Pre-stonewall preteen: he doesn't know he's gay yet, but Michael, Oliver Beene's Judy-worshiping 11-year-old, is about to become one of prime time's most fabulous characters. (television).

When executive producers Howard Gewirtz and Steven Levitan were first writing the supporting character of Michael into their new Fox sitcom, Oliver Beene, they were keenly aware of avoiding gay stereotypes, even though the show is set in 1962. Michael, as played by Taylor Emerson, is an 11-year-old boy whose interests--exercise guru Jack La Lanne and Judy Garland musicals among them--and manner quite clearly label him as a future gay man. "We wanted this character to be really funny," explains Levitan, "but didn't want to cross any lines, and we're not looking to make fun of him."

After consulting a gay screenwriter friend of theirs, they sent the pilot and four scripts to Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, so he could give his opinion on how the character came across. "He said we shouldn't change a thing," says Gewirtz, "other than little things like the fact that the word `macho' was probably not in use in 1962 and that we should probably use `manly' instead."

Michael is the best friend of Oliver (Grant Rosenmeyer of The Royal Tenenbaums), the hapless son of a dentist and a housewife and the brother of a popular athlete, whose day-to-day life in Queens, N.Y., is interrupted only by minor events like the Cuban missile crisis and a TV tour of the White House by Jackie Kennedy. Of course, in 1962 the notion of being gay was still taboo. "It was a time of great innocence," says Gewirtz, the creator of the show, who grew up in Queens and based Oliver on himself. The inspiration for Michael came from a boy in Gewirtz's high school class who, "I believe, was the very first Barbra Streisand fan I knew," he says. "Kids today would be much more suspicious of his sexuality, but at that time the idea of being gay wasn't in the mainstream yet. Other kids wouldn't know that he would grow up to be gay. Today, on the other hand, my kids, who range from the ages of 5 to 9, know what being gay means."

"This is 1962, remember," adds Levitan. "There were three things that were unmentionable and unthinkable--being communist, being homosexual, and being a drug user. It was a wonderful time if you were part of the mainstream but hell if you were an outsider. Oliver and Michael are underdogs, misfits in their own way."

Casting an 11-year-old character with camp mannerisms and gay tendencies brought a set of issues all its own. "Parents of other child actors didn't want their sons to do the part, but Taylor's parents have been very involved, and while there are elements that are tough to talk to him about, he is fully aware that Michael grows up to be gay," says Levitan. "He's very natural in the part, and he doesn't posture."

The show won't explore Michael's burgeoning sexuality, say Gewirtz and Levitan. With the exception of Michael's father, who in one episode is clearly aware of his son's differences, everyone around him remains oblivious. "If we last a couple of seasons, we may look at it then, but the characters have to mature a little first," says Gewirtz. "Oliver and Michael are misfits first and foremost. For that reason, they're not out trying to get laid."

Goodridge is U.S. editor of Screen International.