The article, “Will and Grace: Negotiating (Gay) Marriage on Prime-Time Television”, suggests this article is about relationships between two gay people, and at some point marriage between the two. That is not at all way this is about. This article is the author’s take on the true meaning behind the show “Will and Grace”, and how it portrays the ever changing relationship style of today. We are first introduced to Will and Grace, a gay man and straight woman, who are best friends. In the show they are both identified as single, but they actually may not be. To some viewers and to themselves, they are seen as a couple. They share the same interests, know and understand the little details about one another, and have an unbreakable emotional bond. This is the modern day definition of a healthy and loving relationship. The only thing they are missing is the physical aspect. Will and Grace seem to have everything everyone looks for in a relationship, minus sex.
The author also very lightly touches on the supporting characters of Jack, a homosexual man, and Karen a heterosexual woman. They seem to carry the roles of everything Will and Grace are living without in their relationship, just to the extent beyond what any normal person would. Jack is not discussed much, other than the fact that he is a stereotypical “gay man”. The one thing that was used to bring Jack’s character to life and explain his personal dynamic is this article is the mention of the very erotic gay porn he wrote and gave to Karen to read. Karen, on the other hand is an exaggerated depiction of what a straight woman should be, except for the fact that she has taken on the role of the man in her relationship, and not a very good man. Karen is a heightened sense of everything that Grace is not. She is a woman that could care less about the emotional part of the relationships, the thing Grace cares most about, and sees her marriage as a money for sex contract. She finds her fulfillment in her husband’s money and things that may seem outrageous to some, such as Jack’s gay porn.
We also learn from this article that this show became such a mainstream success because it talked to so many different audiences. Although the primary audience was twenty-something women and gay men, it became a highly rated Emmy Award winning comedy because it reached so many other people. One reason for the expanded viewership is because there was always that question of will Will and Grace ever get married. Their emotional relationship is so strong that people wondered throughout if they would be able to forever sacrifice the physical aspect of the relationship to spend their lives together. Or will the physical desire somehow make its away in and “turn Will straight”? In the pilot episode, Grace actually called Will her soul mate when they were in a straight bar together and the people in the bar thought they had gotten married. It seemed as though she meant it as well. In relating back to the primary audience though, the show was intriguing. This show gave young single women a new outlook on relationships and went against everything they had been taught about the standard heterosexual marriage. It showed that a person can find someone to share their life with that may not meet the standard of the classic heterosexual relationship or even homosexual relationship. This show also gave a face to the gay culture that had not yet been explored to this extent. Will and Grace had something to offer just about everyone.
This article also brought up what could be the scarier side of any relationship. Is there something out there strong enough to end the relationship? Since Will and Grace technically are not a couple, in the normal or legal sense of the word, having no children, marriage license, or mortgage, Grace becomes worried that when she and Will each start dating someone they will no long be in each other’s lives. She flirts with the idea that she and Will are only together because they have no one else, primarily Will, and when he finds that someone else she will be cast aside and will lose her best friend. To try to form that bond she convinces Will to purchase a piano with her to bring a sense of “family” into their world. She feels that if they have a physical object together that will hold them together, as a “normal couple might look at children”, there would be less chance that they would leave each other. By the end of that episode she and Will are sitting at the piano singing The Captain and Tennille’s, “Love Will Keep Us Together”. This is Wills way of letting her know, just as a husband might, that they don’t need material things to keep the relationship going. Their love for each other will keep them together no matter how their lives change and grow. This again can be interpreted a few different ways. For the more conservative group that keep the hope that the relationship will grow into something more, this may be a sign that Will’s spark for Grace is burning stronger and becoming harder to fight. For the people that have embraced the queerness of their relationship, they see that Will and Grace will be soul mates and connected forever, no matter where the world may take them.
Finally, the article goes back to the supporting characters and how they are affected by Will and Grace’s relationship, specifically Grace’s marriage to Leo and what it does to Karen. Even though Leo has to leave the country and the dynamic of the group doesn’t change all that much, Karen takes the marriage as a breakup of Will and Grace. The author compares her to a child in the middle of their parent’s divorce. Although Karen is seen as the one person in the show that takes personal relationships seriously the least, she is the one hurt by the change in Will and Grace’s relationship. At one point they sit down and speak to her as if she were their child and explained to her that things are different but they still both love her and will be there for her always. This also solidifies the bond the two of them have with each other. This fact is also apparent to Grace’s husband Leo before he leaves, as he enlists the help of Will when Grace is moody or wants to talk clothes and sales. These are all things that he could care less about but understands that Will can fill that void.
The point of the article as well as the show is to let people see the other side of love and life and that not everyone will find that storybook life. Everyone is different and it’s ok to embrace those differences. Deep down some people still wanted the finale of the show to center around Will and Grace finally realizing they are meant for each other and profess their love. It didn’t happen that way though and if it would have it would have gone against everything the series stood for. Families do not have to share a blood line or consist of a man and woman getting married. A family is the group a group of people that love and support each other. They take each other for which they are nothing more nothing less and accept only that.
The movie The Proposal follows the classic formula for Romance. This movie starts just as most romantic comedies. The two main characters don't necessarily like each other but are thrown together in an akward situation and forced to not only get along but pretend they are in love. That, of course, leads to them really falling head over heals for eachother. Just after they realize that they really have formed a bond and loving relationship, something threatens to come between them. They are forced to explained to everyone why they lied and that their feelings are real now. This movie, as well as most, have several querky characters and strange situations.
