BRADY BUNCH GOES GAY FRIENDLY
by Brandon Judell

According To Alex McNeil's Total Television, the Brady Bunch was a "harmless sitcom about a widower with three sons who married a widow with three daughters." It featured the now deceased Robert Reed as Mike Brady, the architect dad. Reed was later discovered to be a kindly gay cross-dresser if I remember my tabloid stories correctly, but that was off the tube and not a plot device. Florence Henderson played Mom Brady, and if you ever met Flo off-screen, you'd think Lenny Bruce was reincarnated. But her off-color nuttiness never made it into scripts either.

Well, daring Paramount Pictures and former Hill Street Blues actress-turned-director Betty Thomas have turned the cult series into a John Waters-ish escapade that is not only wildly funny at times but gay positive. Get out the humanitarian awards now.
The Bradys in their seventies' outfits and fifties' attitudes live in a neighborhood where there's an interracial gay male couple who are not afraid to nuzzle in public. And no one looks twice! But best of all, Marcia Brady (Christine Taylor) has a best friend, Noreen (Alanna Ubach), who is a budding lesbian. Pursuing the uncomprehending Marcia like a puppy fed on Love Potion No. 9, Noreen carries her books, punches out her enemies, and "accidentally" touches Marcia's leg when she sleeps over. And although Noreen will never get her dream gal, the ending is more than happy for this novice Sapphist.

To find out more about this gay turn of events in a family film, we asked Cheers' Shelley Long, who is the new Mom Brady, why the film was so gay positive.

Laughing, she replied, "Well, you know the movie is very much reflecting back what's going on in the nineties. I think it's an interesting combination. Of course, one of the reasons why we have PG-13, I think, is because we have as Betty calls her "a sexual confused adolescent." I think it's just totally well portrayed, and Betty did that on purpose. She specifically wanted that kind of portrayal, that kind of character, and it's funny. You feel something for Noreen in her search and in her passion and for her unrequited love. But it's also a joke. It's also funny. It's a delicate combination, I guess, but a good one."

Christine Taylor, who is the adorable love interest, adorable at least until her nose gets hit by a football, added, "Well, it was really amazing. I like to say Noreen was struggling with her sexuality. Betty did just a great job. You read the script and, of course, you first think it's a very funny little story line. You laugh, but then you ask, "Is this going to offend true Brady fans? Are parents going to take kids to see this?" You don't know. So I think Betty did a really clever job casting Alanna Ubach who played Noreen, and Alanna did a great job. I think she found the perfect happy medium of innocence.

"She was naive, and she also did it in a way that it wasn't so direct, so that it was believable that Marcia really didn't get it. Marcia had to be a little unaware, which she was pretty much throughout the movie about everything going on around. We had a lot of fun playing that little story line.

"I think it adds a little spice to the movie. There's definitely a sort of a dark side to this movie which real Brady-goers aren't going to expect to see." Nor will gays.