It took me a long time to come out. I was lucky that it wasn’t because of the traditional fear many of my LGBTQ siblings experience, but instead more because I was a private person and found my sexuality to be no one’s business. Or at least that was the excuse I gave myself when it came to remaining closeted for as long as I did.
Being bisexual comes with a certain amount of privilege, being cisgender even more, and white triply so. Because being straight is still culturally considered the de facto “norm,” at any given moment people just assume that I am as much. And, even in the early stages of coming out, I was still perfectly happy to let them go on assuming. I’ve always believed that people’s assumptions about me are their business, a sentiment that remains mostly true to this day. But, at some indeterminate time upon my first watchthrough of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Andre Braugher’s Captain Raymond Holt and Stephanie Beatriz’ Detective Rosa Diaz helped change my perspective when it came to my responsibilities to myself and my community. Unfortunately, Braugher’s passing was an abrupt reminder to show appreciation for such things before time runs out.
Rosa Diaz’s story as a whole has always been particularly affecting for me. I’ll never be that kind of badass, but I am a cranky person who would do unspeakable things for the very few people I care about. And, obviously, I, like Rosa, am an incredibly private bisexual woman who only cares about the opinions of those same folks. “Those folks” in this case meaning both friends and family, the latter of which I have a wildly complicated relationship with, and some of whom still have no idea that I am bi to this day.
Diaz coming out to her parents didn’t hit me because of the fear, but because of the love. I don’t speak to my mother, so Rosa’s mom struggling to accept her never really impacted me beyond the typical empathy that you feel for one of your favorite characters when they’re going through it. Instead, it was her moments with her father, Oscar (Danny Trejo), and Holt throughout this particular plotline on the sitcom that ended up emotionally ruining me.
I love my dad. My dad loves me. But our relationship is strained in the way that if, say, a civil war were to break out tomorrow, we’d be on opposing sides. It’s a complicated, messy thing, but we do our best to keep our interactions far away from anything that might exacerbate political frustrations and lead to a blow up. This obviously includes the fact that his daughter sometimes dates girls. But, if we were ever to try to bridge the very wide gap between our two ideologies, I like to hope that maybe he’d surprise me in the way Diaz’ dad surprised her and the love would mean more than the bigotry. Honestly, there have been moments I’ve considered simply sending my dad the episode “Game Night” just so he can see his hero Machete accepting his daughter even if he didn’t understand her. Which is less of a commentary on my relationship with my father and more so on writers Justin Noble and Carly Hallam Tosh’s incredible episode and Beatriz, Trejo and Braugher’s important performances.
Reality is often ugly, but fiction often makes us believe that it can be better.
The fact that we’ve lost Braugher so young is one of those ugly realities, but it leads me to a kinder one: we should acknowledge the people who help and affect us before we’re writing their eulogies. So, the biggest possible thank yous to Stephanie Beatriz, Justin Noble, and Carly Hallam Tosh for helping someone who has always felt pretty isolated feel less alone. Devastatingly, I’ve missed the bus on Braugher. But this story of how a dumb cop sitcom helped me get better at accepting myself isn’t complete without his character Holt’s impact on it.
Rosa Diaz showed me a possibility, but Raymond Holt gave me a truth that I had spent much of my life needing. (Both of them made me laugh a whole hell of a lot.)
Being bisexual comes with privilege, but it can also be very lonely. You’re not gay enough for some folks, not straight enough for others (we’re not straight period, but you get the sentiment), and you don’t know how to talk about it with anyone because your privilege means that you inherently have it easier despite feeling like you don’t belong anywhere. Whether what other people think bothers you or not, it can feel impossible to find your community when you don’t feel as if you fit. So you keep it to yourself, you mind your business, and then you see some straight-dude-playing-a-gay-man tell you how much you matter and how valid you are, and for some reason your world explodes.
Holt’s character isn’t the first to say something along these lines, of course. But what is so striking here is that he is saying it to a bisexual woman who, for her entire life prior to this moment, had been perceived as straight. And, yeah, it hit on a personal level because I identify with Diaz, but it hit even harder because it was Braugher’s performance behind the above line.
What a titan that man was. It’s one of those losses that you find yourself crying about over and over again even though you’ve never even met them let alone known them. Braugher was an incredible talent who excelled his whole career. Still, I will always remember him most for Holt.
For 153 episodes, Braugher brought a stoic, multifaceted, gay cop to life in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Holt acted as a father, friend and confidant to all of his little idiot cops in a show whose tailend took place in a time where creators, cast, and the audience had grown tired of the traditionally accepted copaganda. Holt, more than any other character on the show, brought devastatingly real moments to life through humor, poise, and, when appropriate, just the right amount of wrath. It gave the character a level of depth that isn’t always easy to achieve in a sitcom, and that depth made the impactful moments hit all the harder.
Diaz’s story and Holt’s response in “Game Night” were my spark. They were the moment that I realized that this truth didn’t just belong to me and that, while my privilege comes with the responsibility to fight for those more at risk than I may be, I also have a responsibility to myself and fellow bisexual folks to be seen and to help others feel seen when they are ready as well.
Raymond Holt knew who he was, and he was there for others as they discovered their own truths. He was an out and proud gay man who believed in his community and those in it, no matter how many times it had hurt him or stood in his way, and he couldn’t have been prouder to welcome the tough but emotionally vulnerable bi lady who didn’t come out until later in life.
I will remember that, him, and the man who played him always.
