 2001 series Off Centre might have been a latent homosexual. "Not to my knowledge!" he says. 

Anyway, he’s overdue to play another gay guy, don't you think?

John Cho

Next page! What to read into Rob Thomas' man crush, plus catching up with Adamo Ruggiero.