Entertainment News
2006-12-14
NBC denies
Heroes character is gay
An article on
AfterElton.com by Brian Juergens prompted an NBC publicist
to notify readers that Zach, Thomas Dekker's character on
An article on
AfterElton.com by Brian Juergens prompted an NBC publicist
to notify readers that Zach, Thomas Dekker's character on
the NBC show Heroes, is not gay. The
article theorizes that either Dekker's management or
NBC itself pulled the plug on any story lines that
would involve addressing Zach's sexual orientation.
The network has
come under fire for portraying the character as a gay
teen in a small town, specifically on his MySpace Web page
where he declares his sexual orientation as "not
sure."
Zach is the
sidekick to Texas high school cheerleader Claire Bennet,
played by Hayden Panettiere. He seems relatively unphased by
his peers' gay-baiting but never admits to being gay
or straight.
The show's
creator, Tom Kring, responded in an e-mail to AfterElton.com
about the claims, saying he regrets that the character
seemed to be gay because he is not.
"We apologize for
misleading the audience and wish that we could have
handled things better on our end," Kring wrote. "But making
a TV show is often a very imprecise business. As you
stated, Heroes is a big sprawling drama, and there is
no reason to believe that a gay character will not be
represented on our show in the future. It is my hope
that if we do, we do it with honesty and dignity.
That will certainly be our attempt." (The Advocate)
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