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Neighbours character comes out

Spoiler: A gay male character comes out on Neighbours this week -but it isn't the first to appear in the soap.

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Spoiler: This week a teenage male character on Neighbours will come out, in a storyline move that is sure to attract some attention.

Episodes last week showed Chris (James Mason) dealing with some personal issues and promos indicate a “secret” is revealed this week.

A same-sex kiss on Home and Away was hotly debated in the media last year, despite Neighbours handling a similar situation quite well with Lana Crawford (Bridget Neval) in 2004.

While female characters have been more prominent in Erinsborough, this will not be the first inclusion of a gay male, despite some suggestions in the press.

In 1994 Andrew “Macca” MacKenzie (John Morris) was a builder who worked with Doug Willis (Terence Donovan).

In 1996 schoolteacher Andrew Watson (Chris Uhlman) became the subject of school student rumours, and then a campaign by parents who wanted his removal from the classroom.

There have also been several other incidental gay male characters.

And then there was hairdresser Gino Esposito (Shane McNamara), and his flatmate Aaron (who later worked at the garage). Gino eventually ended up sharing house with Harold, frequently watching musicals on DVD together but never speaking about the love that dare not speak its name….

32 Responses

  1. Prisoner had lesbians galore from the notorious Franky Doyle to good old Judy Bryant and her bitchy girlfriend Sharon Gilmore and of course the corrupt vicious lesbian prison officer Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson!

  2. It annoys me that people are trying to say that this is a non-issue. I’ve come out to one person in my life because I’ve been bought up, by society (not my parents) to fear being gay.

    I’m so happy that neighbours is added this story-line. Good on them. It happens in life and neighbours is finally making it realistic.

  4. Anyone who watches this show knows that Lucas and Michael are the ones who need to come out, their chemistry is off the chart.

    But this storyline will be way too overdramatised because it is, as many people have stated, a non-issue.

  5. They better not drop this story after a week or two… or worse, make it a story about Summer being upset her boyfriend turned out to be gay. If you introduce a gay character you then have to play it out. Here’s hoping!

  6. Haha that’s great I picked up on this too.

    Often the shows will use lesbian storylines with the teenage characters to titilate but this is a proper big step.

    Very impressed.

    Also glad he’s been represented relatively realistically and not as a horrible stereotype, impressive Neighbours.

  7. So not Ringo and Declan then? 😛

    youtube.com/watch?v=SwaBVNcqvoo

    In all seriousness though, well done for Neighbours for finally having a gay teen character – I just hope the storyline goes for more than a week or two.

  9. Agree with Andrew, the only show that i think really did a gay storyline well was the lesbian character on Water Rats. My bet is the Neighbours character will suddenly move out of town or whatever just like the chic on H&A.

  10. Nothing New Here.The Original Degrassi and 90210 did similar storylines back in their day in the 80’s and 90’s for those old enough to remember those shows and both did have a gay person or many on there.

  12. It’s true that this is nothing new, there have been gay characters on Australian dramas for the past 40 years in everything from Number 96 and The Box, to Prisoner and Skyways and more recently in All Saints, Out Of The Blue, Water Rats, Pacific Drive and Breakers.

  13. the storyline will probably continue until the end of the week and then be dropped like a hot potato and even though his character might remain in th show, it will never be spoken of again. They did the same with Macca 1994, they mentioned he was gay like twice and then it was never discussed again. To me its just Channel 10 saying yes we do put gay/lesbian storylines on neighbours but you better be quick to see it before we hush it all up.

  14. It is over 30 years ago when Number 96 had a gay character whose sexuality was treated as a non-issue and he lasted the show’s entire 6 year run without any incident or sensationalism over being gay.

    Now, shows like Neighbours and Home And Away think their way of “tackling the issue” (although is it even an “issue” in the 21st century?) is to bring in a random character, turn him or her gay for a five minute “controversial” storyline. Then the character either magically turns straight or they are written out of the show, having served their purpose.

    It will be interesting to see that if Neighbours is serious about being more relevant that if they decide to go that usual route and have the character written out when the storyline is over, or whether they will allow the character to continue and that his/her sexuality is not treated as their sole attribute.

  15. What’s so rubbish about this storyline? I kinda twigged in Fridays ep with the scenes with Chris and Andrew. Chris’ infatuation with Andrew, would be something that a lot of young guys go through, so I think it’s a great storyline.

  17. I don’t like people saying that gay/lesbian storylines are stupid or useless. As a young gay teen myself, it’s very important to see gays portrayed on TV. Especially depicting the coming out process, because for a significant percentage of us, we are still in the closet. No doubt at least 98% of characters and personalities on TV are portrayed as ‘straight’. Why can’t there be some exceptions?

    Whether or not Neighbours does this storyline well is a different discussion.

  18. why do they keep coming back to these sort storlines. they do all this good work snd than bring rubbish storylines like this in. no wonder it has been struggling for the last 10 years

  21. There was also that obnoxious old guy with glasses in Neighbours in the mid 90’s whose twin brother came to Erinsborough and turned out to be gay.

  25. And of course there are gonna be stupid religious groups who are against this. Sorry, but I fail to see how this is news. How about they create some press about all of the straight charecters on that show.
    Either way, if there is gonna a ‘gay relationship’ I hope they don’t hold back just because certain groups stop watching the show or whatever.

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