Why was Will Truman so unpleasant?

You really need to get out more, OP.

Maybe, r1: but here you are too.

We was always somewhat fastidious but in the first season he was seemed reasonably well adjusted and likeable. he had just broken up with his long-term boyfriend primarily because he was too inflexible. In subsequent seasons they made him more needy and stereotypical gay and even cartoonish, likely for comedic effect. What Will Truman really needed was cock.

It seems like it was pretty clearly a choice to make the character more judgey than the others. Someone had to set up the jokes and get the tension going, right?

He was no Harry

He was the caretaker. The proverbial straight guy to the other clowns.

I thought Grace got worse as the show went on.

I know far too many gays just like him. He played the role well.

He was fussy and prissy with a giant stick up his ass. Grace became a monster as the dhow went on.

Why did Jack dress like he had just robbed a Gap? A cabaret queen like Jack would have worn a lot more sequins and pleather from the International Male catalog.

He was your basic DL prisspot with a better body.

He was so cute back then.

Because he was a gay man in NYC who was attractive and financially well off, but never seemed to get laid. Where was the Will goes to blow off steam at the Eagle episode.

R10 He really was. I just wanted to fuck the stick right out of his ass. And then put him in therapy.

He was a gay attorney at a time when it was difficult to be both.

You can tell that law wasn't his first career choice, but he was a smart white guy from a WASP family who could not disappoint them...AGAIN.

Wilma was written to be a suffering and insufferable cunt, and one of the two straight characters, as opposed to Jack and Anastasia Beaverhausen, the real fags.

I think the actor was aghast at the fake name "Truman." I know it drove me nuts.

He was the fantasy of an urban gay male designed to appeal to the fantasies of Straight FRAU women.

He had the same energy as Jason Bateman's lead role in "Arrested Development." On a screwball cast, you need a straight man as your anchor. But the actor playing said anchor shouldn't try AT ALL to be the straight man. He shouldn't be mean or frosty or sardonic - Just ordinary.

Jason Bateman made Michael Bluth into a dick, so you didn't feel sorry for him having such a family of jackasses. He was merely a different flavor of the same brand.

I always thought it was funny they never brought up Jack and Will going to spas. The closest they ever got was visiting friends with a beach house and alluding to sex filled past weekends.

What R7 said. I know plenty of gay guys like him who compartmentalize other gay men based mostly on looks and who they’d sleep with. They’re overall bitchy and miserable because they think they’re too good for most of the gay men they meet. They have friends like Jack for platonically going out with on occasion. And then I know gay guys like Jack, who are slightly delusional, but who seem to get a lot of fun out of life.

I think the character fit the show but was probably more like Eric in real life over time. A smug, humorless prick.

[quote]Grace became a monster as the dhow went on.

Maneuvering those little boats on the Red Sea can be very stressful.

Being a young curmudgeon was just part of his character. You could say the same about Frasier Crane to a large degree.

The majority of gay men I know are closer to being Will Truman types than Jack types.

When the other characters superseded him in popularity, he became a mere foil - the serious one who set up all of the yucks.

[quote] Being a young curmudgeon was just part of his character. You could say the same about Frasier Crane to a large degree.

But FRASIER constantly made fun of Frasier Crane for his pomposity and crustiness. WILL & GRACE rarely made fun of Will for those qualities.

It’s Eric McCormack, not will. I just don’t like him.

[quote] He was a gay attorney at a time when it was difficult to be both.

What does that mean? Difficult to be gay and difficult to be an attorney? Or difficult to be a gay attorney?

I was a gay attorney at the time and I knew a lot of gay attorneys. We didn’t find it particularly difficult.

Perry Mason was a hell of a great gay attorney!!! and he proved to me his prowess as a lawyer and a gay many, many times.

Rosario was the only one I could stand on the show.

He was annoying in the early episodes when they tried to make him a straight gay man who played poker and smoked cigars with all his straight buddies.

oh i liked zandra too

Mixing up straight and manly again.

R13 : He was a gay attorney at a time when it was difficult to be both.

Utter bullshit. Happy, out gay attorneys in NYC were a dime a dozen. Non-issue.

R29 Will was a fancy fella, but he wasn't a FAG. The Peoria viewers wouldn't have tuned in for that.

And R30 "I still remember the night that Don Ameche tied me to this radiator with my bra!"

Will Truman was someone I could never imagine actually having butt sex, primarily because he was way too uptight.

I like Will, he is my favorite

R34 Oh, I definitely could. I love bottoms like Will who are a bit reticent and uptight and in their head because I love the challenge of centering them/getting them to relax and let go. Slutty, over-eager hole-presenters are completely boring and unattractive to me.

The uptight ones are the ones you need to watch out for......

I know a "Will" in real life. Well dressed, suit and tie to work every day, very conservative on the surface.

But he has a secret social media account where he likes to show off his very nice cock shooting very big loads all the time.

It's always those ones that do......

Yea, just like Will might have done 🙄

He was portrayed and sometimes mocked by the other characters as a sad sack, an unloved loser and as pathetic. Jack frquently belittled him as fat and someone unattractive to gay men. Which was pretty ridiculous because McCormack, especially after season one when he got a much better hair cut, was super hot!

One of the worst aspects of the show and how it treated the Will character was that Grace was frequently allowed to date and sleep with lots of men, but Will was denied this. One of the best episodes of the show - The Last of the Really Odd Lovers - has everyone making fun of Grace's sloppy, slobby boyfriend Nathan (Woody Harrelson) and Will's much younger, video store clerk boyfriend. The two are so embarrassed by their boyfriends they agree to dump them. Except the show makes Will dump his boyfriend but allows Grace to go back on her word and keep dating Nathan for another 8 episodes, while Will remains single (and pathetic).

The show was written by gay men and on the surface progressive. Yet at the same time it was clearly uncomfotable with putting Will into any kind of gay relationship until very late in the show's run. Portraying Will as whiny and pathetic allowed them to make Will almost permanently single thoughout the show.

Will was a sexless, prissy scold. His characterization encouraged the obnoxious trope of the “gay best friend,” as if the only reason gay men exist is to listen to the problems of their straight female friends.

And yet-the fact that he was allowed to exist as an openly gay man and date men was revolutionary. The gay male characters before him were mostly still uncomfortable with their sexuality and running off to marry women-like Steven Carrington.

This innocuous scene from Melrose Place aired only 4 years before Will and Grace premiered. It created a slew of controversy and led to a hasty reediting before the episode aired -because how could anyone suggest that two men kiss? The show also quickly put Matt into a green card marriage after this aired.

So yes, Will is a revolutionary character. But he is also sexless and boring and absurd -a hot single gay corporate lawyer living in New York would have A LOT of sex, and if I remember correctly, it took the show years to even show him giving a love interest a quick, chaste kiss.

R39 This was the first prime time sitcom with a lead gay character. They apparently didn't want to rub the gay sex lifestyle in viewers faces, which is why you rarely saw Will give or receive anything more than a quick peck kiss.

OP, he is a character. NOT a real person.

And Just Jack!

R41 You never see ANYONE get anything more than a kiss in a sitcom. Were you expecting to watch Eric McCormack getting rimmed on NBC primetime?