The lead character of NBC's ''Rise'' is Lou Mazzuchelli, who is based on the real-life Lou Volpe, who came out late in his career.
However, on the TV show, Mazzuchelli will be played as a straight family man (by Josh Radnor).
Katims, who's straight, says: ''I hope and believe that we carry a lot of [Volpe’s] spirit into the show. We took that as inspiration.'' However, the former “Friday Night Lights” writer and executive producer added, “I felt like I needed to make it my own story. With Lou's family, there's a lot of reimagination. ... It was important to honor the source material, but to also make it my own so we’d be able to lean into it.”
But a critic of the ''straight-washing'' tweeted: ''Jason Katims, you don't need to want to f*ck the same people as your protagonist to be able to relate to them. Having a gay male lead on a major network would've been huge—your erasure of that is a huge f*cking shameful letdown.'' |
