Donald and Mike meet ‘Will & Grace’

“Will & Grace” will return for a ninth season this year.

Edwin J. Viera, Columnist

During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the NBC sitcom, Will & Grace, became famous for having two openly gay lead characters on the show. The show was about the lives of Will Truman, a gay lawyer, and Grace Adler, a straight interior decorator living together in New York City. Along with them are Jack McFarland, a flamboyantly gay actor and Karen Walker, a bisexual woman who married a wealthy man but still works as Grace’s assistant so she has something to do.

Will & Grace had a profound effect on the LGBTQ community and will remain a staple of American culture for years to come. However, in 2016 this show reappeared in the spotlight with a 2016 presidential campaign video that didn’t support either candidate but was made to inform people to go vote in the election. The video’s channel, aptly titled #VoteHoney, was about Will, Grace and Karen trying to sway jack in favor of the candidate that they are voting for.

(Here is a link to the Will & Grace 2016 election video: http://bit.ly/2lnFKJ9

Karen is voting for Donald Trump while Will and Grace are both voting for Hillary Clinton. In the end, Jack is convinced by Will to vote for Hillary once he hears that Katy Perry is voting for her. This video has over seven million views and was apparently enough of a hit to get Will & Grace put back on the air. The show will return in 2017 for a ten episode ninth season.

Reviving Will & Grace would provide a great place for current issues of the LGBTQ community to be brought up. One major example is gender fluidity. This is when a person is neither male nor female but both. People don’t use the pronouns he or she but instead use the pronoun “they.”

Other issues that could be brought up during the series would be the effects of Donald Trump’s policies as well as his choice in leadership on the LGBTQ community. As many people know, Vice-president Mike Pence has come out in support of gay conversion therapy, and could be used as a means for all issues to be pushed.

After the election much of the LGBTQ, as well as most of society, was terrified of living during a Trump presidency. Riots and hate crimes skyrocketed all over the country; even in the Buffalo/Erie County area. At Canisius College, a black doll was hung in one of the residence hall elevators. At a baseball field in Wellsville, the words “Make America White Again” were spray painted on a baseball dugout in all capital letters with a swastika separating the four words into two groups.

Here at Buffalo State College the election was a major part of news when The Record used the headline “MAKE AMERIKKKA GREAT AGAIN”, demonstrating that the KKK did indeed support Donald Trump’s campaign. Though most, if not all copies of this issue were taken out of the newspaper stands, the article lives online at The Record’s website. Will & Grace is a show that made headlines for the topics and views it demonstrated and with this revival it just might come back stronger than ever.

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