Craving a Dramatic Coming-Out Moment? ‘Great North’ Knows the Feeling

If there's one thing a gay loves, it's drama.

From the creators of Bob's Burgers, an upcoming episode of FOX's animated series The Great North centers Ham, who wants a bigger reaction to his coming out from his loving and accepting family. The hilarious plot is based on writer Charlie Kelly's own experiences.

"I came out (in my own, real-life) while watching a copy of Brokeback Mountain that I had illegally rented from my small-town library at age 13," Kelly tells PRIDE. "Shortly after the film's first sex scene, I sashayed down my stairs, told my family that I was gay, and then resumed watching the movie, which... ends with a murder by tire iron. A tough introduction to the Community!

"The whole experience left me a little traumatized, and with the expectation that being queer was going to include a TON of suffering & drama. And not the fun kind! My own coming out and the movie it's wrapped up in left me with the desire to put queer stories into the world where characters didn't face too many consequences for simply being who they are.

"Unfortunately, in real life, many people do still face consequences for just being themselves, and the stories that speak to that struggle are so important. But coming up, I couldn't help but wonder where the stories were that just made being queer seem like a part of a person's life rather than a burden, a plight, or in the case of the movie I came out with, a death sentence."

That certainly influenced the positive LGBTQ+ representation on The Great North. "My coming out story was the stepping off point for this upcoming episode where Ham Tobin is watching a movie with his boyfriend, Crispin, that involves a very dramatic, over-the-top coming out. He realizes that he, himself, never really had the kind of drama and that we're all conditioned to expect by movies and TV, and Ham starts to wonder if he's missed out on a key part of the gay experience-- the tumult, the drama! With the help of his boyfriend, they try to engineer the perfect, drama-ridden coming out he feels he never got, and, well... it doesn't go great... and comedy ensues! It's a story that flips the traditional coming-out narrative on its head and I hope it leaves young people or anyone out there still in the closet the idea that while, yes, sometimes coming out is difficult and challenging and dramatic, it doesn't always have to be!"

And Ham's coming-out moment certainly doesn't go as expected.

This episode of The Great North premieres May 8 at 8:30/7:30pm central on FOX. Watch an exclusive clip below: