Desperate Housewives: Andrew Van de Kamp

Andrew Van de Kamp is a fictional character in the ABC television series Desperate Housewives and is the son of Bree Van de Kamp and the late Rex Van de Kamp. As one of the few LGBT characters on prime time television secure with his sexuality, Andrew's storylines have been well-received by gay groups. However, his early attitude towards his mother and the fact that he commits various crimes has also been the subject of much criticism. Although Andrew becomes one of the few LGBT characters who is comfortable with his sexuality, when he initially reveals that he is gay, viewers such as myself thought that he was “faking” his sexuality in order to upset his mother, Bree, who we see is a religious woman of Christian faith. Andrew’s very attitude towards his sexuality in the beginning shows over and over again that he meant for his actions to crush his mother, and I as a viewer, had doubts myself about whether he was really gay or not.

As a gay character on television, Andrew is shown to be a criminal, an unlawful citizen, as well as a troublemaker in the domestic sphere. His attitude towards his family does change in following seasons in a positive way, but even then, over season seven, they show that he has become an alcoholic because he was having trouble in his relationships, and his boyfriend eventually left him.

Andrews’ character on this popular television show brought back memories from when we watched The Celluloid Closet in class; although there was more representation of gay characters such as himself on the show, his character was shown in a negative light in the first few seasons of the show. He was shown as a young adult who purposely sought to disrupt his mother’s beliefs by announcing that he was gay. There are other gay characters and couples on Desperate Housewives whom viewers did not see as menacing or people who were seeking to disrupt peace, but at the same time, they were stereotypical representations of them as gay characters.

Andrew first appears in the "Pilot" of season one. His role in the television series is immediately shown as a rebellious teenager who hates his parents, as his first scenes show him arguing with his mother, Bree, over her desire for perfection. He is attached to his father, Rex, and is upset when Bree tries to cover up their impending divorce. Andrew repeatedly breaks the rules during Season One, infuriating Bree, who eventually humiliates him by turning up at the strip club he is visiting with his friends while grounded, Bree removes the door to his room in punishment for him smoking marijuana.

His parents' divorce results in Rex buying Andrew a car. Bree tries to get him to give it back but Andrew refuses. Later that episode, in his most serious crime, he knocked down Gabrielle’s mother in law with his car while drunk driving. Although his parents help him cover it up, Andrew doesn't feel any remorse for his crime. He continues to misbehave and Bree gets him dropped from the school swim team for smoking marijuana in an attempt to make him regret his actions.

When Bree tells Andrew that if he gets his friend Lisa pregnant, he will have to marry her. Andrew merely laughs, as he is actually developing a relationship with a boy, Justin, who confesses to Gabrielle Solis that he and Andrew have been "fooling around" for some time. Andrew later crashes Zach's pool party with Justin and some friends and creates mayhem. However, after everyone else has gone home, Susan Mayer catches them naked in the swimming pool kissing; Andrew anxiously shouts, "I'm not, I'm not gay!" Susan then walks away, shocked by what she had just seen. After, he is expelled from school for drug abuse and his continuing rudeness to Bree, Andrew is sent to a juvenile delinquent boot camp.

When his parents visit him at the camp, Andrew asks to see his father (Rex) alone; Bree thinks this is because he blames her for sending him to the camp and storms into the meeting room to tell him she did the right thing. There, Rex reveals that Andrew wanted to see him alone because he fears he is gay. Bree is horrified, and despite Rex's misgivings, insists Andrew come home with them immediately, saying

Our son just told us that he might be gay. There are two hundred other boys in this camp. Now, I could explain to you what might happen if we left him here, but I'm a lady and I don't use that kind of language.

Rex reminds her that he is still her son and Bree tries to comfort Andrew by telling him

I would love you even if you were a murderer.

Bree then invites Reverend Sikes to dinner, who tries to convince Andrew to enroll in Christian counseling. He refuses, saying

I'm not confused. I know exactly who I am.

This deeply upsets Bree, who tells him he has to change or he will not be with her in heaven; Andrew is shocked and agrees to meet the reverend. In his final scene of the season, after swearing the reverend to secrecy, Andrew states that, not only that he does not believe in God and lied to his parents about being gay to get out of the camp. This confuses the reverend, who asks him whether he is heterosexual or not: Andrew replies, "Look, I love vanilla ice cream, okay? But every now and then I’m probably gonna be in the mood for chocolate."

He then says he will get revenge on Bree for rejecting him by pretending to be a model son and then doing something so awful it is "going to really destroy her."
In Season Two, Bree brings Andrew back from the camp, telling him that George (the man that she started dating) killed Rex in order to marry her; Andrew is disgusted that his father is dead because of her. As a result, Andrew invites Justin to sleep over. He confides to him his reasons for hating Bree, saying:

Last year, when she found out that I liked guys, she freaked out. She said that, if I didn't change, I'd be going straight to hell. So, since I knew that I couldn't change, it suddenly hit me that, one day, my own mother was going to stop loving me. So, I decided to stop loving her first. That way, it wouldn't hurt so bad.

He also confides his wish for his mother to slip up so that he can "take her down". Later, Bree confesses to Andrew that George didn't commit suicide; he overdosed and asked her to call an ambulance, but she sat and watched him die. Andrew now has the "slip up" that he was waiting for. When Bree sees Andrew kissing Justin outside her window, she forbids him to bring his boyfriend round again. Andrew mocks her and Bree later walks in them in bed together. Bree threatens to call the police and have Justin forcibly removed, but Andrew replies that he will tell them about what happened to George.

Along with his sister, Andrew notices Bree's increasing alcohol consumption, and uses it against her. When Bree refuses to let Andrew access his trust fund to buy a car, he calls her a "mean old drunk", and she slaps him. Andrew emotionally blackmails Justin into punching him in the same place Bree slapped him. He then hires a lawyer to file for emancipation from his mother, whom he accuses of hitting him while drunk. Andrew tries to persuade her in "There Is No Other Way" to just let him go, but she refuses saying she hasn't "set him right" yet. Andrew, after consultation with his lawyer, tells Bree in "Could I Leave You?" that he will accuse her of molesting him if he does not get his way.



Bree's father and stepmother arrive, and convince the judge to drop the case. They try to reconcile the two, but Andrew persuades them to let him live with them. Justin is heartbroken when he finds out, and when Bree asks him why, replies:

When my parents first heard I was gay, they kicked me out. They said I had "debased" the entire family and that they couldn't love me anymore until I had changed. But Andrew said that I should be ashamed of them because they were too stupid to know how great I was. That's the thing about Andrew, he does not take crap from anyone. How can you not love him?

Bree persuades Justin to supply her with gay magazines and videos, which she plants among Andrew's things for his grandparents to find; they then leave Andrew behind, and revoke his trust fund. In an attempt to make peace, Bree invites Justin to dinner. Andrew, at this point in time, has attempted to cause pain to his mother multiple times for sinister and unjust causes.

In Season Four, we do not see much of Andrew as Bree eventually decides that she could not handle him anymore and abandons him at a gas station. Later, she sees him on a television documentary on the homeless, seeks him out, and eventually he comes home. We also see him becoming increasingly protective of his mother, and see that he has forgiven her. In season Four, we see that the both of them had reconciled.

In season 5, five years later, Andrew is now the personal assistant of his mother, Bree, who, with her new cookbook, is a rising public figure similar to Martha Stewart. He has appeared to have matured and is usually seen alongside his mother wearing a suit. He apparently makes a decent living as he owns a sports car. We also see that Andrew is in a serious relationship with another man, Alex Comnis, who is a plastic surgeon. When Bree discovers that Alex was once in gay porn, she tells Andrew and is surprised to learn that Andrew already knew and did not judge Alex for his past mistakes as he himself has a "sordid past." It is then insinuated that Bree has come to accept her son's sexuality and plans on handling the wedding. When Andrew's soon-to-be mother in-law comes to town, in order to out-do her Bree decides to buy Andrew and Alex a house, which is only two houses down from her own.

Andrew can be selfish and manipulative, and regularly uses other people to get what he wants, for example, persuading his boyfriend Justin to hit him so he can claim Bree is abusing him. He has also committed a range of crimes, from being expelled from school for smoking marijuana, to running over Mamá Solis while drunk. After Bree hushed up the accident for him, he then refused to feel bad, reasoning "She's an old lady! I have my whole life ahead of me!” In Season 3, however, Andrew seems to have matured after spending eight months living on the streets.
While fans have heatedly debated his sexual orientation, Shawn Pyfrom has denied that Andrew is totally homosexual, implying he is bisexual. In "My Husband, the Pig", he refers to Austin as a "dog" and himself as a "dog-lover". Whatever Andrew is, he is one of a few LGBT teens on television secure with his sexuality. He's gay and he doesn't care.

From Andrew's hurt reaction to his mother's rejection of him, it appears that he deeply loves his mother, as his determination to hurt her in Season 2 is so he can "stop loving her first". He also loves and respects his father, and only Rex who can get him to stop tormenting Bree in Season 1, albeit briefly. Later on in Season 2, Karl, another strong male figure, has some similar success in forcing Andrew to stop harassing Bree temporarily. In Season 3, it is Orson, and not Bree, who persuades Andrew to return home and whom he continues to respect throughout the season.

Andrew is very protective of his mother, as is shown in Season 2 when he attacks George after George tries to kiss Bree against her will, and then in Season 3 where he threatens Orson under the belief that Orson may hurt Bree. By the fifth season, a more mature Andrew has inherited traits that he once ridiculed his mother for having, such as blunt sarcasm. His relationship with his mother has also changed dramatically for the better.
I think what's great about Andrew is that they developed him as a rebellious, if not sociopathic teenager, who is terrible to his mother, hits old ladies with his car, and also happens to be gay. They don't make him this typical weak gay character, and I think that's good because it's saying that even if you're gay, you can still be strong and confident. At the same time, this show once again reinforces the negative connotations of being gay, showing that he was an outcast, as his mother kicks him out, not because of his sexual orientation, but because of his own attitude with his sexual orientation.

Although Desperate Housewives show him as a developed mature man in the later seasons of the show, he is eventually shown to be a monstrous child who wanted to just cause pain to his family by telling them that he was gay. This once again shows that even now, the notion of being gay is seen as an enormous deal in families, something that could very well disrupt a family’s balance if there is no acceptance, but at the same time, for me, I despised his character because he represented his sexuality in a way that just meant for him to upset his family. I’m glad that the character developed so much over the last few seasons, and we see him being accepted by his family.

Then again, Andrew not only admits to committing adultery, as he sleeps with other men while married to Alex, but he turns to alcohol as well, leading Alex to leave him. On the show, multiple characters were guilty of adultery, but Andrew’s “sins” are more emphasized. I wonder what that once again implies for LGBT characters.

"House" 5 X 16: "The Softer Side"

The television show, House (also known as House, M.D.) is a television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network in 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

House has been one of my favorite television shows since I started watching it last year, and after having taken LTCS 131, I started thinking back and noticing more and more gender biases and the way that they are portrayed through popular television shows such as House. In the episode that I will be discussing, a 13-year-old boy named Jackson collapses after playing in a basketball game. He is admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, mainly because of his genetic mosaicism; when he was born, it was found that half the cells in his body are male and the other half female. The parents decided to raise their child as male and lately began giving him testosterone, disguised as "vitamins". After a variety of tests, nothing is found and Jackson's condition continues to deteriorate, until eventually, he is diagnosed correctly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSv1qgwDt3k

Throughout the episode, gender biases are noticeable in more than one form. As we have previously discussed in class, gender roles have been ingrained in our society throughout the ages, and this episode clearly shows some of them. In the episodes, Jackson's parents first of all refused to tell their son that he was born with half male and half female cells. They decided to raise him as a boy and without telling him, decided to start giving him testosterone pills. In the episode, we see Thirteen, one of the doctors on House’s team, who is also known to be bisexual, try to encourage the parents to tell their son the truth about him, because he deserved to know the conditions under which he was born. The father, agreed to disclose the facts to their son, but the mother however, decided that the time was not right, and that she wanted to protect him; telling the truth would only hurt and confuse him further.

During Jackson’s interactions with Thirteen, he mentions to her that he had wanted to take dance lessons in school, which his father was alright with, but his mother “freaked out” and refused, stating that he was to choose only between hockey and basketball. Upon eventually finding out that he was born with half male and half female cells in his body, Jackson is initially shocked and confused as to why his parents did not tell him this, and later, starts questioning the way he felt about another boy that he was friends with.

This episode clearly shows the gender biases that are so present in our media, and our society and always have been. We have discussed the boy and girl roles that children are expected to follow while growing up, and looking at the reaction the mother had to her son wanting to take dance lessons, when knowing that he was inherently born with half male and half female cells further shows how strongly these gender biases affect our thinking and our integration into the society. The episode also talks about how gender labeling is done even before we are born, and how parents are the ones who ultimately decide how we are raised.

When Jackson finds out about the condition that he was born with, he starts to question the way he is “supposed” to feel, and how he is supposed to behave. He feels the need to re-identify himself, and called himself a “freak of nature,” once again, showing that even from an early age, the gender biases and stereotypes are learned through social institutions as well as with upbringing. In the episode, although Thirteen does not freely share her experiences or feelings of being a bisexual, we see that she is the one who appeals to Jackson more than any of the other doctors, and in the beginning of the episode, House says “our new patient, part girl, part boy, all Thirteen’s dream date.” Although House is known to be a character who is comically rude, sarcastic and blatantly honest with his patients as well as his colleagues, the comment he makes shows once again how the society has the mentality of “us against them” as he automatically states that the patient would be someone Thirteen should be interested in, or group herself with. House makes remarks on Thirteen’s sexuality from the minute he finds out that she is bisexual, and these remarks did go unnoticed by me as well, as I passed them off as humor, but after taking this class, I cannot help but notice how such stereotyping is so blatantly present in our media and although it is presented in a form that shows acceptance and tolerance of the LGBT society, there are always remarks that are made to make the dominant population of viewers relate to something, or sometimes, challenge those views.