‘Melrose Place’s New Take on Gay
Though he’s still renowned as one of the first out characters on primetime, the original incarnation of Melrose Place’s sole gay character, Matt Fielding, was a little watered down looking back from a post-Will & Grace TV world. This time around, for the revived nighttime soaps modern makeover, producers introduced a new gay male in the cast, Caleb Brewer, played by the handsome Victor Webster.
Webster’s character is a far bolder representation, and he’s distancing himself from the Melrose past. “They’re complete opposites,” Webster explained to Advocate.com when comparing his character, Caleb, to Doug Savant’s Matt on the original series. “Matt was neutered. Caleb is a go-getter, and he flirts shamelessly. He’s definitely not a cheeseball. A lot of gay characters on TV are goofy or effeminate, and the producers really wanted the character to be well-rounded. Caleb grew up playing sports — he’s very masculine, and he’s not tortured about who he is at all.”
Viewers met Webster’s character through another potentially progressive LGBT character, the sleek blond power publicist, Ella Simms. Webster dished that his character is “a publicist at the firm Ella, one of the housemates, works at. I think he first appears in the second episode. Caleb is Ella’s new boss, and he creates a certain amount of havoc in her life. I’m on her all the time, but I want the best from her. Ella is very tough too, a ballsy go-getter. So there’s a certain amount of tension, but also some good chemistry.”
You might recognize Webster from his daytime past on Days of Our Lives, where gay and lesbian relationships are being explored like never before in a recent trend of LGBT storylines. He reasoned, “It’s what’s going on in the culture, and the soaps are reflecting it. Television is generally on the conservative side, so if you’re seeing it represented on TV, that probably means it’s really out there in the real world.”
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