For a subset of the audience of the 2000 reality show “The Real World: New Orleans,” Danny Roberts was the biggest celebrity on television.
Roberts was the gay cast member of a television franchise that valued candor, openness, and unwieldy charm. The first episode of the season saw Roberts step out and on and off to his six housemates who had arranged for him to live with them for months, declaring at one point that he was gay in French to avoid doing so in English. Later, his romance with an American soldier whose face had to be obliterated according to the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was tender and intriguing. Not immune to the penchant for drama inherent in being 22 years old and gorgeous and realistic in love, Danny was a star. And he shined even more because there were no others like him on TV.
In the summer of 2000, reality TV was still in its infancy: it aired concurrently with the first season of “Survivor,” which beat (not accidentally) Richard Hatch, a gay man whose sexuality has turned into a sensation as the series’ villain. All of us – viewers and stars alike – are now more accustomed to the rhythms and metaphors of reality shows. At the time, in the ninth season of that franchise, it still felt fresh. (This is why having a once-known, “New Orleans” fellow, like David and now going to Tokyo, is so remarkable: these days, producers would struggle to find such an eccentric amongst the current group of media-saturated 20somethings.) Roberts was Among the last reality stars who did not perform what the public expected of him.
Which is too much to put on someone who was, then, young and only discovering who he is. And in the new installment of “The Real World Homecoming,” in which the cast of the series band together in the present to exorcise old demons and rebuild relationships, Roberts appears somewhat weary from the experience of fame; He lives, as we know, in a little cottage in Vermont, secluded from the public who seems to be asking for something of him on a daily basis. He is best known for appearing on reality TV for what is now, 22 years after “Real World”, exactly half his life.
“Homecoming,” which kicks off April 20 at Paramount Plus, is a great idea for a show not only because the cast of “New Orleans” provides plenty of bug; The series begins with the revelation that one of Roberts’ classmates, Julie Stover, has been out of contact with her classmates after what we would benevolently call a misunderstanding about how she handled competition in the post-college lecture series. Stoffer, the complex attendee on “The Real World,” is weird and evasive when criticized—one of the many data points on this show working toward the point where people don’t really change.
But for many viewers, Danny’s return will be the event. I’d like to involve myself in this: Watching “The Real World” at the age of 12, Danny seemed like the kind of person I could never have been. He was smart but not too annoying and charming; He always knew the right things to say, even if he tried to say it in another language first. And after some initial annoyance, he was able not only to live frankly as he is, but to have a strong relationship and strong friendships with the people who saw him for what he was. His friendships with Melissa (then Howard, now Beck) and Kelly (then Limp, now Wolf), two other members of the show, shocked me as a real action of the series. (Indeed, Melissa, with whom Danny shares her perverted humor and says-it-all rhetoric, is once again one of the highlights of the series, partly for her and for Danny’s protection for each other when they each encounter Jolie..) Dating and sex were quite abstract concepts. But to make people want to be your friend even after they know you’re gay? What an exciting idea.
Now much older than Danny then, I see how the psychological weight of no matter how many millions who look at Danny’s story and see in it a version of their future have taken its toll. Well wishing or not, the people Danny described as making it impossible for him to go grocery shopping with his friend without being monitored had a negative impact. But it’s hard to shake an old habit, to stop wondering how his life was going out there in the woods, and to try out in his story what 44 might look like, in the same way that I once wondered if the number 22 would be anything like. What did you want?
Danny was not the first to lead the “Real World” franchise, and his influence was not the same in scope as, say, that of Pedro Zamora. (Zamora, in the 1994 San Francisco season, was likely the first person with HIV that many Americans saw on screen.) Ellen DeGeneres recently set her career on fire by going out; It was not lost on me, then, that her exit echoed loudly while her show was canceled at short notice received less notice. What a pleasure, then, to see in Dany someone who was willing to share his humanity, with all that it meant: his joy, his lust, his nerves, his hard days. A future like Danny almost seemed believable because in reality it wasn’t perfect – he was honest.
This level of public openness isn’t sustainable as a long-term lifestyle, and one of the difficult and wonderful things about the first two episodes of “Homecoming” is guarding Danny’s. He is well aware that Julie’s attempt to shorten conversations about the past by offering a quick and easy apology; He weighs his words carefully. I think that’s part of getting older, and realizing that knowing the right thing to say always requires more deliberation than pure magic.
This show is all about the passing of time, and its two-week watch makes it quite literally; These people have a short period during which they need to say exactly what they want to say, to each other and to the audience that, for a moment, made them famous. And the viewer in a certain mindset will feel the minutes fly by in a painful way – it’s fairly obvious that after that, we won’t see Danny reveal his soul again on TV anytime soon.
It’s hard to tell what TV gave Danny: The rewards (magazine covers, red carpet appearances) were fleeting, and the long tail seemed to be the lack of privacy without reward. But one hopes, at least, that there was something about the “Homecoming” experience that made him feel the experience was worth it. These aren’t concerns I usually have for people on TV, who – now, really, even then – have some sense of what they have in common.
But something about Danny’s story sets him apart even among reality stars, and I’m glad we’re getting another look at how extraordinary his ordinary life is. Perhaps it was part of a franchise, before it centered on college drunken tales between people who just wanted to be in front of the camera, specializing in a kind of sweet, friendly openness. Or maybe it’s easy to tell to a young audience, some of whom really need to hear, that your twenties can be fun, empowering, and free. His greatest contribution was not his appearance, but all that followed – a life he lived, for a moment, in public, with joys he was willing to share with spectators whom, before his coming, they might have never imagined.
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