AE: Wikipedia says you’ve had a “meteoric career” in television.
So I’m wondering if you should also be nominated for best Wikipedia writing?
BF: [Laughing] I don’t know who writes that stuff! But I saw
that and I was like oh, my God! They have my birthday on there, and do they
have my social security and my mother’s maiden name? And it was all so surreal.
But I don’t know who writes that, but I love under career it was like, Fuller
is openly gay, and that’s like the most interesting thing about my personal
life.
AE: For the record, my research for this interview consisted
of more than just Wikipedia. I read an interview you did four years ago with
our sister site AfterEllen.com and another you did with ComicBookResource.com
and I wasn’t surprised to see that you’d had your fair share of run ins with
studio executives and that the issue frequently involved gay characters. The
dad de-gayed on Dead Like Me. The lesbian kiss issue on Wonderfalls.
Then there was the de-gayed character on Heroes. From where you sit, are things
getting any better when it comes to gay visibility on television?
BF: Yeah, I think they are getting better. ABC is really,
really supportive and embracing of gay characters on television, which is kind
of funny. They’re fearless, which is great. And I think that’s one end of the
spectrum, and then on the other end of the spectrum I would say is Fox, which
is so conservative. Hopefully they have changed in the past three or four
years, but on Wonderfalls I found it shocking and depressing and really so
strange.
Fuller at this year’s Comic Con
Photo credit: mjade
AE: You probably didn’t have time to watch much Olympics,
but there was this Australian diver who is gay…
BF: Oh, yeah, I saw that and I thought that was so sh*tty.
I’m glad they apologized, but it’s a little too little and a little too late.
They should have acknowledged this man and his boyfriend and it was really
unfortunate. I’m glad they got called out in the media because they deserved to
be called out. But that was unfortunate.
AE: You wrote for Star Trek and are well-known as a sci fi
geek. As a sci fan, have you noticed the lack of gay characters on science fiction
programs and if so, do you find it frustrating?
BF: You know, it is frustrating. When I first started Star
Trek, there was a script that was going around that had gay characters in it
and I read it and it was sort of very cliché and I’m sure I’ll get rapped in
the mouth for this from some folks, but I was relieved that they didn’t do it
because I just thought it wasn’t done in a clever way. It was kind of a mincing
stereotype – not mincing, but you know – there was no dimension to the
character, just sort of "oh, that character is gay."
And … with Pushing Daisies and having made a couple
of attempts at doing a gay character and then thinking okay, it would be great
to have this gay character in the coroner because it would be a unique gay
perspective. Fleshing that out in an episode kind of got put on the back burner
because of other concerns and then we had an episode where we introduce Ned’s
brothers and one of them is gay and we had a scene where they are talking to
Olive and one of them is really obsessed with Olive and she is like, “How do
you know that you’re not going to leave the room and then the other one is
going to come back in and play some kind of trick on me?” And the other one
says, “Well, because I’m gay.”
That was a scene that we had to cut because it didn’t have
anything to do with the plot of the storyline and so I share the frustrations.
But I also understand when you’re telling a story and you only have 48 pages to
tell a story that … some of that stuff goes by the wayside. And I’m always
like, “God damn it!” I want to make room for this, but I know that if you just
put it in there to put it in there, then it’s going to be . . . like if you
can’t service it, then do it when you can service it so it doesn’t feel
like it is an empty gesture.
AE: Like with the coroner?
BF: I feel really bad
because I want to tell that story and I feel like it is my duty and obligation
as a gay man working in television to represent that voice and I feel like I
was successful at doing that and it was wonderful to a certain extent with Todd
Holland [on Wonderfalls], who is also gay and co-created the show with me. So
it’s one of those things where I feel like I can’t sling stones as much as I
would want to because I’ve been on the other side and feel the frustration. I’m
frustrated with myself and I’m frustrated with other people who don’t do it,
but I’m certainly living in a glass house in that regard, if that makes any
sense.
AE: I’m sorry, but with what you’ve done you are not living
in any glass house. The granddaddy of
the “no gays in sci-fi” is, of course, Star Trek. I recently asked Star Trek
writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci if the new Trek movie would finally go
where the franchise hasn’t gone in over forty years. I was told they had discussed
it and “hopefully” it’ll make it into the next movie. You wrote for Star Trek.
What do you think accounts for such a progressive show’s total lack of failure
in this regard?
BF: Well, my goal when Pushing Daisies is done is to
do a Star Trek series. I would love to go back and I’ve talked to my friends
and co-workers at Heroes, some of the writers on that show and I was
like, “Okay when Heroes is done and Daisies is done, we’re all
going to get back together and we’re going to do a Star Trek series.”
I ran into Brain Burk who is one of the producers on the new
Star Trek movie and Lost and he’s in that J.J. Abrams camp, and I was
just like, “If you guys are ever venturing into television, please come
see me because I have an idea for a Star Trek series.” And I really want to go
back to that world. I really want to go back to the spirit of the original
series, which was much more fun. I think Next Generation and Deep Space Nine
and Voyager – I’ll stop there – were
all really good series and, but they didn’t have that sense of fun that the
original series had.
AE: You are serious? This isn’t just a pie in the sky thing?
BF: I would love to do it. Star Trek was so important to me
growing up and also so pivotal and why I became a writer. When I was working at
this health care trade association and writings spec scripts for Star Trek, my
desk was littered with Star Trek figures. Every time I saw a Jem’Hadar, I would
buy it so I could collect a Jem’Hadar army. And it’s a great universe with a
lot of hope. It’s a great metaphor to explore the human condition and it’s just
fun. And I think it can be fun again in the way the original series was
and I was so encouraged that they were going back to the style of the original
series.
I told my agent if anybody starts talking about a Star Trek
series, throw my name into the hat. It’s something that I would love to do.
