yeah like, i don't think younger people fully realize how immersively queerphobic and transphobic pop culture was before very, very recently.
if there was a queer or trans character depicted, they were almost always a joke or a spectacle. or, if they weren't, the only option for a dignified portrayal was to make them as background and incidental as possible. if a character READ as queer or trans or genderqueer to an LGBTQ audience, that relied on a certain amount of ignorance from heterosexuals to work (like oh they're just eccentric)
9-1-1's franchise record on representation is as good as it is because it kind of brilliantly allows its LGBTQ characters to exist and arguably have just as much narrative weight as the hetero characters, even if it's in an unrealistic soap-opera context as 9-1-1 is wont to do.
i am almost tempted to say that the writing with buck and tommy is more subtle and well-executed than a lot of what we see on the show, but i actually don't think that's necessarily true, it's pretty overt about the dynamic it's trying to portray -- but i actually think that because of how well lou and oliver are portraying the material that it's almost a little difficult to see. they have wildly good chemistry with each other and portray such a genuine affection between these two characters that the "generational" divide feels incidental, when realistically, it's something that two queer people of a certain age would have to probably discuss at some point in their relationship.
buck is supposed to be in his 30s, roughly around my age (maybe a little younger?), someone who would have been growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, and Tommy is i guess supposed to be in his 40s? this really isn't much of an age difference in the grand scheme of things. but because of buck's whole Childhood Emotional Trauma deal and his open, kind nature, he makes an incredibly good stand-in for a younger queer generation because he just isn't aware of anti-LGBTQ bigotry in the same way as he would have been if he'd been exploring his identity at a younger age.
it's actually a pretty great device for exploring the evolution of public queerness in the last ~30-40 years using a character story and it became incredibly emotionally resonant because of how well the actors have been performing it. we are encouraged to feel both the pain of discrimination and the joy of acceptance and being out by witnessing a truly electric connection between two people who have very different queer experiences.
i haven't actually seen season 8 yet but i'm basically fully spoiled on the plot points. while i could only be forced to watch the television program Glee at gunpoint and the inclusion of it was absolutely just masturbatory ryan murphy nonsense i appreciate what they are trying to do.
it does feel unfinished and i feel like the only appropriate resolution is to have buck & tommy be together forever, proving via the narrative that we can honor our past suffering as an LGBTQ community while coming fully into a future where we never have to hide who we are ever again (buck is going to continue to make love to that old man)
