Dynasty's Gay Journey - Killer Dads, Shoulderpads, and the Kiss that Rocked Hollywood

when are we gonna stop all this talk and go to bed dynasty was an 80s soap opera all about rich people behaving badly from petty power plays you weren't invited i sent for you to evil schemes mrs carrington has been scientifically triggered to kill mr carrington the next time they make love to beautiful women putting on high fashion to brawl in the mud look what you've done to this offset i've never seen you looking better but for years there was one thing that the show couldn't get away with no matter how hard the writers tried and that was showing a happy homosexual over dynasty's nine season run the challenge of getting a gay man on television's most popular show was nothing compared to the multi-year battle it took to keep him there hey i'm matt baume i make videos about pop culture and this is the story of the fight on screen and behind the scenes over one of tv's first recurring gay characters and the kiss that changed hollywood the saga of dynasty starts back in 1979 when a group of seasoned tv producers set out to make a new kind of show a prime time soap opera inspired by 19th century novels about aristocratic families constantly at each other's throats it was people with class showing their ass i'm tired of being portrayed as a first-class there's blake carrington the stern father who built himself up from nothing fallon his rebellious daughter secretly sleeping with a family chauffeur alexis the exiled ex crystal the innocent soon-to-be stepmother with a secret past and the son stephen who's hiding his homosexuality from his conservative dad from the start stephen was created to be one of the most prominent gay characters ever to appear on american television there'd only been a handful before him and many of those were minor side characters stephen was a core part of the cast and his sexuality would be a major source of drama both in the carrington mansion and in the offices at abc the first episode introduces the rich family and culminates in a dramatic scene in which blake confronts steven about being gay well how the hell can anybody respect the opinion of a man who put his hands on another man at this time coming out scenes almost never appeared on television so this was a bold way to launch a new series with stephen coming out of the closet to his family and his father blake determined to push him back in blake confesses that he had long suspected stephen was gay but had dealt with his suspicion by pretending it simply wasn't true i'd hoped that you would come home and go to work and that everything would just go away this was often the approach to homosexuality in decades past on tv and in real life don't talk about it don't acknowledge it act like homosexuality just doesn't exist don't ask don't tell and definitely don't let it into your house i could find little homosexual experimentation acceptable just as long as you didn't bring it home with him but to his credit steven doesn't let blake push him back into the closet i'm offering you a chance to straighten yourself out i'm not sure i could if i wanted to and i'm not sure i want to hearing that a son doesn't want to go along with the pretense that he's straight throws blake into a rage i could have endowed a foundation the stephen carrington institute for the treatment and study of blake's cruelty in the scene is not at all out of line with what you could expect from an older conservative figure in 1981. this pretty effectively captures the real hostility to queer people of the time children have to be protected from sympathetic views of homosexual conduct it's uh what freud has called a perversion and what the u.s supreme court has called a clearly deviant activity in decades prior to this blake probably would have gotten his way there was so much stigma around homosexuality back then that for many queer people it was just easier to go along with the pretense that they weren't gay especially around family and on television it was rare to see a queer person stand up to conservative family and refuse to go back in the closet but blake's not through with steven yet the coming out scene ends with blake making it clear that he expects steven to at least pretend he's gone straight and he then leaves the room as heterosexually as possible if you'll excuse me i've got to go get married this scene came along at a turning point for gay characters on tv over the 1970s there had been a surge in queer storylines on american television thanks in part to a rise in real life activism and protests and prides gay issues were becoming more visible than ever and media activists were pushing for more visibility they're everything and they're everybody gays are everywhere that was reflected by late 70s shows that broached queer topics like maude three's company and even the facts of life bob is touching and hugging girls and i love you boy are you strange but all that changed in 1980 just a few weeks before the dynasty pilot aired with the landslide election of ronald reagan tv executives saw reagan's win as a sign that the national mood was getting more conservative and soon word came down from the networks that producers needed to cut back on queer content there were over a dozen gay characters on tv in 1979 but by 1981 there were almost none stephen was one of the rare few who was able to slip in at least at first whether the show could actually keep a gay character around was about to become a topic of major debate especially because of a twist revealed later in the season that steven's former lover ted is on his way to denver to try to win steven back that dynasty had to have such a timely character was no coincidence it was all part of the creator's plans the show was originally dreamed up by esther and richard shapiro producers who had a decades-long track record of making serious social dramas about important issues teenage alcoholism domestic abuse racism but around the end of the 1970s they could see that audiences tastes were starting to change after countless stories about all the different ways that families could fall apart esther wanted to tell a story about how a family could stay together she drew some inspiration from 19th century novels about aristocratic families who were constantly in conflict but loved each other in spite of everything but she also leaned heavily on current events like the 70s oil crisis and the gay liberation movement she even thought of ronald reagan as a model for the blake character esther wrote about everything that they had in common quote a powerful executive married to a devoted woman with a difficult ex-wife a sensitive son a rebellious daughter now when the shapiros brought the show to abc in 1979 the network liked the concept but knew that it needed a seasoned producer and that's where aaron's spelling came in aaron had a reputation as one of the most successful producers on television it was mostly known for campy larger-than-life shows like the love boat fantasy island starskin hutch and the mod squad but as light and fun as those shows often were spelling always insisted on slipping in deeper themes about tolerance standing up for underdogs the mod squad had featured one of the first interracial kisses on television abc tried to get him to cut it but he insisted that it stay in you know networks sometimes you have to slip it in starsky and hutch had one of the first depictions of a gay bar and was unusual in that they cast actual out actors for the episode the sugar's giving you the uh 8 30 show honey they couldn't live through the 8 30 show the shapiros and spelling were excited by the opportunity to have a prominent gay character on the show and so is the actor who played him al corley he was a former studio 54 bouncer who'd come to la to pursue acting and he'd appeared a year earlier on an episode of the love boat where his character is mistaken for gay i wonder if he'd keep it quiet that mr hansen doesn't actually have a bride in the honeymoon suite al wanted to make steven a gay role model and had lots of ideas for where he could take the character and just to add one more level of timeliness esther shapiro brought on a consultant named newt dieter to advise them on the scripts i talked about newt moore in my video about barney miller newt was a longtime gay activist whose job on dynasty was making sure they avoided negative depictions of gay characters he approved the coming out scene in the pilot but with changes the scene originally had stephen crying about being gay but that was removed prior to air though if you look really carefully you can still see a little tear newt also advised him to remove terms and later scripts that he felt would be offensive including the efsler and maybe a little bit less egregiously the phrase gay schmey so when this pilot finally aired it was with a lot of deliberate work on the part of the creators the producer the actor and even a gay community leader to make sure they got the steven character right because of the sudden reluctance to put gay characters on tv in the wake of reagan's election dynasty wound up being one of the only shows of its time to even attempt a storyline like this but as the season continued it became clear there were limits to what abc would let them get away with executives still dare in spelling that steven could never express any physical affection toward another man or as aaron later recalled they didn't give us any problems as long as there was no kissing you can see that rule at work later that season steven's old boyfriend ted shows up to rekindle the romance stephen keeps ted hidden at first and even suggests to blake that he'll go back into the closet for the sake of the family does that mean that you would give up your curious new york ways somebody please open a gay bar called curious new york ways you can put it right next to the stephen carrington institute anyway over the next few episodes stephen and ted keep meeting in secret which started to pose problems for the writers for example the outline from one scene said simply steven ted love scene which caused a minor panic in the writer's room how could they show the characters were in love without getting in trouble with abc what they landed on was having the characters quote poetry at each other fully clothed it is the burnt child who most dreads the fire ben johnson the devil is an ass on a show where straight characters are constantly getting naked in bed together the closest the gay characters are allowed to get is this one moment in what looks like a pizza hut i have to go most of steven scenes in season one focus on how cruel the world could be to queer people characters lecture him about getting with women well that's the way it's supposed to be a man and a woman the oil workers level accusations against him cooped up here with a damn prevert he gets beat up multiple times and he keeps butting heads with blake being your son it wasn't that easy wasn't easy for me either being your father dynasty was free to show stephen getting gay bashed he just couldn't have a gay kiss but that's nothing compared to the escalation at the end of the first season stephen and ted realize their relationship just isn't working out i guess quoting poetry can only do so much and they agree to amicably break up but when blake comes home and sees him in a farewell hug he flies into a rage i'll kill him blake pushes him apart ted falls and hits his head and then he's killed him season one ends with blake on trial for murder his defense amounts to i just really didn't want my son to be gay his lawyer keeps hammering home how blake was simply trying to protect steven from the threat of homosexuality blake carrington entered his home and learned to his horror and disgust the ted dinard was present his intent and his only intent was to protect his young son from an abnormal life a life of homosexuality what they're setting up here is a so-called gay panic defense a real life tactic often used at the time by people who are accused of attacking or killing queer people the argument was that a person could get so upset by the presence of a homosexual that they could become for legal purposes temporarily insane and therefore no longer legally responsible for their actions this defense was used for decades it was the basis of the defense in the case that inspired the movie boys don't cry it was used in the matthew shepard murder trial study in 2020 found that gay and trans panic defenses resulted in courts reducing charges in 33 percent of cases where it was used hampton admitted sentencing a killer to a shorter prison term because his two victims were homosexuals back in the 80s this defense was considered so reasonable that originally blake was going to be found not guilty and that's when newt dieter the consultant that esther had hired intervened he told the shapiro's the show couldn't present the killing of a gay man as something that can be done with zero consequences and so at the start of season two guilty of voluntary manslaughter then the judge gives blake probation and he's allowed to go home because that's what happens when you're rich enough that you don't have to face any consequences for your actions still at least he wasn't found innocent season two presented a whole new set of problems for the gay character namely that he might not even be gay after all with the television-wide evaporation of queer characters in the early 80s abc started pressuring dynasty to pair steven with women he has an affair with his friend's wife claudia i've never really been with a woman before then he sleeps with his stepmother's niece and winds up having a baby with her and it seems like after killing steven's boyfriend blake was gonna get his way after all maybe he could take out an ad in the denver chronicle my son slept with a woman he's not a freak after all that wasn't what al quarley had signed up for he took his role as one of the only gay characters on tv very seriously and he felt that he had a responsibility to gay viewers in one interview he said i get a lot of mail from young guys who say they've never admitted it before but they have homosexual feelings i feel really sorry for those teenagers who can't communicate with anyone but an actor al pushed for a storyline where stephen would become a teacher setting up a conflict with homophobic parents when he becomes a mentor to a gay teen a storyline that's still pretty timely today with the proliferation of don't say gay bills in states across the us but that was the last thing that abc wanted higher-ups told al that they wanted to turn the character into a straight sex symbol they wanted a copy of bo from dukes of hazard on cbs al's job they told him was just to look pretty and entice women viewers al hated that and he gave public interviews criticizing the show's direction to their credit dynasty writers gave him a big speech at the end of season two where he lashes out at everyone who tried to make him straight i tried to live a lie to please you not anymore from now on i'm gonna live my life my way he's talking to blake there but it kind of feels like that line could have been directed at network executives too the scene ends with steven telling the family he can't be around them if they want him to be someone else and in real life he told abc the same thing that he couldn't play steven that way and abc agreed he couldn't at the start of season three stevens presumed dead after an explosion on an oil rig in indonesia but a few episodes later he turns up in a hospital his face damaged beyond recognition fortunately a brilliant surgeon is able to reconstruct his face to look like a different handsome tall blonde man blake finds him and thank god it is you sure jan so how changed was stephen at this point pretty significantly stephen now played by an actor named jack coleman returns to denver to be a father to the son he had during one of his heterosexual experiments blake welcomes him back at first and encourages him to have more relationships with women but when he catches stephen hanging out with a gay friend while his infant son is present blake assumes stephen is back to dating men i'll be damned if i'm going to let two gays raise that baby now blake's got a new scheme if he can't force steven to go straight he'll take away his kid i've decided that i'm going to file for custody of my grandson on what grounds on the grounds of the child's father stephen carrington is a homosexual and is thus an unfit parent not entitled to retain said custody this is another storyline that reflects reality for queer people in the 1980s courts almost universally cited against queer parents and custody cases often removing kids from loving homes and putting them with hostile relatives or even in foster care rather than letting them stay with their parents one of the earliest cases was in 1967 when a mother named ellen nadler had her child taken away solely because she was a lesbian there was literally no other evidence presented in the case and the judge wrote that her homosexuality alone made her an unfit mother within hours the state removed the children citing potentially damaging publicity children need adults that they can relate to in a normal fashion i don't care how you define it it's not normal that president was upheld through the 1970s texas jury ruled in 1976 that a son should be taken from his lesbian mother simply because other kids might make fun of him in 1977 a judge ruled that a mother named sandra panzino should have her two daughters taken away for the same reason in the early 80s there were a string of custody cases that hinged on whether gays were trying to raise kids for the purpose of recruiting children into homosexuality and in fact when blake calls a child care expert to the stand that's exactly the talking point that she uses my opinion is that a child raised by two gay individuals will in all likelihood become gay obviously that's not true but in real life quartz entertained all kinds of bonkers theories about queer parents in one 1976 case a psychologist testified that a lesbian mother committed psychological damage to her son by allowing him to play sports while wearing a unisex t-shirt whatever that even is when you look at real-life custody cases of the time blake's hostility comes off comparatively mild but that doesn't mean he's open-minded when he gets on the stand he oozes disgust towards stephen stephen's love for his son and his concern for his well-being obviously do not come first my grandson deserves better than that steven's lawyer tries to paint blake as a bigot why do you have this blind prejudice against homosexuals i deny that i have any prejudice mr deegan just a reminder this is a guy who literally murdered a gay man in his home for hugging his son so maybe he's got just a little bit of prejudice i don't know maybe it's not in a kid's best interest to take him away from his father and place him with a convicted murderer nevertheless the court seems likely to rule in blake's favor until there's a surprise twist this certificate of marriage between stephen carrington and claudia blaisdell at the last second stephen gets married to claudia his father's second wife's ex-lover's ex-wife recently released from a mental hospital and also a former baby snatcher who did this the judge decides that sounds like a great family environment he rules on the spot that this spur-of-the-moment stunt totally legitimizes stephen as a dad is it your intention to live with your wife as man and wife together share in the rearing of your son yes sir that is my intention in that case i rolled in favor mr dickens motion and dismissed the suit everyone in the room is shocked especially blake but this is what he wanted all along without meaning to he managed to force steven to leave his curious new york ways and go straight i'm glad that it all worked out this way and i'm i'm happy for you both but steven's not ready to forgive him blake's attempt to take away his son his cause what seems like it might be a permanent rift and trying to get custody of his grandson blake may have thrown away his relationship with his son i can't say i'm sorry you lost your case but i am sorry for all you lost with it as they leave the courtroom blake realizes just how much his stubborn bigotry has cost him and this is where the seeds are planted for the show's next major gay twist over the next few episodes stephen and claudia grow closer and it seems like romance is blooming looks like the show's doing exactly what made al corley leave straightening stephen out by marrying him to a woman but behind the scenes things were changing again by this point it was 1984 and after being away for a few years queer characters were starting to find their way back onto television that year another aaron spelling series the love boat featured a gay couple but don't you see it's easier for you your generation understands these things kate and ali introduced a lesbian landlady this is miriam goodman my lover even night court had a gay episode i find you're very attractive [Music] this was happening in part because in the last few years gay activism had become much more urgent and visible particularly around hiv there were candlelight vigils aids awareness events and soon protest groups like act up would shut down whole city streets the new york stock exchange and government offices these protests increasingly put queer people front and center on the news in politics and in family settings where they might previously have been closeted [Applause] reagan's election in 1980 contributed to her aggression back to the old-fashioned way of sweeping social issues and minorities under the rug but as queer activism got bigger louder and more present than ever in american life it was getting harder and harder to remain stuck in that old tradition of pretending that homosexuality didn't exist by season four seemed like the time might be right for steven to finally be what the shapiros had envisioned when they created him in one interview that year aaron spelling said the gay integrity of the character will be carried out next season steven's gay relationship is not over by a long shot and while that sounded good these are still just unfulfilled promises and there was still a lot of obstacles that could derail a gay storyline as it happened on dynasty before now that they'd committed stephen to a heterosexual relationship it was gonna be harder than ever to get him out of it in fact for the first half of season five it seems steven's a happily married heterosexual with his new york ways totally forgotten when are we gonna stop all this talk and go to bed very convincing but before long he and claudia start drifting apart and stephen meets luke a pr executive working for his mother how about dinner tonight just friends why not luke opens up about his past he used to be married but then he came out and now he refuses to go back into the closet steven's intrigued finds himself falling in love with luke i know what i want to do where i want to be and with whom the potential for a recurring gay couple on a prime time show was a big deal not guest stars not sassy best friends who were only there to support the straight character stories but two main characters falling in love as part of the core storyline this was huge there was just one problem you and luke are you uh steven knows that blake suspects something is up and the longer they wait to talk about it the harder it's going to be because following last season's drama of the custody battle blake's had a particularly bad year not only are he and steven still distant but that season blake's father died his sister collapsed with heart failure and his near death daughter fallon was in a plane crash and presumed dead considering how blake reacted in the past to his son's curious new york ways there's no telling how he'll respond to stephen coming back out of the closet meanwhile the man who partially inspired blake was grappling with queer issues as well this was 1985 several years into the hiv epidemic and ronald reagan hadn't even acknowledged it was happening in fact reagan actually cut funding for public health programs and the white house vetoed an aids plan when reagan's spokesperson was asked about hiv here's how he responded it's known as gay plague no it is i mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died and i wonder if the president is aware of it i don't have it are you do you because hiv was largely affecting gay men conservatives saw it as an opportunity to ramp up the hostility towards gays pat buchanan a close reagan ally wrote in an op-ed the poor homosexuals they have declared war upon nature and now nature is exacting an awful retribution after he wrote that reagan appointed him white house communications director while activists grew louder and louder reagan retreated to that old-fashioned way of dealing with gays ignore them hope they'll go away and if they don't make them suffer dramatized on dynasty now playing out in real life with a deadly epidemic reagan's refusal to deal with hiv came to a head in 1985 with a highly publicized incident involving a member of the dynasty cast the year before the shapiros had hired rock hudson in a guest role in the hopes of giving him a spin-off series the next year it's good to see you rock was one of the biggest stars in the world in the 50s and 60s it was an open secret in hollywood that he was gay although that was kept from the public rumors about his sexuality nearly destroyed his career in the early 70s and you can check out my jim neighbors video for more about that but another secret that almost nobody knew about him was that rock had recently tested positive for hiv and his health was starting to fail when he shot his scenes for dynasty he was a rapidly losing weight he was covered in rashes and his memory was getting so bad he needed cue cards for his lines when they weren't filming he'd go to his trailer and sleep all day sometimes the crew had trouble waking him up at one point rock had to kiss co-star linda evans which threw him into a panic now we know that hiv can't be transmitted through saliva but at the time there was still a lot of disagreement and disinformation about that after filming wrapped rock headed to paris in july of 1985 for treatment but he collapsed at his hotel his staff had difficulty getting him into a military hospital where he could get experimental treatment so in desperation they sent a telegram to the white house rock hudson had been close with ronald nancy reagan decades earlier in hollywood and his publicist begged them to help their old friend get the medical care that might save his life the reagans refused just like they'd refused to do anything for anyone else about hiv at a time when americans needed leadership to save lives there was only indifference and cruelty from the white house even for those who thought the reagans were friends rock passed away in his sleep a few weeks later at the time he was the most famous person to have died from hiv-related causes and people were shocked that someone so beloved could have been secretly suffering hudson died in his sleep at nine this morning the actor had returned to his home in late august after having been told by doctors his health was too poor for any experimental therapy for aids because there had been so little public education about how hiv worked some people in the entertainment industry responded with fear especially regarding the kiss with linda evans charlton heston a close friend of the reagans and rock's replacement on the dynasty spin-off used it as an opportunity to go after queer people heston called for gay and hiv-positive actors to be outed and denied work he pushed the screen actors guild to treat kissing hiv-positive people as a hazard comparable to dangerous stunt work and other actors started refusing to do kiss scenes with colleagues they suspected were gay or bisexual but then there was a more compassionate response on dynasty the producers brought in a team of doctors to meet with everyone and counsel them about hiv linda evans whose character had kissed rock headlined an hiv fundraiser in rock's honor and told the audience like everyone here and all his friends around the world i would like to express my love and support for rock hudson in the months that followed producers and directors groups teamed up with the cdc on a campaign to educate onset workers about hiv safety and beyond that 1985 marked a turning point at which hollywood started telling more stories about hiv previously a taboo topic ignored along with other gay issues that year nbc broadcast the first major movie to address the epidemic in the absence of information from the government tv shows started playing a vital role in educating the public can't get aids from touching anybody you can only get it from uh sex blood products and shared needles this was a time when it was easy for conservatives like reagan to ignore hiv because of who it affected a group they were used to pushing aside ignoring and attacking just like by carrington on dynasty but while blake may have been based on reagan at first this is where the two of them start to diverge you and luke are you uh when we last left them at the end of season five steven was about to tell blake that he's fallen in love with luke and was bracing for another big outburst of anger here's how it goes the fact is i think i love him i'm sorry stephen i lost one child this year now i may lose my sister i could wish things were different for you but no matter who you are or what you are i'll be damned if i'm going to lose you after having pushed stephen away for so long something's changed and it goes back to esther shapiro's original vision of families that stay together through all the fights and estrangement and illnesses and accidents blake's learned the hard way that no amount of money and power can keep him from losing the people he loves and though it's not easy for him he's going to at least try to accept his gay son also by the way some more good news blake's sister pulls through to fight another day and his daughter wasn't killed in a plane crash after all turns out this is what happened to her [Music] i'm not gonna go into that storyline here but if you want to know more check out my bonus videos over on patreon i go into depth on the ufo subplot and also a bunch of other fun stories from behind the scenes of the show that's at patreon.com mattbaume steven and luke are finally happy together on the show and free to make plans for the future the world may disapprove but i don't give a damn about the world just about us but if there's one thing you should never do on a soap opera it's make plans for the future because inevitably something like this happens the season five finale features a wedding massacre ending on a shot of every character on the show lying in a bloody heap viewers had to wait all summer to find out who lived and who died and when season six premiered miraculously just about everyone lived except try not to forget me i'll never forget you yep the moment steven seems to have found love his boyfriend dies again but luke left stephen with something priceless the memory of their love and an appreciation for the importance of being open and out he knows that love doesn't grow in a closet it needs air and he was patient with me as i learned to love steven's been through a lot but he's finally reached a place of acceptance a rare thing for gay tv characters in the 1980s i'm proud of you son and i love you very much steven's changed a lot but blake's transformation is even more remarkable and it's the culmination of dynasties years years-long twists and turns in the show's gay storylines in season six stephen meets bart falmont the son of a congressman and has a feeling that they might have something in common why not be friends i think you and i see things the same way now that steven's finally free of the closet embraced by his family he wants to help bart experience the same thing but bart's about to run for office and gay rumors could ruin his career so he's pissed that steven's even bringing it up you don't know anything about me and that's the way i want to keep it so steven just leaves him with this the hardest part is being afraid because once you stop being afraid then you're free a few episodes later bart is outed against his will in a newspaper story and as he feared all his political allies abandoned him and it's the end of his campaign for office he's upset at first but then he remembers what stephen told him and after a while he realizes this might have been for the best don't you see that i've been living a lie i've been hiding behind one excuse after another if i'd stayed here and run for the senate been elected i'd still be hiding bart's father the senator takes the news less well he accuses blake of planning the story because their families are political rivals someone digging up garbage implying my son's a homosexual senator falmont's angry disgusted in denial he wants it not to be true to all go away to go back to how it was before when they could pretend his son was straight all the things blake was doing six years earlier so it's fitting that blake is there to talk him down he's your son you love him of course i love him i've always loved him blake reminds the senator of the lesson that he nearly learned the hard way but he's your son buck don't you and emily ever forget that not if you don't want to lose him wait i almost lost my son blake was created to reflect conservative attitudes of the early 1980s but as the decade wore on he moved away from that starting point as americans found more empathy and understanding for gay family and friends so did blake i remember how angry i was at the time how hurt i felt and now blake's helping the men of his generation accept their gay kids and end the old-fashioned lies that only serve to push families apart i just can't let him go yeah but you can't stop him either because if you do you're gonna lose him believe me i have been there as bart prepares to leave denver to start a new life on the east coast he extends an invitation to stephen come with me steven's tempted but in the end he decides to stay behind for his family and bart heads out after that steven's storyline started to recede into the background a bit and actor jack holman started to feel like he'd done everything he could do with the character he has to be written off the show and in season 8 the writer shows steven realizing that he's unfulfilled and leaving denver to go find himself he's absent for the next season and then the show's cancelled leaving a bunch of cliffhangers and mysteries unsolved so whatever wound up happening to steven that question's answered two years later in the dynasty reunion special the giant outfits are back i think these feather bows are a bit much so are the ridiculous fights god what are you doing you crazy cow campy plots your days are numbered bimbo and so is steven he's now living in dc with his kid and his partner who just happens to be bart falmont the congressman's son and just go with this but now bart's played by a different actor and al corley the original steven actor is back in the role so maybe the couple was in another oil rig explosion together when blake comes to visit steven expects at least a little friction bart and i share a bedroom but instead blake greets the warmly spends time their home steven remembering all the murder and custody fights is on edge until blake takes steven aside to ask do you love each other yes we do i envy you stephen it's a very sweet moment here's how producer aaron spelling remembered blake's line i'm glad to see that someone loves you as much as i do i think that says everything that's what parenthood is about plus a racing bigotry as the dynasty reunion comes to a close we see the whole family together opulence drama shoulder pads and all with the gay son and his partner a happy part of the family we're all in each other's lives whether we like it or not and somehow or another i think that we do like it and it is remarkable that one of the messiest families in america will end up being better role models for the country than the president of the united states over the next few years aaron spelling shows kept pushing the envelope with gay characters most notably with a kiss on melrose place [Music] oh my god which was its own huge source of controversy but that is a topic for another video in making this video i came across a bunch of great stories i just didn't have room for in this final script so if you want to hear more about dynasty's ufo problem the infamous beluga caviar scene and what happened to some of these actors after dynasty ended i'm posting bonus videos on patreon with all of those stories and more big thanks to everyone who supports my work and now if you'll excuse me i believe my ride is here [Music] you

Channel: Matt Baume

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Length: 33min 25sec (2005 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022