There are many things to love about Somebody Somewhere, a series that casts a gentle, slice-of-life spell that’s nonetheless so emotionally raw and resonant that it can hit the viewer with the weight of a freight train. The stakes are not necessarily high or low but intimate. In ways so subtle and disarming, Somebody Somewhere makes the viewer fall in love with the characters so totally that we grasp and stumble with them on their wobbling paths to happiness. Characters like Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller) are so damn recognizable and relatable because if Somebody Somewhere understands anything, it’s humanity. In particular, I want to focus on the character of Joel and Hiller’s heartful performance for how it takes a role usually treated as a throwaway and turns it into one of the show’s greatest assets.
Representation in media is an ever-changing thing that evolves and devolves according to cultural mores. I’ve written quite a bit about the subject on this site because it’s important to me as a queer person and I think it’s part of a larger conversation about media’s potential to positively influence our culture. It doesn’t mean I want hagiography in which queer people are faultless paragons, but rather I crave representation that presents queer people as people, not these others who are inherently more sexual or more feminine or more artistic. We feel the same emotions people of other sexual identities feel and we’re subject to the same human foibles. Just like with anyone else, we are not some monolithic community with identical experiences. I want representation that understands our sexual identities are important parts of us, but not our sum totals, and that we have access to any number of interests, loves, and hatreds that might fall outside a stereotypical depiction. I want us to have a thousand more characters like Somebody Somewhere’s Joel.
On paper, Joel is presented as our lead character’s “gay best friend,” and that’s not an inaccurate label. He’s gay and he’s Sam’s best friend. One of the magical things about their relationship is how different it is from how these friendships are usually portrayed. To my eye, “GBF” relationships typically function on a power imbalance; either the queer man is some all-knowing guide who tells his lady friend what to do or is so shy and neutered that he acts as his friend’s handbag. With Sam and Joel, you get the strong picture of two souls quite alike connecting and growing together. It’s a testament to Somebody Somewhere that Joel and Sam’s friendship feels so organic, natural, and lived-in. Joel’s sexuality is not a source of trauma for him and there’s never a moment where he’s called upon to explain himself to Sam or the audience. Even when well-intentioned, depictions of these relationships can often slide into educational experiences where the token queer is made to be a spokesperson for all of queer kind. Joel isn’t meant to represent every queer, he’s just Joel. If Joel represents anything, it’s the enduring individuality that every queer person has.
At the risk of using pick-me-adjacent language, there’s something about Joel that is unlike many other depictions of queer people I’ve seen. Joel isn’t just religious, he’s a pastor in the local church and active in that community. There’s an assumption that I see reflected in media very often that queer identities and religious (particularly Christian) faith might as well be oil and water. This doesn’t come from nowhere; organized religions of all types have members expressing their hatred for others under the guise of piety. Where that gets tricky is that it feels like, at some point, this stopped being an observation of bigotry and became an assumption of fact: queerness cannot be crossed with faith. This is a very unfortunate fallacy and one I’m glad Joel disproves. He’s no less religious for being gay and no less gay for being religious. Further, we also have Joel’s partner Brad, another deeply religious gay man. They’re both presented with such matter-of-factness that it reminds the viewer this kind of thing is entirely normal and beautiful. It reminds me of Jesus at the Gay Bar in that they both prompt similar questions: Why should being queer put anyone further from God’s love; Why did we ever believe it did?
Hiller’s performance as Joel is nothing short of spectacular. The way he plays Joel feels so unaffected and recognizable. He’s not a pile of mannerisms and tics, but the sum of very human parts. He’s sweet, he’s judgemental, he’s emotionally open, but can be very conflict-adverse. In season 3 (currently streaming on Max), he doesn’t initially tell Sam that he’s selling his house and moving in with Brad because he was afraid of how she’d react. That’s a cowardly thing to do, but it’s also an extremely understandable and recognizable choice to make. Importantly, this doesn’t make Joel any less a loving friend to Sam, it’s a mistake he made within that friendship. Hiller imbues Joel with so much humanity that his actions, the sweet and the sour, all serve to make him more human. Joel is a character with depth that allows him to remain a light in Sam’s life, even if he stumbles. Who among us hasn’t hurt a friend? Who among us hasn’t had to make amends?
Joel is a prime example of what queer representation can be: not imagining queerness as one definitive thing, but a spectrum of experiences as broad as the human experience. Grasping that queerness thrives everywhere in as many shapes as you can imagine can be difficult for people and I’m so glad that Somebody Somewhere has characters like Joel to help show us the way.