'My Husband's Lover' The First Teleserye To Seriously Tackle Homosexual Relationships

DIRECTOR DOMINIC ZAPATA welcomes helming a soap with a controversial topic like “My Husband’s Lover”, which delves on homosexual relationships. “It’s very refreshing for me to direct this material after doing action and fantasies,” he says. “The subject is really sensitive and I want to be accurate in portraying how gay people are and the dynamics of gay relationships so we did a lot of research. I don’t want to make a mistake or make a misrepresentation. Ang dami palang klase at level ng pagka-gay. Madalas, ang kilala lang natin, the swishy and loud kind of gay na parlorista. The gays in ‘My Husband Lovers’ are mostly straight acting. Hindi mo iisiping gay sila.”

The series stars Tom Rodriguez as a man who had a gay relationship with Dennis Trillo in high school. Dennis went abroad and Tom had a relationship with Victor Basa. But due to the pressure of his parents, Roi Vinzon and Kuh Ledesma, he didn’t have the courage to come out of the closet. He chose to fight his being gay and marries his college sweetheart, Carla Abellana. They’re about to construct their own house and it turns out the architect they got is Dennis, who has returned from abroad. Tom tries to deny his feelings for Dennis but this is just so overpowering that he’s soon seeing Dennis in secret. Of course, eventually, Carla finds out about it.

“It’s basically a love story, between Tom and Dennis, and a love triangle between them and Carla kasi Tom really loves his wife and his family, kaya lang, in love rin siya talaga kay Dennis.”

Actually, this is not the first time that the dilemma of a closet gay husband is tackled on screen. In Hollywood, the most famous gay-themed film is “Brokeback Mountain”, with Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger as gay cowboys. Before that, there was “Making Love”, with Kate Jackson as the wife of the gay Michael Ontkean who falls for Harry Hamlin, and “Far From Heaven”, with Dennis Quaid as the gay husband of Julianne Moore. The latter movie has just been turned into a musical and is now reaping good reviews in Broadway.

On the local screen, Eddie Garcia played the secretly gay husband of Lolita Rodriguez in “Tubog sa Ginto”, with the late Mario O’Hara as his lover. In “Apoy sa Iyong Kandungan”, it’s Ronaldo Valdez who played Vivian Velez’ gay husband, with Mark Gil as the lover. Gay stories were also shown on some drama anthologies, but this is the first time it’s being done in a teleserye. Eddie and Mario, Ronaldo and Mark all have explicit kissing scenes in their films. But in “My Husband’s Lover”, this wasn’t allowed by the MTRCB.

“Actually, si Tom was insisting he and Dennis should have a kissing scene,” says Director Dominic. “Ganun siya ka-committed sa story, very passionate and involved dahil hindi raw mapapakita ang intensity ng feelings nila with such a scene. E, kaso nga, bawal daw sa TV such gay love scenes.”