Lust and found

Is ‘Looking’ the gay ‘Girls’? Maybe. Finally, a show that tackles the subject of gayness in a way that is ultimately not about the novelty and kitsch of stereotypes.

Much has been said about Girls, the zeitgeist-conquering Lena Dunham show about four girls who untangle the 20-something experience of friendship, career, and dating in the Big Apple. Now on its third season, I find myself still actively hawking Hannah Horvath and friends who are now at a crossroads in their friendship-slash-fiend-ship. Hannah, on the other hand, is now writing advertorials for GQ while questioning the Millennial dilemma of hand-to-mouth existence versus creative fulfillment. Still a good show, in my opinion.

But what of Looking — the new HBO drama about gay dating in the modern age? Here, three gay men replace the TV trope of four single women, as they are uprooted from the concrete jungles of NYC into the trolley-hopping city locale of San Francisco. While it has been referred to by many critics as the “gay version” of Girls, and by extension, Sex and the City, not enough press, it seems, has been generated about it, at least in this country — so much so that in texting a bunch of friends if they were in on the show in the act of piecing this whole thing together, most of them replied, “Sorry. What’s Looking?” 

Well, what is Looking?

From the ground up, it’s the story of Patrick Murray, a 20-something video game designer played by Spring Awakening star Jonathan Groff, who is looking for love, or at least, intimacy alongside “boy-pals” Agustin, a frisky, sexually adventurous artist type who can’t seem to bottle up his baby gravy, and Dom, a wine waiter hitting his 40s who is trying to get his restaurant business up and running. Premiering to not-so-impressive ratings in the States, the show eventually gains steam as a HBO hit that goes beyond the surface of what I call, the “shock and bull” of the gay experience.

I never really got around to watching Queer as Folk or even The L Word in my younger years — what you could consider to be Looking’s pop cultural predecessors. Locally, I didn’t get to catch My Husband’s Lover either. I did get to catch a full season of The New Normal by TV scribe Ryan Murphy right before it met its TV death, the show about longtime partners who have enlisted the help of a surrogate to birth them a child. I found the show a tad bit cheesy and ideological at times, which might explain its cancellation. Interestingly enough, I was able to follow Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for the sheer entertainment of it. Also, the legit tips that the likes of grooming guru Kyan Douglas would dish out to the everyman were, safe to say, illuminating for a high school student back in the day. One really must know the proper way to shave. But I digress.

What drew me to Looking however was not so much that my 20-something self had eased into his sexuality, unlike before. Rather, it’s that the show tackles the subject of gayness in a way that is finally not about the novelty and kitsch of popular stereotypes, or the insular, rather reductive call of the flesh, or the thin line that gays often have to walk in matters of friendship, career, and dating. No, it veers away from that, not to mention, not having to be an automatic springboard for the advancement of gay rights or a placeholder for polarity in which a viewer is required to elucidate his “fifty shades of gay” into a value position of what is and what should be. No, Looking is a show about what is.

Creator Andrew Haigh talks to The Atlantic about the show’s transcendence: “I think that the struggle and search for intimacy and connection is such a universal one, and it’s what we wanted to focus on. There’s this idea that if you watch a show about a bunch of gay people and you’re not gay, it’s not going to reflect your life. But of course it reflects your life.” As with the very act of dating and finding love in contemporary society itself, it is this quality that has reeled in viewers from all walks of life.

A fellow fan of the show, jewelry designer and Supreme contributing editor Gabbie Tatad, hits the nail on the head. “Other shows that predominantly explore relationships (gay or otherwise) have a certain focus on sex, and while that is also present in Looking, this show tends to give a bit more face time to the other aspects of a relationship.” It’s a brave reversal of that concept of having to give head to get ahead. She lights up about the fifth episode (spoiler alert) where the main character Patrick ditches work to spend a whole day getting to know a guy he was just starting to get serious with. “I think it’s one of those parts in the beginning of a relationship that is so often glazed over in popular media when it is actually so important in real life.” She emphasizes that not everything starts off from a point of sexual attraction nor do things always begin with a 100-percent romantic overtone.

Another enthusiast of the show, theater actor Topper Fabregas, who is currently appearing in Red Turnip’s Cock, a biting comedy that tackles the gray areas and intricacies of modern-day dating, agrees with Gabbie in that the show sits comfortably on the side of real rather than the reel, a far cry from the cliché that Queer as Folk ended up being. “I like how Looking kinda goes against that (maybe a little too much). The people in it resemble ‘real’ people — people I actually know. And the friendships really ring true for me.” He relates most to Patrick’s character, saying, “It really changes when you approach your 30s — which is an odd transition. You’re not really looking for just the fun stuff anymore… Your priorities have changed.” For him though, it’s a push and pull between being too young to settle and being too old for the fun and games.

What Looking as a show is able to achieve is a form of easing or relaxation into the gay experience, a workaday look into what gay men would normally go through in matters of friendship, career, and dating; that is, not making a big fuss over the fact that the characters are gay (“OMG, why are those two men kissing?” Seriously, get over it!), rather that they are people who go through the same ebb and flow that everyone does — straight or otherwise (“OMG, why is he kissing someone else?” Girl, you have a boyfriend!)

These ruminations made me think about the time my partner and I celebrated our anniversary and I posted this really long status message on my Instagram, as well as a collage of our photos from the past year. To me, it was a genuine act of expression. To this older gentleman who I was friends with on Facebook, it was an eye opener, a courageous act, an act of nobility, of valiance, an act for the ages. He could only “hope to follow suit when the clock turns ‘1’” — whatever that meant.

I appreciated the sentiment but it also made me wonder. Maybe it was a generational thing. He hails from a time when the “gay thing” was considered taboo and I’m fortunate enough to be of a generation where it’s as everyday as the act of living — kind of like the world where the men of Looking reside. It’s hit-the-ground-running as opposed to breaking it gently to the cultural continuum, which is probably the gauntlet that shows like Queer as Folk, or even The L Word, had to deal with. But to echo what Keith Urban said when he, Harry Connick and J.Lo put MK Nobilette, a lesbian, into the American Idol Top 30, “(The) world is changing.” She walked away into the elevator as he looked on with googly eyes. Yes, Keith. And yes, America, the world is changing. It totally is.