"The writers have slowly taken the show, with subjects other gay shows have dived right into, slowly. It was over a year before Will even started to date"
About this Quote
A quiet flex is hiding inside Hayes's complaint-turned-compliment: the radical move of Will & Grace wasn't just putting gay characters in prime time, it was rationing the storylines that other shows might have treated like a mission statement. "Slowly" lands twice, and both times it signals strategy. The writers "taken the show" suggests a tug-of-war between network comfort and creative ambition; the pacing becomes proof of control, a way to expand what could be said on NBC without tripping the era's panic buttons.
The detail about Will taking "over a year" to date is doing heavy cultural work. It's not merely a trivia point about character development; it's a reminder of the late-90s bargain television made with queer visibility: you can exist, you can be funny, you can be beloved, but your romantic life has to arrive carefully, almost apologetically. Hayes is pointing at how the show smuggled normalization through sitcom structure, letting audiences bond with Will as a person before asking them to engage with him as a romantic subject.
There's also a subtle rebuke baked in: the phrasing implies that "other gay shows" could afford to "dive right in" because their audiences were self-selected, while a mainstream network sitcom had to convert the undecided. In that light, the slowness isn't timidity so much as leverage. By delaying the dating, the show buys time to make the premise feel inevitable, then starts widening the lane once the ratings and affection are locked in.
The detail about Will taking "over a year" to date is doing heavy cultural work. It's not merely a trivia point about character development; it's a reminder of the late-90s bargain television made with queer visibility: you can exist, you can be funny, you can be beloved, but your romantic life has to arrive carefully, almost apologetically. Hayes is pointing at how the show smuggled normalization through sitcom structure, letting audiences bond with Will as a person before asking them to engage with him as a romantic subject.
There's also a subtle rebuke baked in: the phrasing implies that "other gay shows" could afford to "dive right in" because their audiences were self-selected, while a mainstream network sitcom had to convert the undecided. In that light, the slowness isn't timidity so much as leverage. By delaying the dating, the show buys time to make the premise feel inevitable, then starts widening the lane once the ratings and affection are locked in.
Quote Details
| Topic | Romantic |
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