The Accidental Activist
By: Jon Barett
Twenty-two-year old Danny has a secret. And it’s not the one he shared with his parents just before he moved to New Orleans last winter. By now, more than five weeks into MTV’s latest incarnation of The Real World, everybody knows Danny is gay. Today, Danny’s dealing with an entirely different secret: his boyfriend, Paul.
Paul is in the military. And like most service members who want to keep their jobs, he’s in the closet. Neither his parents nor other family members-nor even his best friends-know he is gay.
But because of Danny’s participation in the 20-something soap opera (in which seven strangers live together and have their lives chronicled for five months), he and Paul have been thrust into the battle over the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
That’s where things get tricky for Danny (who asked that his and Paul’s last names not be used). Just when MTV is making him one of the most recognizable gay faces among those in their teens and 20’s, his very notoriety threatens the anonymity and the livelihood of the person he cares for most.
With his just-out-of-bed good looks and oh-so-comforting Southern drawl, Danny would have hooked the attention of Britney Spears (blech)-soaked MTV viewers even without the military controversy. In fact, the Rockmart, Ga., native had no intention of taking on military brass when he first agreed to move to the Big Easy.
“There were two reasons why I wanted to do the show.” Danny says, curling his lips as if he has a pinch of tobacco between his cheek and gum. “First, I wanted to get out of Atlanta…. I had just graduated from [the University of Georgia], and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing with life.” And second, he says, “going on the show was a chance to, hopefully, dispel stereotypes and show the public…that there are so many different types of gay people.”
But when Danny met Paul in Atlanta less than two weeks before taping was set to begin in New Orleans, the unfolding of their innocent love story became much more than that. The two realized that if Paul were to visit Danny in New Orleans, he would inevitably end up on the program--an obvious violation of the military policy, which allows gay people to serve as long as they keep their sexual orientation hidden from everyone.
“We thought we were going to have to go for five months and not see each other, “ Danny says. “But then two weeks into the project [Paul] was like, “I’m coming.”
The twist surprised the show’s producers almost as much as it did the new lovers themselves. “When we cast Danny he didn’t have a boyfriend in the military,” says Real World co-creator Jonathan Murray. “He was actually high on some other guy.” But after only a few weeks into the show, Danny and Paul “didn’t know if they could survive being apart,” Murray says. So “we agreed to not show Paul’s face or give away any distinguishing characteristics.”
Not that Paul’s visits were an unwelcome addition. Stories like his are The Real World’s lifeblood. In fact, this isn’t the first time the show has touched on the issue of gays in the military. Last season, Hawaii cast member Ruthie Alcaide had a girlfriend who was in basic training. But Murray says Ruthie’s girlfriend wasn’t concerned about being seen on the show and that she left the service before the series aired.
“Once these things get dropped in your lap, you want to deal with them as best as you can,” Murray says. “It even goes back to when Pedro [Zamora] got sick [from AIDS] on the show in San Francisco. We had no idea--nor did he--that he would get sick. But then it’s, ‘Ok, these things have happened. How do we deal with it in a way that not only lives up to our program’s being an entertainment show but also maybe raises some interesting issues?’”
In Danny and Paul’s case, that meant letting their romance play out like any other—except that Paul’s image is blurred on-screen (almost as if he were on Cops rather than The Real World). “I have to be very careful about what I reveal about him,” Danny says of the time he first showed pictures of Paul to his housemates. “I could ruin his career, his life.”
When he and Paul are apart on the show, Danny struggles with issues of fidelity (successfully, he reports today, aside from a few stray kisses during Mardi Gras). And the few times Paul is able to visit the New Orleans mansion, soft music plays as they smooch in the hot tub.
"It bugs me...there's a scene where we're kissing in the hot tub, but it's just a blur. It's annoying and not fair that it has to be that way. That totally kills the moment. Oh, that's so romantic, he's making out with a blur."
Melissa, the 23-year-old housemate to whom Danny first came out to on the show, says he was “100% successful” in his effort to dispel stereotypes of gay people, adding, “I’m a fan of the show and have watched [previous seasons], and I’ve been just a little bit put off by the portrayal of some of the gay characters because they feed into a stereotype that is unfair.”
Nowhere in the house is Danny’s influence more obvious than with his housemate Julie, a 20-year-old Mormon who called homosexuality “disgusting” during her addition for the show.
“When [Julie] learned I was gay she had to completely break herself down and change her views,” Danny says. “By the end of the show, she did a 180 and was completely as anti homophobic as it gets…. I want the public to have the same reaction as Julie.”
But that’s as far as Danny wants his activism to go for now. His and Paul’s participation in the show has introduced millions to an issue many gay people consider one of the biggest obstacles in the struggle for equality—gays in the military. But after five months in front of the camara, Danny just wants to focus on their relationship—in private.
“I would like to speak out [against “don’t ask”],” says Danny, who eventually wants to start his own youth-oriented travel business. “But the more I would piss the military off and give them a reason to find out [Paul’s] identity. That’s the last thing I want to happen.”
Aside from the publicizing of the show that’s expected of cast members, Danny says he and Paul are going to “stay low”. “We’re going to live together in a fairly small town in a random place,” he says, adding that he now plans to go by his first name rather than “Danny”—which is his middle name—to create an extra layer of privacy. “Obviously there is a fear that people are going to recognize me, put two and two together, and automatically know who [Paul] is. I want to avoid that as much as possible.”
“The way I look at it is that when we go out in public places, we have to think about where we’re going [and] who’s going to be there,” Danny says. “We need to try to avoid places where the crowd that will be watching the show would hang out in large numbers.”
Despite all the precautions he and Danny are having to take, Paul, who breaks his silence for the first time in the Advocate, has little bad to say about the military or about “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “It’s not the policy [that’s the problem]; it’s the people who are part of the military—like the American public—who are just not very accepting of that kind of lifestyle,” he says.
Reluctant to give too much information about himself—other than to say that he was already in the military when he realized he was gay 3 ½ years ago—Paul says that he will probably leave the service in about a year. “They tell you the rules, and if you don’t want to follow them, they find a nice, easy, safe way of getting yourself out,” he says, adding, “It was never my intention to fight military policy.”
Nine seasons into The Real World, Murray has seen cast members deal with everything from HIV and AIDS to abortion and alcoholism. Now that Danny has “humanized” another issue, Murray isn’t surprised to see him and Paul shrink a bit from the spotlight.
“People will probably look at them and try to turn them into advocates, but I don’t know if they’ll want to do that,” he says. “The gay men and women in the military are asking to be able to do their jobs and, when they’re not at work, be able to live their lives openly. And I think that’s all Danny and Paul are trying to do as well.
GAY.COM
by Bill Roundy
"Danny's Love Life's a Blur
Out in the Real World"
Danny isn't the first openly gay cast member to appear on MTV's nine-year-old real life soap opera series, The Real World. Nor is he the first to kiss another man onscreen. However, he is the first to kiss a blurred man.
"That totally kills the moment," Danny laughs, with a small town Georgia twang. "'Oh, that's so romantic, he's making out with a blur.'"
Actually, Danny's really making out with his boyfriend, Paul, whose identity was concealed in post-production so as not to endanger his military career.
"We didn't want to deny Danny the opportunity to have Paul visit," explains The Real World's openly gay executive producer, Jon Murray. "Plus it's an interesting story, people will talk about it, and maybe the military policy will evolve because we're showing it up in the face of young people."
This season takes place in New Orleans with what Murray feels is one of the series' most likeable casts ever. In addition to University of Georgia graduate Danny, there's Julie, a sheltered Mormon; Matt, a stylish creative critter; Melissa, a short but saucy slice of energy; David, a muscular musician with sex appeal for days; Kelley, a strong-willed beauty; and Jamie, a well-off Cornell graduate. Together, the gang produced their own cable access program, experienced Mardi Gras, attended a dinner party at a famous author's home, went on a swamp tour through the alligator-infested bayou, savored the thrills of stripping at a Bourbon Street club, and found romance.
Danny professes that his housemates—shacked up in a chi-chi Greek revival mansion in the historic Garden District—were welcoming from the moment he stepped inside. The only house member who even approached Puck-esque homophobia was Jamie, who exhibited tinges of discomfort, but never resorted to open-air bigotry.
"The thing with Jamie is he totally wants to pretend he's cool with it, because his deal is he wants to be seen as being very P.C., like the P.C. business world," Danny says. "But I know he's not. There was one time where me and Kelley, we're laying in bed, we'd been drinking or whatever, just kinda hanging out and being silly, and he made this comment like, ‘Ooh, I don't wanna get too close to that.' What's that supposed to mean?"
Unlike many of the wannabes who apply for a spot on The Real World annually (35,000 this season), Danny confesses he never gave the concept much thought until a friend urged him to audition. But as Danny made it through the hurdles—"They made me take my shirt off and flex my biceps and dance," he recalls—a season in New Orleans became a serious consideration.
"I wanted to escape from Atlanta and my life there," admits Danny, who came out to his parents just three weeks before moving to New Orleans. "I was not happy. And coming on here my main point was wanting to be a good role model for young gay people and dispel stereotypes as well."
The Red and Black
by Paul Fulton Jr.
"UGA Grad Receives Call to Get 'Real'"
Two weeks ago, producers of MTV's "The Real World" called University graduate Danny Roberts of Atlanta to tell him he was selected as one of the seven cast members for the new season.
"I jumped on my desk and started screaming," Roberts said about being notified at work. "And that was it. I just left my job."
More than 35,000 people auditioned for the show.
Roberts said he first interviewed for the show in Atlanta and he didn't "have a clue what it was going to be like."
Interviewers selected seven strangers from the crowd to sit down at a table to answer "really personal questions," he said.
"It's a chance for them to see you argue it out with strangers," Roberts said. "And they're all sexual questions. One of the first questions they asked was how we felt about masturbation."
Roberts said the interviewers told the groups that individuals would be notified within a week by telephone if they were to proceed to the next round.
But one person pulled Roberts aside and told him that he had made it to the next phase of the interview process.
Each of the next four interviews were conducted by telephone and lasted more than an hour and a half. There was a camera in the room with Roberts during each interview.
"They want to know everything about you," he said. "Anything personal you can imagine."
Roberts performed well enough on the telephone interviews to proceed to the next round -- a meeting with two of the show's producers at an Atlanta hotel in a room equipped with lights, microphones and cameras.
"It was my first experience with all that, and it was kind of nerve-wracking," Roberts said. "The interview was a little more intense."
Roberts was one of 30 people interviewed during the final stage.
He went to Los Angeles at the beginning of December. He said the studio drove him to Hollywood with two other people where they walked the streets -- tailed by a camera crew. He said they stopped by a coffee shop on their walk.
"It was crazy, like being on a talk show," he said. "Everybody on the street came in to watch."
He said on his second day in Los Angeles he interviewed with three more producers and Piggy, a past cast member of MTV's "Road Rules."
"I was so blown away by then that I wasn't even thinking straight," Roberts said. "It was just so surreal."
After receiving his acceptance phone call, Roberts travelled to Los Angeles to film the casting special. He said he cannot reveal the location of the new show, but he moves on Jan. 19. Taping lasts four months, and the show airs in June.