From AOL chatrooms to message boards, the internet was primed with other queer people loving the representation they were getting. I immediately felt like my decision was the right one when I started finding communities online that shared my pride in watching queer content. I vividly remember asking myself as I sat in front of the TV, watching the credits roll after one of those problematic episodes: Is this who I want to be? Do I want to be the evil Arab, or do I want to be the happy, white queer guy? I chose the latter, because the same industry that made me feel seen as a queer person was actively making me feel shame for being Palestinian. So I sat there, watching the white gay people having the time of their lives while any Arab or Muslim character got turned into a villain. But it seemed like the only time any of these shows incorporated non-white cultures was to vilify them. Shows like Law & Order, West Wing and 24 all took time to create stories about the events that happened that year. 11 happened, suddenly the industry was forced to reckon with the fact that other nations existed, and our country was at war with one of them.
The world was perpetually Black and white, as far as the industry was concerned, and that was good enough until 2001. Individual shows had their token Black or Latinx characters, and networks had their singular Black sitcoms. No one batted an eyelash at the predominantly white casts on our screens because every so often they’d have a handful of other races at their disposal, ready to use as a shield whenever someone called them racist. Shows like Will & Grace and Queer as Folk were massive beacons for any queer kid watching, showing that it is possible to live a happy, queer life… if you were white.īack then, no one seemed to think about the consequences of only hiring white folk to tell their stories. It was the ’90s, so obviously there weren’t a lot of queer people on TV, but the few that were there and those that slowly came were enough to give me hope for who I was growing up to be. I filled it with more television, especially when I started seeing more queer people on screen in ways that contradicted how my conservative family spoke of members of the LGBTQ2S+ community. A massive gap the size of the Sahara formed between my family and me. My father even made sounds of disgust at the sight of two men kissing on television and my cousins made fun of the gays in San Francisco whenever they came to visit from the Midwest.
As I grew to realize my queerness, I noticed that no one ever talked about being attracted to the same sex.
Queer as folk soundtrack take me love me tv#
Just like many TV fans at the time, all of my shows were dominated by white actors in white stories with white themes.Īround the time puberty hit, I realized I was different from everyone in my family. On other networks, I was enamored with my first crush on the belly button-less Kyle XY, jealous of Rory’s love triangles on Gilmore Girls and introduced to vampire lore with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Queer as folk soundtrack take me love me full#
Growing up in the ’90s, I was glued to my screen watching ABC’s TGIF marathons on Fridays, making sure to not miss my staples like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Full House or Boy Meets World. I was stubborn, and I didn’t want to do things that I never saw anyone else at school-or on TV-doing. This is a plight most first-generation kids know well: being told to appreciate your culture but being more interested in your peers’. I remember them taking me to Arab cultural festivals, pro-Palestinian protests and enrolling me in Arabic school-and I fought them every step of the way. From early childhood, they tried to instill in me a love for my culture, faith and language. I am a first-generation Palestinian American, an only child raised in San Francisco by two wonderful Muslim parents. “This is a plight most first-generation kids know well: being told to appreciate your culture but being more interested in your peers’.”
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