0/5

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.

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. Well, finally a reason to try and watch Neighbours!
    It is long overdue that either Neighbours or Home & Away have a full-time gay character … it is easy to have Lesbian characters as many “straight” guys think it is hot, but they are scared of gay male characters …
    Sounds like there is a lot of male sexual tension in Neighbours at the moment!

  2. Yay! Go Neighbours! – Does anyone know if Chris is going to be in the cast for a while or will he be written out soon? I quite like him – he’s a great character!

  3. Home and Away also had a gay male teen about 6 or 7 years ago. Incidentally also named Chris, it was Pippa’s son and he came out when they returned for Sally and Flynn’s wedding. Convenient that they were only in town for two weeks, and he actually came out in his second last episode.

    Wake me up when either soap actually has a proper gay character as part of the main cast. Seems a shame that Dance Academy, a show that airs at 5.30pm can do it, but these shows cant. Although, Dance Academy portrays teen life overall far more realistically than the soaps (esp. Neighbours) so no real surprise

  4. Paul, I thought the same thing about Chris, being a stand in for Harry, and wondered if the characater possibly turning gay was the reason the actor playing Harry left so suddenly. But then I remembered that Harry and Andrew are cousins. It did also oocur to me that when ever Neighbours has introduced a gay character, it has always been a freind and never a member of a main family. Chris dosn’t even live the street. May be one day they this will change, but for now i’m happy to see how things pan out for Chris.

  5. Since the actor playing Harry Ramsay left, pretty abruptly in the storytelling, it seemed that Chris had been slotted into his role. There have been many scenes where it felt like the scriptwriters crossed out the name Harry and wrote in Chris, substituting him as Summer’s love interest, Andrew’s foil, and as a frenemy for Tash.

    It would have been nice if this storyline had been intended for, and played out for, Harry Ramsay. I’m all for Chris coming out, but would have preferred the gay character to actually be part of the main cast rather than a recurring character and part of the family the street’s named after.

Leave a Reply