The Best Family Is Chosen Family

Hulu's Mid-Century Modern isn't the gay Golden Girls, but it does bring joy back to the sitcom

- H. ALAN SCOTT

WHEN WILL & GRACE PREMIERED ON NBC IN 1998, it was groundbreaking because of the sheer lack of queer representation on network TV. Since then, numerous sitcoms have increased LGBTQ+ visibility on TV, but rarely gay characters of an older generation. To fill that void, those same Will & Grace creators, Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, developed Hulu's Mid-Century Modern to show that while a multi-camera sitcom with three gay male leads is rare, the stories they are telling are universal.

"I don't know that you're going to find a comedy that the third line is, 'You look like a reluctant bottom," Mutchnick tells Newsweek. "It tells you what you're watching. At the same time, you get the essence of what that friendship is."

It's that candid language among friends that is at the center of Mid-Century Modern. The type of frankness that not only defines those long-lasting friendships but somehow elevates that relationship. From mundane moments over breakfast or the escapades of dating later in life, to losing a beloved family member (like this cast did when Linda Lavin suddenly passed), it's unfiltered openness that exists only where people choose to feel like family.

Led by Nathan Lane's Bunny Schneiderman, Mid-Century Modern finds undergarment tycoon Bunny inviting his two best friends-Jerry (played by Matt Bomer) and Arthur (played by Nathan Lee Graham) to move in with him and his mother, Sybil (played by Lavin). It is after the passing of one of their mutual friends that Bunny opens up his Palm Springs home.

"He's a very wealthy, successful businessman, but he's never had the great love of his life," Lane says. "He's lonely, he's concerned about getting older and being alone. I think he realizes that the real love of his life are these two close friends. That's the most meaningful thing to him. It's this chosen family."