Why couldn't Indiana Jones be gay?

A year and a half ago, I predicted that the next wave in gay entertainment would be gay “genre” projects: books and movies and television shows that aren't about Being Gay, but that are instead stories where the character just happens to be gay.

The Gay Story had been told — plenty of times, a few times even well. Sure, I wrote, there will always be room for another coming-out story, but for that story to break out in any way, it would have to include some fresh, new twist — not just be about another white, witty, starry-eyed misfit in the suburbs or some drug-numbed hustler lost in the big city.

If the last year and a half is any indication, I think I was right on. We've had gay mysteries (here! Networks' Donald Strachey mysteries), gay horror (Hellbent), a gay teen sex comedy (Another Gay Movie), a gay boxing movie (Fighting Tommy Riley) and even a gay science fiction movie (here! Networks' Deadly Skies, about a gay scientist, played by Antonio Sabato Jr., who helps prevent a meteor from crashing into Earth).

None of these projects are “about” the gay experience, even if the gay element sometimes adds an interesting thematic twist. Except for the gay characters, these are mostly the kinds of stories we watch when we're not busy being gay consumers.

“I think for years, gay filmmakers assumed that most gays and lesbians were ultra-sophisticated artsy types,” says Craig Chester, the director of last year's gay romantic comedy, Adam & Steve. “We found out that's not true. Most gay audiences are pretty much normal folks who have mortgages and don't have an artistic bone in their body. These audiences found that, while they appreciated queer cinema politically, they didn't love going. They were more likely to see Mrs. Doubtfire 10 times before they saw an edgy queer movie even once.”

Chester is absolutely right. But I also think these gay genre projects say something about us as a society — and not just about the rise of niche programming.

Think about it. We live in an era when an actor like Neil Patrick Harris can come out as a gay man while playing a notorious womanizer on a hit television show such as How I Met Your Mother. For a star at Harris' level, the timing is not accidental. He has weighed the evidence and decided that Americans are capable of holding two “contradictory” pieces of information in their heads at the same time.

And I think he's right on. The “gay” element isn't nearly as shocking or unusual as it used to be. It simply no longer overwhelms everything else about an actor or an entertainment project.

I see this as a sign of sophistication, of maturity. As gay people are increasingly incorporated into the fabric of American social life, we're being incorporated into mainstream entertainment as well. That's a good thing, even if mainstream entertainment itself is sometimes shockingly bad.

As for us gay people, we apparently don't need the validation that exclusively gay movies and books used to bring. That's a good thing too.