SC: Do you feel like you’re coming out again? It’s a lot to deal with when you’re 19 years old. There’s a feeling of lack of support, feeling like you’re out on a limb alone. My dad and I made up within two weeks, but there were still parts of it that I didn’t deal with. So it happened to me and she wanted to address it, so we took advantage of the opportunity. So obviously it’s an issue that needs to be addressed. It happens every day-26 percent of gay youth are thrown out of their house and end up being homeless and living out on the streets because of a fight that they had with their parents. She used it because she knew that it was a story that had happened to a lot of people. WC: Winnie and I are very close and when it was happening we were in very close contact. Did you request that story line for the show? SC: I read that you were thrown out of your house after you told your father that you’re gay. What do you think about it?” and we talk about it. And if she has a question about a story line, like whether it’s realistic or not, she’ll come to be before she writes it and she’ll say, “I was thinking about doing this. I always feel like she’s accessible to me. WC: Yeah, if I feel something is inappropriate or not very realistic. SC: But you do get some input into what she’s writing. A lot of it is based on my experiences growing up, so I guess in a way, he’s my voice, but I just say what she writes. We talk about where we want him to go and what we want him to do and where he comes from. She has a clear vision for him, and I’m part of it and she discusses that with me. WC: Rickie is Winnie’s voice, but she has quite the voice. So they don’t want to raise their parents’ eyebrows any more than they already have, without even mentioning AIDS or HIV. I mean, you wanna ask your parents about AIDS and what it involves, but then you think if you ask, they’re gonna think that you’re gay because most ignorant people if they hear the word AIDS, are gonna think of homosexuals, first thing.
But I thought that if I started talking to them about it they might think I was gay and the mess that goes along with that, so I just avoided the whole situation altogether. He got it through IV drug use, but the mention of AIDS involved sex in my mind, so I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to talk to them about it because I was confused. I was really embarrassed to talk to my dad. WC: On the street, conversations with friends. I think now they’re reacting more out of knowledge than the ignorance that I had.
When I was growing up the only thing that stopped me from having sex was just fear-of everything. They seem more informed than when I was younger. But I think kids are becoming more and more aware of the responsibilities that lay within sexual contact. Obviously, from what we’re seeing on the show, most teenagers are having sex. Wilson Cruz: I think that there are some teenagers who view sex in that way. Stephen Cloutier: On December first, World AIDS Day, the “Sex” episode of My So-Called Life aired, during which your character says he thinks sex should feel like “a miracle, like seeing a comet.” Do you think teenagers in 1994 view sex in that way? As a 23-year-old who’s been there, I sit down to discuss sex, AIDS, Pedro Zamora and the future with the actor burdened with speaking for all of us. Wilson Cruz plays Ricky Vasquez, a young man coming out in the era of AIDS, on ABC’s critically acclaimed and low rated My So-Called Life. So I thought, maybe that discussion could continue within these pages, and what better person to have this discussion with than a 20-year-old gay man who plays a 15-year-old gay boy on national television. The questions are never answered, of course, but for me, the discussion was unbearably necessary. How are teenagers today going to make it through the new traumas they’re forced to deal with in the ’90s? How are they making it to their twenties? How do we make it further? After an hour of tears, our conversation continues. We remember the pain and are cleansed.īut tonight, MTV airs their tribute to The Real World’s Pedro Zamora, the man who made this season more real than many of us wanted to get. Safe in the comfort of our twentysomething living room, we can process our high school traumas and understand their motivations. Rickie Vasquez is the 15-year-old, slowly coming out of the closet, still trapped inside me.Ĭonsequently, this episode provokes a heavy discussion about sex and growing up in our society. Will she? Should she? Angela Chase, the lead character (played by Claire Danes), is the 15-year-old inside all of them. This week turns out to be the “Sex” episode. It’s another Thursday evening, and again I’m joining friends (all female) at our weekly My So-Called Life party.
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