'Being a Mess and in Love in Your 30s': How a New TV Series Redefines Millennial Queer Love on Screen
Creator Kit Williamson is leaning into the raw and real side of queer romance
Kit Williamson is no stranger to creating and highlighting authentic queer storylines. The actor and writer is known for a recurring role — shy copywriter Ed Gifford on “Man Men” — and for creating “EastSiders,” a series that Williamson says showcases “being a mess and in love in your 20s” which won him a Daytime Emmy in 2020.
Williamson, who attended Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Academy, says the fourth and final season of “EastSiders,” which premiered on Netflix in December of 2019, acted as “a love letter to queer relationships and queer love,” and his latest project, a series called “Unconventional” premiering Feb. 11 on LGBTQ+ streamer Revry, is the “spiritual successor to ‘EastSiders.'"
“‘Unconventional’ is instead about being a mess and in love in your 30s,” he tells Pride Source.
While “EastSiders” discusses infidelity and how trust impacts and impedes relationships, “Unconventional” takes a different approach to commitment. The series follows two queer couples: Noah and Dan, a "monogamish" married pair, and Margot and Eliza, who are navigating the challenges of having a baby via a sperm donor — played by Williamson — who also happens to be Margot’s brother, Noah.
“Frameworks don’t always fit us [queer people] like a glove,” says Williamson, a theme highlighted not only in the title of the show but also in the dynamics of the characters.
“We don’t really have clearly laid out paths for us, so you get to chart the path, but there’s nothing to say that path won’t be rocky,” he adds.
Williamson says his goal with “Unconventional” was to showcase real, raw people and their nontraditional arrangements, and not to “paint any relationship with a broad brush.” The characters grapple with complex issues, like mental health struggles, trust, family planning as a queer couple, and what it’s like to bring “guest stars into the bedroom,” as Noah and Dan’s experimentation with an additional sexual partner complicates their relationship.
“The show gives an unflinching look at queer relationships, queer love and queer sex,” he says.
It was important to Williamson that the show gave equal weight to both Noah and Dan’s relationship and Margot and Eliza’s because each relationship had their own unique roadblocks and struggles. He says working in a writers’ room and collaborating with other queer artists of varying identities helped bring perspective and uniqueness to the characters.
“Plus, I love queer media that grapples with relationships unlike my own,” says Williamson, who is married to his “EastSiders” castmate, John Halbach.
For Williamson, he says now more than ever queer people need to cling to each other and stick together “in the face of adversity.” Even if the world feels against us, he says, we should be pushing for our stories and voices to be heard, especially in mainstream media. Williamson says he is grateful for the space Revry gives to shows like “Unconventional.”
“This show would not be made now in the traditional television space. Other creators haven’t been afforded the opportunity yet,” he says, despite many trying. Williamson also says the conversations surrounding “Unconventional” now mirror ones he had when “EastSiders” first premiered on YouTube in 2012, and despite the landscape seeming progressive as far as queer representation goes, that isn’t necessarily true.
“We’ve essentially been given crumbs,” says Williamson. “The need for queer-centered shows felt less urgent when queer characters were being included in mainstream media. But I don’t think that’s a substitute for queer stories that are actually centered.”
When shows with queer representation are afforded that opportunity in a mainstream space, they often lose support or don’t keep an upward trajectory. Or that representation is bleak and fleeting. GLAAD created a report to track the number of LGBTQ+ characters and television shows today, which breaks the characters down by gender, race, sexuality and other factors. Recently, they added their “Where We Are On TV” report to highlight the number of LGBTQ-inclusive series being canceled or abruptly ending.
In its “Where We Are On TV 2023-2024” report, the organization states that 468 LGBTQ+ characters were counted for that particular season, a decrease of 128 characters from the 596 in the previous season's report. While several LGBTQ-inclusive series were delayed due to production conflicts or strikes, the vast majority of queer character losses are due to their show ending or being canceled.
“Now we’re not just burying our gays, we’re canceling them,” says Williamson, of the trope that gay characters often seem to reach heartbreaking endings, like Lexa in “The 100” or Villanelle in “Killing Eve.”
Another common conversation in the queer media space is that often the characters portrayed are messy or dysfunctional, but Williamson actually leans into the “gray area and mess.” Margot in “Unconventional” might be considered messy, but it’s what makes her multidimensional and relatable.
“Sure, we need success stories and positive role models, but that’s too much pressure and a burden to constantly put on the queer community to do. So often, our characters are allowed to appear and announce their sexuality, but they’re not allowed to have context and real issues.”
But Williamson says he didn’t set out to adhere to specific wants and demands of a network or a particular audience when creating “Unconventional.” He wanted to create a show that felt authentic and, yes, unconventional.
“I wanted to show the queer point of view that isn’t worried about being palatable to the straight audience,” he says. “These relationships are not worried about being palatable; they are authentic, and real and fucked up.”
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