Gay Miniseries Fellow Travelers Has Most Erotic Depiction Of Gay Sex
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The upcoming gay miniseries Fellow Travelers, starring Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer will include the “most erotic depictions” of gay sex filmed for a TV network.
According to a preview in EW, the series Fellow Travelers will give viewers “some of the most erotic depictions of same-sex sex ever put to screen on a premium television network.”
The eight-episode historical fiction miniseries was created by Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia), and adapted from the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon.
Nyswaner told EW, “Our goal was to really tell the story from an LGBTQIA perspective of what happened in the ’50s and then to take it past the ’50s.”
A Romance Amidst The Backdrop Of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare
Bailey (Bridgerton) and Bomer (Magic Mike) play a gay couple living in 1950s Washington DC during the McCarthy-era.
Bomer plays Hawkins Fuller, a work-focused political operative. Bailey plays Tim Laughlin, a religious and idealistic young university graduate.
The pair start a romance amidst the backdrop of Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare witchhunt for “subversives and sexual deviants.”
The series will follow Laughlin and Fuller as the cross paths through “the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fueled disco hedonism of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, while facing obstacles in the world and in themselves.”
‘Gay Characters Are Made Too Clean’
Speaking about the portrayal of Queer characters in the media, in comparison to their portrayal in Fellow Travelers, Nyswaner said, “I find sometimes that gay characters are made too clean,”
“They’re made too noble. I’m just tired of that. Hawkins Fuller [Bomer] certainly is a very complicated, sometimes unlikeable antihero. I’d marry him in a second and then regret it probably in a few days, but there’s something fascinating about watching someone who is in charge and you don’t like him, but you kind of enjoy it. I think that helps us get away with a lot.”
Nyswaner went on to say, “[Bailey’s] version of Tim is so vulnerable. You just don’t know if you want Tim to get away from [Hawk] or stay with him and change him.”
‘Uncharted Territory For Mainstream Dramatic TV’
In a June interview with Vanity Fair, producer Robbie Rogers talked about Bomer and Bailey’s onscreen chemistry and the movie’s sex scenes, which according to the article, “will ring as highly authentic to gay men, and mark uncharted territory for mainstream dramatic TV.”
“Not that it will be shocking to people, but I hope when people watch it, they’re like, ‘Oh, wow. They really went for it,’” Rogers said.
Bailey added, “The nuance of a complicated, volatile queer relationship is the power balance—and that is what is amazing about Tim and Hawk.”
“Every single sex scene is a meticulous examination of power.”
“I will be so interested to see how people respond to it,” Bailey said.
“To me, being queer also is about, as two men, how you negotiate your giving of your body to the other person. That is something that I’ve always yearned to see properly done because I know how extraordinary it is to experience it.”
The series also stars Allison Williams (Get Out), Jelani Alladin (Tick, Tick… Boom!), Linus Roache (My Policeman), Will Brill (The OA), Chris Bauer (Sully), Christine Horne (Degrassi: Next Class).
Fellow Travelers is set to stream on Paramount+ in Australia on October 28.
