Yahoo Sports Billy Eichner Says Seeing a Real Gay Bar on 'Sex and the City' 'Felt So Radical' at the Time
The 'Bros' star and writer tells PEOPLE that 'SATC' depicted gay men in "much more of a degree than existed in TV and films at the time"
Patrick Demarchelier/Hbo/Darren Star Prods/Kobal/Shutterstock,
For the 25th anniversary of Sex and the City’s premiere, PEOPLE spoke with female and LGBTQ+ actors, directors and writers about how the show affected them, impacted the industry and continues to influence pop culture. These are their firsthand accounts.
Billy Eichner, 44, comedian and Bros star and writer
My earliest Sex and the City memory is that I was home from college, flicking channels and I remember watching an episode or two. It was the episode where Stanford goes to a gay bar in his underwear. You did not see many shows at that point that had scenes at gay bars, let alone with guys standing in their underwear for Underwear Night. The fact that Stanford was going to gay bars felt so radical and really pulled me in.
I immediately knew, because I'd been there several times, it was shot at an actual gay bar in Chelsea in New York called Barracuda, which is still there. I've been to that bar with my friends, but to actually see it on TV in a mainstream show starring Sarah Jessica Parker on HBO, I took notice. This is before texting, but I remember calling my friends — both my girlfriends and my gay friends — and saying, "You guys have to watch this show."
My girlfriends and my gay friends were the exact right people to be pulled in by Sex and the City. I would have people over to my apartment every Sunday night and we would watch it religiously. It was one of the only shows that created what, at that time, felt like a more authentic — not perfectly authentic — look at gay men and our relationships with women. The conversations the women were having felt like conversations that I was having with my friends. You just never saw them depicted that way. It was representing women and gay men, to a lesser degree, but to much more of a degree than existed in TV and films at the time.
Sex and the City is really one of the great modern romantic comedies, even though it's a series. It’s that mix of fantasy and reality, which is what the great romantic comedies are. It definitely inspired Bros, not only in the way that we romanticize New York City, which has always been a classic location for romantic comedies, but as we developed the script. We talked about the Carrie Bradshaw-Mr. Big dynamic being one of the inspirations for the way that we built my character Bobby, and the unique unexpected chemistry he has with Luke [Macfarlane]'s character, Aaron.
For more on Sex and the City’s 25th anniversary, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.
I really thought about The Way We Were when we were putting Bros together because that is kind of the archetypal romance between this emotional, chatty, unconventional looking New York Jew falling for the beautiful, emotionally repressed, stoic, all American type. Sex and the City acknowledges that, too.
Sex and the City selfishly had a huge impact on my life because before Billy on the Street became a TV show, which was my big break, I was doing videos online. The one that went the most viral was the one that I did where I went out and defended Sex and the City 2. I genuinely loved the show so much and was willing to follow it anywhere. The head of Funny or Die at the time, who's now the CEO of Funny or Die, Mike Farah, that's the video that inspired him to email me and say, "Hey, I really like what you're doing. We should work together." I said to him, "Well, what if we try to turn this into a TV show?" So it had a very specific, hugely influential moment in my life.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Sex and the City can be streamed in full on Max.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
