In his article Post Closet Television, Ron Becker touches on the odd state of the closet homosexual in the this post Will & Grace television landscape. He points out that television has made it okay for gay men to be out, but by the same token, they've made that the only possible label. Because homosexuality is permitted, all homosexuals must be out and therefore any other man on television is straight.
Battlestar Galactica played with this assumption by outing a regular cast member whose love life had never been mentioned. Felix Gaeta, the ships tactical officer plays an integral role in the military operations that take place on the show. He is friendly with his crew, and shows admiration for the scientist and traitor Gaius Baltar, whom he is assigned to assist in his research on the Cylons. While one might argue that Gaeta's hero worship of Baltar has an edge of homosexual interest in it, this is never made explicit. In fact, no aspect of Felix Gaeta's sex life is explored until halfway through the final season. At the end of the show's mid-season hiatus, just prior to the airing of the final episodes, a new side of Felix was revealed to the audience in the web series Face of the Enemy. Gaeta was revealed to be engaged in a romantic relationship with fellow officer Louis Hoshi.
While this relationship is made very clear, and could not be confused with any other kind of relationsip, the rest of the show explores Gaeta's romantic relationship with a Cylon of model number eight. The two were engaged in a long term resistance effort against the Cylons, which eventually led to a sexual encounter and ended with the betrayal of the eight, who had been sabotaging the project the entire time.
What is interesting about this is the fact that Felix is first revealed to be gay, and then this assertion is immediately taken away. Because, in fact, Gaeta' was never revealed to be gay, he was simply revealed to be engaged in a romantic relationship with another man. “Well, apples and oranges...” you might say, but as Ron Becker points out in reference to Brokeback Mountain just because we perceive his behavior as being that of a homosexual, this does not mean that is what he is.
And as projects like the Kinsey Reports have shown us all, humans are capable of a range of sexual interests, not simply related to one person, body-type or gender. Gaeta's relationship with Hoshi is striking not because it is a rare example of a gay man taken totally out of context or stereotype, but because it defies all attempts to typify a character. Whether Gaeta is gay or straight, is not nearly important as the what is actually going on in his two relationships, how the one informs the other and what both of them do to the character.
Now that post-closet television is establishing its roots and audiences are increasingly comfortable with seeing the stereotypical out and proud gay man on screen, it's time to start introducing audiences to the rest of them. Now is the time for depictions of those homosexual who are unsure of whether or not they wish to be out of the closet, not because they fear gay bashing, but because of the full weight of the label. Similarly it is important to engage with shows which contradict labels and stereotypes for whatever reason. What the ultimate message of Gaeta's lovelife seems to be has nothing to do with who else is involved. It is simply that one cannot look to another human being - male or female, gay or straight – to make them into a better person.
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