#terry bates

Another animated sitcom tonight folks, this one’s been around for 15 years...and times arrow marches ever forward... Anyway while not about them the episode in question centers around the reoccurring anchor partners and neighbors of the Smith family Greg Corbin and Terry Bates

Now Greg (right) and Terry (left) are interesting characters in their own right. They speak in what would commonly be described as a very effeminate or “gay” voice. The primary joke as they appeared in the first couple seasons was they were super unsubtlly a gay couple but Stan, the head of the Smith household, is SUCH an over the top die hard conservative that he can’t see the truth even if it’s right in front of his face. Also it seems to be commenting on how often in media gay people in the public eye couldn’t officially come out for a very long time as it could hurt their reputation. The show did start in 2005 after all. Within all of our lifetimes but what seems like an eternity ago for LGBTQ+ cultures.

But back to the episode. The plot concerns Stan and after he goes to see a local play about President Lincoln that turns out to be more an arty pretentious performance piece, decides to put on his own one man show about the 16th president and founder of the Republican Party told from the perspective of Lincoln’s actual body guard Captain David Derickson. Given the nature of their relationship the show has some gay overtones, all of which Stan is oblivious to for reasons previously discussed.

This leads to Stan being invited by leader of the local chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, introduced by Greg, who knows Stan already, to invite Stan to one of their meetings. Once there Stan realized that they are a “gay group” and reacts about how one would expect a staunch conservative in the mid 2000s who can’t even notice gay people would act. It also comes out, by him having to literally be told by Greg that he is gay and Terry is his partner.

He calms down once he realizes they are die hard republicans too, just gay. Also matters are helped by them wanting Stan to be their representative and speak at the upcoming Republican National Convention. He embraces it for a little while but then the group discovers Stan’s vast history of homophobia and anti-gay politicing while at the same time Stan accidentally lets it slip to Terry that Greg is a republican, something that after all their years together Terry wasn’t aware of. He’s rightly upset by this and Stan is sad that he can’t speak at the RNC and also genuinely seems hurt at the loss of all these like minded people and new culture that he didn’t even know existed. His solution is simple. Stan will choose to be gay...

(Image not from this episode, but the emotion is by the family when he tells them) Anyway that really is Stan’s plan. Being gay is a choice to him so he’ll choose to do it to get back in the good graces of the Log Cabin Republicans. He approaches Terry, still upset that Greg left with the others in the group and Terry seems receptive enough to try. They go out for dinner, dance at a club and when the two first kiss Stan says he feels nothing. Terry tells him that he probably is just straight. Stan gets angry and says “This is MY choice, I CHOOSE to be gay,” and Terry tells him it’s not a choice and Stan realizes he’s right.

That’s what I love about this show. It decideds that the only way someone like Stan will realize that being gay isn’t a choice is if he tried to choose it and couldn’t. There’s just something beautifully simple about the bluntness that I love. In the end Stan does speak at the RNC and uses that time to defend the gay community to the other Republicans there who would be against it. It’s not a subtle message, nor one that a lot of the show’s primary audience would need but I’ve always loved that this episode is unassumingly out there to give the message to those who do need to hear it.

American Dad S3 E4: Lincoln Lover

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