Geekwood: Ianto Jones

Fans of the Dr. Who spin-off series Torchwood would for certain remember him for his endearing good looks and charming personality.  While clearly John Barrowman's Captain Jack Harness would be the hot hunk for many gay men out there, my vote still goes to the man known to us as Ianto Jones.  Played by Gareth David-Lloyd, Ianto Jones was at first just the guy who makes tea for the members of Torchwood.  But as the episodes began to gain momentum, so did his role in the story.

He looked soooo young and innocent when he was first introduced.

Like myself, Ianto had heterosexual relationships in the past before he finally found the man who made him feel special.  While things may have started far more casual in the beginning, the feelings he had for Captain Jack slowly deepened into something far more important and genuine.

Flirtations with the boss.

Alas, it was in the Children of Earth story arc where Ianto's fate would finally be revealed.  In what seemed like a cosmic act of irony, Captain Jack's willingness in the past to sacrifice 12 children to the aliens known only as the 456 comes back to haunt him with the man who has won his heart paying the price.  Ianto Jones dies in Captain Jack's arms as the aliens release a fatal virus in the Thames House.

I just knew it... I just knew he was going to die.
The hands said it all!

Ianto showed a loyalty towards both his lover and his team in more ways than one.   While the fan following was strong enough for him to return in other spin-off installments of Torchwood (such as in a comic which explores Ianto living as an alternate reality, or in the Torchwood audio drama books which also have a greater exploration of the chemistry he shared with the group's immortal leader), his passing is a painfully beautiful reminder of how fleeting and precious each and every moment of time actually is. 

Didn't like the art much here.  They all look wrong.

In one of the audio books, Ianto watched over a comatose Captain Jack and considered his role in the life of a man whose timeline was greater than anything Ianto could ever hope to match.   He ends up speaking of his thoughts aloud, sharing his insecurities of being so insignificant in the life of someone who was literally immortal:

I wish I could meet you at a convention someday.
And yes, keep the fuzz.  It works!

"But let's be honest, Jack. I'm… nothing more than a blip in time for you, Jack. 

Every day, I grow a little older. But you're immortal. 

You've already lived a thousand lifetimes. 

How could you watch me grow old and die? 

How can I watch you live and never age a day?"

But Jack awakes from his coma and eventually promises him, 

"You will never be just a blip in time, Ianto Jones."

ADORABLE.  And the bears are cute too.

Now, I know many are probably out there wondering why would I feature such a dorky looking guy for this week's geekwood entry.  The guy doesn't look like a hunk.  He clearly fails to deliver a good set of abs.  Some would even consider his receding hairline a huge reduction on any hotness scale.  But for me, Ianto embodies a bisexual man who truly deserves to be recognized and remembered.  His loyalty and compassion were balanced well against his desire to remain logical and structured.  He was an example of strength and fortitude, yet had a sensitive and empathetic side which most men would be too afraid to show.  He is smart, attractive, and charming and dresses very well for someone who might have to square off against some alien monstrosity any time of the day.

Here he is all older, more rugged, and still damn fashionable.

And lastly, he knows "the lots of things one can do with a stopwatch."


You can't beat that, eh?





While there are many people who wish Ianto would come back, and others have even considered their own ways of how it can happen, I am one of those who feel his death should be left alone and respected for the impact is has made both in the show and to the viewers.   Too often, the death of pivotal characters is too easily retconned or rewritten for the sake of ratings or sales.  I would rather Ianto's story remains as it currently is, with any further exploration done instead through flashbacks or other similar devices.





But yes, it would be nice if Ianto Jones somehow still does appear in Torchwood's later incarnations (be it the BBC or the American spin-off).   I wouldn't mind it too much if he reemerges as some kind of Virtual Intelligence Butler in the computers, sort of like a ghost in the machine, that retains all of the original Ianto's memories but knows he isn't the same being... or even just as flashes of his time in Captain Jack's life whenever Jack turns a tad introspective over how things have changed so quickly.

Oh to have my own Virtual Ianto on my laptop!

For those who want to see more of Gareth David-Lloyd, be happy to know he had a recent Sherlock Holmes movie by the masters of rip-offs The Asylum where he plays the role of Dr. Watson.   

I actually find him hotter than Jude Law.

He also is the frontman of a progressive metal band named Blue Gillespie.  

I definitely know of people who'd love to see more skin.
For now, at least we get some armpit teasing!

So here's hoping the writers find a way to get our lovable man back on the show.  Ianto Jones, if only that "stopwatch" meant you were actually just hiding your secret Gallifreyan identity.  And yes, here's hoping that in real life, we are all never just blips of time in someone else's life.

Theorgy. And Why I Blog.

My partner alerted me to an upcoming gay blogger event called Theorgy which has definitely perked my interest.  The idea is to have numerous gay bloggers write on a specific topic on a specific day, with September one being devoted to the topic of Coming Out.

Could this be the start of a good thing?
I hope so.

The term Theorgy sounds like a play with words to me:  Theory being merged with Orgy.   The idea seems to do suggest that it is about a group of people doing a sharing of views and perhaps a study of beliefs and opinions.  The word play is quite quaint and it does grab attention.

I feel happy to see that there is movement in having gay blogs contain more than the usual mix of nearly naked men, sexual escapades, fashion, rumor or blind item controversies, or porn reviews.  While I will admit to having my own share of interests in such things, I will state a part of me really hopes to find more gay blogs that discuss topics beyond the usual nsfw variety.

Jakey agrees.  Can't always just be about his body, right?

Being gay, after all, is a much more colorful experience than just sex, naked men, and rumors of who is and isn't still in the closet.  While I have been blogging for many years, I only started blogging about my gay life after realizing that I did want to have one which reflected on such topics more freely.  My current blog is already overly cluttered with posts on role playing games, daily grind rants, geekgasms on upcoming movies and games, and the like.  Blame it on the rain, bro became my outlet to discuss things which definitely reflected more of my gay life and clearly that was more than just sex.

Yep.  Too many people ignoring their brains and using their dicks to do the thinking.
Others don't even bother trying to think.

I wonder though why many seem to limit their gay experience to be the sexual kind.  While I understand that it is sex, sexual interest, and gender identity that defines one to be gay, I would not like to think that everything else in the world then becomes default straight.  My partner cautioned me though in believing that there aren't any such blogs out there.  Many, he shared, did exist must most have gone inactive in as the years gone by.

Oh dead blogs.  I hardly knew you.

I wonder if others out there would like to try to help make the presence of such blogs more known.

I've tried reading some of the gay friendly local blogs that I have heard of and some didn't quite rub me the right way.  I wasn't too happy to see blogs that seemed to view the idea of infidelity or fooling around with married men as "an exciting moment" in one's life.  I didn't quite agree with other blogs that suggested wearing branded clothes was the standard which defined a gay man as having class or not.  I was literally turned off by  blogs that seemed devoted to spreading rumors, accusing others of being closeted and celebrating the (what I feel is an abusive) art of blind items.

Why not more gay blogs that talk about life beyond the waistband and lubricated anus?  Why not blogs that reflect we can love sports beyond the muscular guys who wear them tiny shorts?  Why not blogs that talk about how cooking became an icebreaker on how they reached out to their parents and regained acceptance?   Or how being HIV positive opened one's eyes to living a much more positive and appreciative life?   Lots of gay friends I know lead colorful, challenging, and over all interesting lives.  Why can we not celebrate these lives more in our blogs?

Maybe if Will and Grace did this more often, the show would have had a stronger
staying power for today's gay audience?

In many ways I feel the kind of blogs out there nicely reflect the kind of gay friendly shows we finally have access to as well.  Years back, beautifully written shows like Will and Grace showed us that a gay man can be very multifaceted.  Will stood out in contrast to his friend Jack, yet both got along campily well in many other ways.  But then came shows like Queer as Folk and Dante's Cove which seemed to focus more on the sexual energy and abusive relationships that also existed in gay couplings.  It doesn't come as a surprise that a lot of people love the shows, but it does make me worry how many still have the misconception that a gay lifestyle is limited to that kind of a life.   I am still hoping for more people to learn of shows like Torchwood and Modern Family to see that being gay can go much further than just being a guy who loves to sleep around and can't keep their dick in their pants.  Sadly, even a very well executed and written show like Glee still seems lacking in the gay =/= sex department.  I have yet to really see from Curt see more than his right to have feelings for Finn.  I would have liked Curt to be mature enough to understand that Finn does also deserve to have his own personal space.

Oh no, I dissed Curt.  I wonder if that's Hate Mail I hear coming?
Oh Curt can't wait to see me suffer for dissing him.

In a way, the feeling that the world needs to see more gay blogs that aren't obsessing over other's men's genitalia will be a huge source of momentum for me in keeping this blog going.  I wouldn't like people who aren't blessed with the joy of having gay friends to find nothing but meat, meat, meat, and more meat online when they chance upon a gay friendly site.  I think keeping this blog alive would be my part in helping show that the gay experience is far more than just a change of pussycats with roosters.

In can be a whole lot more colorful than they can ever dream.

Shouldn't we then do what we can to help them see that?

Generic Genres and Gender

I am currently at work today while my partner is resting at home and watching Wedding Wars, the campy movie starring Rob Lowe and Sean Maher.  (update : Oops, was it Rob Lowe or John Stamos!  I think I got it wrong)  In a recent post, I was musing about what makes a movie a "gay film" and I found myself wondering even more about that today.

Must homosexual situations always be present for a film to be considered a gay film?
And is that actually a good thing?

Part of what made my growing up tougher was the lack of positive masculine gay role models that I could look up to.  The closest I could remember at that time was Tom Hanks' role in Philadelphia where he played a gay guy with Aids who sued his company for discrimination.  Other than that, a large majority of gay characters I could watch were the extremes of campy femininity or closeted self destructiveness.

It didn't help either that locally back then, the concept of gay was not as broad as it is now.  The term bakla, which is generally used to refer to homosexual men, was actually much more defined as referring to a man who acted effeminately and tended to cross dress and carry himself with overly expressive theatrics.  Such a representation was made most popular by Roderick Paulate and the comedic characters of Dolphy, Joey de Leon and many many others.    The idea of a masculine gay guy was practically unheard of.  (Just as practically all lesbian characters back then were tibo, the women who tended to wear jeans and polo tee shirts with the sleeves rolled up and on their head, concealing the bun of hair, a cap worn backwards.  So for a long time, I didn't even think I was gay.  I didn't even think the term bisexual would apply to me.  All I knew was, I wasn't straight.  And I wasn't gay.  What I didn't realize back then was, I just wans't gay that way.

Even now, the image of the bakla and the tibo are still perpetuated on local television and movies.  It is only thanks to much more modern works like Carlo Vergara's Zsazsa Zaturnnah that the idea of a masculine guy who likes another man is being given some screentime (or in Zaturnnah's case, screen, stage and print time).

It makes me wonder when does something become labelled as a gay show or movie.  Is it simply the presence of campiness?  (And as a friend of mine put it, pag gay roles pero sobrang serious... art film yan, hindi gay film.)  Does having a gay lead automatically make it a gay show?  Ellen and Oprah's shows have a huge set of differences, but most people would easily say one is a talk show and the other is a gay show.

Is it the presence of gay themes and topics?  What then does that make Modern Family, since the show does have sharing the spotlight a third of the time a gay couple.  Part of what makes the show excellent for me is how they tackle gay issues and show such problems ain't limited to homosexuals.

Does it really boil down to the presence of gay sex?  Queer as Folk is definitely considered by some as a gay show.  Queer Eye is too but doesn't exactly have sex (although it does discuss sexuality and attractiveness a lot).

How does one define better this genre?  Should it even be considered to be a genre the way westerns are?  Does it empower to say Torchwood is a gay show with its sexually explorative charcters?  Or does it limit it to an unnecessary perception when it would be better to say it is a science fiction show.   Should the "gayness" of a show matter at all?  Do we want to make it a genre or subgenre of its own?

Or wouldn't it be nicer to have any show with gay elements still recognized as what they are in the standard definitions of entertainment - be it action, comedy, science fiction, or drama.

Sometimes I personally feel that removing the need to call any show or film "gay" would be better.  Not out of shame or anything similar.  But rather, so the film can be seen for what it is, and the gender of the characters be accepted as that and not highlighted like some circus freak being given the spotlight.  Torchwood for example is good campy sci fi.  Jack Harness being willing to sleep with anything, male, female or alien, is just an additional detail.  Caprica is doing well without having to overly highlight that one of the Adamas is gay.  Modern Family too nicely has the campiness without having to alienate others by calling it a gay show.

I can understand the want to be proud of being gay.  And in many ways, I can imagine others would argue I don't see the need to be too vocal about being proud since I am still in the closet.  But sometimes I think in all the calls for equality and equal rights, what many mistakenly are expecting is actually special treatment.

And with that kind of an expectation, we end up alienating ourselves from the world we're hoping to be accepted as equals.

It is possible though that I had horribly misinterpreted things.  Not being a scholar of gay culture and gender politics, I speak merely from things I had experienced and observed.  But I guess that's the point of having these things in a blog.  If anyone would love to share their own views, do feel free to leave a comment or two. :-)