Why Michael is Important as Folk
Or really, a character analysis of Michael Novotny, one of Queer as Folk’s best characters whose friendship with Brian is deeply important, and without whom Brian/Justin wouldn’t work nearly so well. I said what I said.
I’ve seen a lot of Takes that seem to view Michael (and sometimes Lindsay too) as an obstacle standing in the way of Brian and Justin, and I just don’t think the writing supports this. If anything, for Michael especially, he’s an integral part of what makes Brian and Justin work as characters and as a relationship.
Michael helps Brian and Justin grow towards one another. His character pushes them together. He does this in a number of ways, but the most flagrant way throughout all five seasons is through all three of them acting as mirrors to each other. They all reflect different aspects of one another, showing the reality of how each of them needs to grow as well as the possibilities of who they can become. Only through this three-way reflection of each other’s flaws and dreams do Brian, Michael, and Justin grow into the men they want to be.
The three-way foiling also embodies the delicate tension of the motif of fantasy vs reality in QaF. This motif is most clearly present in Michael’s arc and challenges (fitting, because Michael is the narrator). Michael’s name may be a reference to Peter Pan, which Queer as Folk frequently references with Brian as Peter and Lindsay as Wendy. Michael Darling is Wendy’s littlest brother, and the one who starts to forget what life back in London is like as he spends more and more time in the fantastical world of Neverland. (Intentional or not, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting bit of trivia regardless.) Michael Darling is actually based on a real person, Michael Llewelyn Davies, who was probably gay, and died a tragic death at a young age (20) alongside his likely lover. (Davies’ siblings believed the pair committed suicide together.) But instead of dying in this story, Michael Novotny, Brian Kinney, and Justin Taylor all live and grow.
Season One: Justin as the Inner Child
Season 1 is really the only season where Michael deliberately tries to come between Brian and Justin, but the irony is that he ultimately needs Justin in his life just as much as Brian does (albeit in a different way).
When Season 1 opens, Brian and Michael have been kind of stuck for years in a sort of prolonged adolescence. Justin enters their lives as an actual adolescent and thereby shines a light on how exactly both Brian and Michael need to grow. Their adult lives aren’t exactly fantasy lives, but neither of them are able to admit it.
Brian, despite seemingly having a successful career and social life to go and appearing to go after everything he wants without a care, actually isn’t really good at pursuing what he wants. His life of sex and partying is pretty much a fantasy to dull the reality of a nightmarish childhood.
Meanwhile, Michael clings to the fantasy of Brian one day loving him at the expense of the reality that Brian does love him–just not romantically. Frankly, the reason Brian doesn’t ever sleep with Michael is because he loves him: that would be too much, too close for Brian, and he’d then push Michael away and Michael would actually go because Michael doesn’t demand things. Brian doesn’t want to lose Michael, so he doesn’t cross this line.
As for Justin, he claims that what he really wants is Brian, which he does. But he also has a fantastical notion of what that means–dates, boyfriends, romance. He describes Brian to Daphne using rather fantastical language, and Michael even comments that Justin’s taken artistic liberties when he draws Brian. However, unlike Brian and Michael up until that point, Justin digs in and commits to what he really wants:
Brian: Look, I don’t believe in love. I believe in fucking. It’s honest, it’s efficient. You get in and out with a maximum of pleasure, and a minimum of bullshit. Love is something that straight people tell themselves they’re in, so they can get laid. Then they end up hurting each other, because it was all based on lies to begin with. If that’s what you want, then go and find yourself a pretty little girl, and get married.
Justin: That’s not what I want. I want you.
Justin wants Brian, no matter what that means. He unapologetically goes after what he wants, and in doing so drags Michael and Brian along. In this, Justin is the key that unlocks Brian’s and Michael’s ability to develop and evolve. After all, Brian tells Justin that Justin can see him in his dreams, and Justin says okay, but let’s make that dream reality.
In terms of literary archetypes, Justin is Brian’s inner child. The “inner child” is a Jungian concept (and as always with Jung, his ideas are better applied to patterns in literature than real life psychology). The inner child represents a person’s younger self, a purity in a sense, a divinity–but also the traumatized part of us that, childishly, assumes it’s our fault that our traumas occur. Sometimes it’s even called the “wonder child” (which is literally what Michael calls Justin in the very first episode: “boy wonder”).
In every adult there lurks a child— an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole (Collected Works of Jung Vol. 17)
It’s symbolic that Brian has sex with Justin in Michael’s childhood bedroom. Terrified that his mom knows he’s gay, Justin flees towards Michael’s house–exactly what Brian used to do when his family was a nightmare growing up. Justin snoops through Michael’s bedroom, looking at photos of Michael and Brian as kids. Brian shows up for him, and in a sort of retread of the story of how Brian and Michael jerked each other off as kids (but Michael never got off), this time Justin gets Brian off in the same room. Michael is then furious at Brian:
Michael: You can fuck him at your place, you can fuck him in his gym class, you can fuck him at the zoo, but you cannot fuck him in my mother’s house–in my room!
But, the reason this seemingly-cringe scene works so well is because Justin is also Michael’s inner child; after all, he moves into Michael’s old bedroom, and Michael moves in with David–two events that are thematically paralleled. You see, despite Debbie et al thinking Michael has “a real chance with David,” he doesn’t. Why? Because David doesn’t love Michael for Michael–he loves the idea of Michael. Which? Is precisely what Michael loves about Brian.
Now, I don’t mean to suggest that Michael doesn’t know or love the real Brian. He does. But he clings to the idealization of Brian over the reality, which in turn prevents Michael from growing up. Through Michael’s failed relationship with David, he’s confronted with his own flaws in regards to his relationship with his best friend, and his ideas about love. Once he faces this in himself, he’s able to actually show up for Brian when he needs it, as a true friend.
The inner child is “healed” in Jungian works by grieving the loss of innocence, by appreciating the value of a childlike kindness. It’s not healed by looking at ti with contempt and telling it to grow. It starts to heal with Brian when he decides to make his inner child happy and go to prom with Justin. It starts to heal for Michael when he sits with Brian and grieves with him after their inner child is wounded and possibly dying in Justin.
Season Two: Brian as the Hero
Season 2 contains the most meta melding of fantasy and reality in the story: Michael and Justin’s team-up to create a gay superhero comic, which mirrors their real lives. But real life is messier than glossy comic books. Heroes are complicated.
Both of them choose Brian as their basis for Rage, because he’s their hero. Of course, Brian hates himself, so doesn’t react well, but the reality is… Brian has been their hero. But any hero has to face challenges to be able to become said hero.
Michael: I was thinking that Rage save some other kid’s life after he was bashed…
Justin: I think it’s a great idea.
Michael: You do? I mean, it’s awfully personal.
Justin: The best art usually really is. Besides, I wanna talk about it. The trouble is no one would ever listen. They all pretend it didn’t happen.
Michael: Now, here is your chance.
Justin: And it could be how Rage meets the love of his life.
Michael: I thought Rage didn’t believe in love.
Justin: We’ll let him think that.
In their creation and writing of Rage, we can see the differences in how Michael and Justin approach fantasy, reality, and their relationships with Brian. Justin’s name in the comics is just JT (his real life initials), symbolizing again his determination to bring the fantasy into reality.
In contrast, Michael’s is Zephyr, a completely fantastical name (also potentially an allusion to Zephyr the Greek god whom some legends say kills a man named Hyacinthus via hitting him in the head with a discus out of jealousy for Hyacinthus choosing to love Apollo, the god of the sun (sunshine, anyone?) over him; Apollo resurrects Hyacinthus and Hyacinthus achieves immortality and all is well). Michael is more willing to swallow the fantasy in some ways and in others, not so much. Plus, as mentioned earlier, Michael’s arc is about growing from a jealous, immature kid with a crush and into a supportive, loving friend to both Brian and Justin.
When Brian pisses on the drawing of himself as Rage, Michael and Justin’s reactions show us what they each bring to Brian. Michael accepts Brian as he is, as does Justin. But what makes Justin different is that he knows Brian can be better, and pushes Brian to grow (this is why, romantically, Michael and Brian would never work, but Michael and Ben work really well). Michael is a lot more willing to let things slide. But if Brian is actually to be a hero (which he becomes in season 3), he’s gotta be pushed.
Michael: I guess even a superhero can morph into a jerk.
Justin: Don’t tell me you’re gonna forgive him.
Justin: Knowing you guys’ dysfunctional history, you’d put up with anything… All this time I was fooling myself, thinking he loves me.
Michael: He does love you. You saw his face this morning. We could have removed his teeth with pliers and he would have let us.
Justin: Maybe we should have. He deserves it.
Michael: Well, now we know Rage’s fatal weakness, and it’s not kryptonite.
Through this conversation we see that Justin forces Michael to grow as well. Michael tells Justin, firstly, that Brian loves him (something he would not have said in the first season), and acknowledges his friend’s weakness, the weakness he’s always known was there: Brian is human. Brian wants to be loved just as much as every other person. And he states it directly to Justin, and then goes on to back Justin up when they demand an apology from Brian.
Brian: What I did was immature, childish, and addictive. It was an act of cruelty because of irrational fears and unfounded–jealousy. If I were you I’ve never speak to me again.
Michael: It’s really good.
But this applies to Michael as well: he realizes Brian is just like him. They have the same weakness Michael struggled with throughout season 1: jealousy. Thus, the power difference between them erodes. They share many things–including flaws. He doesn’t have to reach up to Brian anymore, and he can even pull Brian up at times. In fact, part of the reason Brian can face his own jealousy is because he’s seen Michael overcome it by now working with Justin
Part of the reason Michael is able to accept it this time–that he shouldn’t always just accept and can push Brian to grow–is because of Michael’s own personal struggles in season 2. The best people are still, well, people, and therefore flawed and in need of forgiveness. Earlier in the season, Michael had accept this about himself too: that he’s not always a good person. He can be cowardly, and he rejects Ben quite cruelly (really hurting Ben), and has to apologize to and grovel to get back together with Ben after. Because of this, he can accept that while he can be a jerk, he can also still be worthy of love–and has to promise to do better and live up to being better. Only after Michael accepts this challenge to grow can he be in a mature relationship of his own. (He’ll also have to accept that Ben can be a jerk, and still be worthy of love.) So Michael’s already been doing the work.
Michael can face his flaws because people like Justin and Ben forgive him, and because he can forgive others. The season ends, however, with Justin cliff-diving into his own encounter with his flaws, an encounter that will end up evening out the playing field in his and Brian’s relationship as well.
Season Three: Illuminating the Unconscious
Or, the season where Michael starts off at his most assholish but it’s all for the greater good.
The ironic aspect of Michael and Justin working together resulting in jealousy from Brian is that, well, at the launch of said project, Brian gets dumped. Justin leaves Brian for Ethan, who is literally all of Justin’s worst traits personified in what he assumed was an ultimate fantasy romance.
True to form, Brian then delves into deep, deep, deep denial. He’s always been expecting Justin to leave him. Michael is the character who provokes Brian into showing how much he cares–no, not in a calculated, deliberate way, but he does it all the same. Michael does this by showing how much he cares about Brian, even if he is a jerk himself about it.
Michael: Can you believe the nerve… I told him to stay the fuck out of our lives!
Brian: Why’d you do that?
Michael: After what he did?
Brian: He didn’t do anything. We were never happily married; he was always free to go, and so was I.
Michael: You’re just saying that. He’s a selfish little shit.
Brian: Be quiet, Michael.
Michael: He used you, he took from you, and he never gave back a thing.
Michael: And this is the thanks you get for saving his life? If you ask me, it wasn’t worth it. You might as well have just left him lying there–
This is a rotten thing to say, no defense possible. Did Michael deserve to get punched for saying something so horrible? Absolutely. To be fair, which of us has not said something terrible about a friend’s ex who hurt them? ( ＾▽＾)っ✂╰⋃╯Still, this was just… below the belt.
What Michael says, though, provides several revelations for Brian and for Michael.
For Brian, the punch wakes Brian up to the reality that he could lose Michael, and he doesn’t want to. Brian apologizes and finally admits in a roundabout way that he loves Michael:
Michael: You never hit me before!… But I guess after what I said, I deserved it. You must really love him.
Brian I told him from day one, I don’t believe in love, I believe in –
Michael: Fucking, yeah, I know.
Brian: Except for you, of course.
Michael’s horrendous comment also shows Brian that Michael believes Brian deserves to be loved, which is something Brian struggles to believe. Brian’s punch also demonstrates that Brian hates himself immensely, and doesn’t really want people to side with him. He’s still a hurting, self-loathing child who doesn’t think he deserved to be born. Michael ironically brings this out of the unconscious and into reality by being shitty out of his love for Brian (love is never inherently not selfish).
But, you gotta fight for love if you really want said love. That’s part of being a hero. Brian goes on to do this in subtle ways in season 3, like continuing to honor his commitment to pay for Justin’s college, which in turn inspires Justin to honor his commitment to work on Rage with Michael. Brian is also later able to give Justin a path back after his encounter with his worst self because Michael has helped Brian do this, and Brian has helped Michael do it as well. That’s why right after confirming he loves Michael, Brian tells Michael he wants Michael to “make up with [Justin]”.
So that’s what the punching scene does for Brian’s character arc. What does it do for Michael’s? Well, it gives Michael a consequence that brings him back to the messy reality where superheroes can be jerks–and sidekicks can be assholes.
The reality is that they can’t ever go back to the time before Justin, nor should they. Just because something hurts doesn’t mean it should never have happened–an important lesson for Michael going forward. Brian still loves Justin despite how badly Justin hurt him, and he will still love Michael despite the terrible thing Michael said.
Michael doesn’t get off scot-free from his cruelty either, nor should he. The narrative calls Michael out by having his own partner say something similarly cruel to him:
Ben: … Sometimes I just think…
Michael: What? Sometimes you just think what?
Ben: That it might just be easier to be with someone who’s positive.
In Michael’s struggle with Ben this season, he starts to move beyond his initial understanding in season 2 and truly live the messy reality that people are flawed and that, even when hurting, cruelty fixes nothing.
But back to the point of Michael’s terrible comments about Justin–what does it offer Justin? Justin never hears it, after all. But what it offers is that it clues the audience in to what Justin’s arc in the third season is all about.
No excuses for cruelty, again, but Michael is the only character who doesn’t excuse Justin for hurting Brian. This is a good thing for Justin’s growth, because Justin needs to face himself. Lindsay, Debbie, everyone–they excuse Justin when they shouldn’t. Now, I know I’ve said myself Brian was absolutely pushing Justin away and it wasn’t surprising Justin chose Ethan at the time, but that doesn’t make it okay or not hurtful to Brian. You’ve got to take responsibility for your own actions.
After all, Justin is the one who sets the rules for their open relationship, but also the one who repeatedly breaks them. He’s the one who chose Ethan at an event set up to celebrate Brian, which humiliated Brian.
As mentioned earlier, Ethan is the ultimate fantasy boyfriend–over-the-top romantic, loves art, incredibly talented and passionate… but he also lies and cheats and makes promises he can’t keep. Like, who else does that sound like?
After being with Ethan and then finding himself cheated on, Justin realizes that while Ethan always said he loved him, he never loved Justin more than his music. As flawed as Brian’s love is–and it is–Brian keeps proving he loves Justin even after Justin leaves him. Brian’s actions mean more than Ethan’s pretty words.
Brian is reality, while Ethan is fantasy. That doesn’t mean Brian can’t be better at showing he loves Justin (he can), but it does mean there’s an actual foundation there that there is not with Ethan.
Brian and Justin finally get back together after a conversation about their mistakes, not solely their strengths. They then work together as equal partners in Justin’s art campaign against Stockwell and Brian’s plot to capture the Dumpster Killer.
Season Four: Michael as the Reconciler
In the latter third of season 3, Michael again chooses a fantastical possibility over reality when he worries obsessively over the unborn child he has with Melanie, while literally wanting to turn an actual breathing, hurting human child (Hunter) out on the streets. But in the end, Michael overcomes this, risking it all to run away and protect Hunter from his abusive mother–the thing he was never able to do for Brian when Brian’s parents were abusing him during their childhood. Thereby Hunter becomes a sort of inner child for Michael as well, symbolizing his break with Brian–not in a bad sense, but in the sense of growing into his own person.
In season 4, Michael gets to show how he’s grown. He’s healed the inner child with Hunter, and continues to help his friends as they struggle with their own inner child issues: Brian with whether or not he deserved to be born (deciding to be treated for cancer or let himself die), and Justin with whether or not he should have died in Chris’s attack (via refusing to let Chris steal more of his future by not killing Chris).
In a reverse of Michael tattling on Justin to Brian in season 2, he tattles on Brian to Justin (I mean, I’m using the word “tattle” but don’t mean to imply it’s immature, because it’s not). Michael reminds Justin (who here has the right to be hurt, because Brian was at his absolute worst as a non-defined, nonconventional boyfriend after his cancer diagnosis) of who Brian is. Two steps forward towards vulnerability, then a jump back.
Michael brings Justin and Brian together again instead of trying to wedge them apart. He gives Justin the perspective he needs to go back there and take care of Brian, and the courage to show Brian the same kind of love Justin’s mother showed him in season 1, when, as Debbie tells Jennifer:
Debbie: …the truth is, the thing [Justin]’s the most afraid of, even more than his dad finding out and beating the shit out of him, is that you will stop loving him.
This is not to say Brian and Justin, Brian and Michael, or Michael and Justin are 1=1 parallels to Jennifer’s love for Justin, but instead to say that the comparison with a mother’s love shows a maturation of all three of these relationships.
They choose to live and continue despite the obstacle course that is life, and despite the injuries they carry. In fact, the reason all three of them can continue is because of each other, which is most perfectly displayed in the finale of season 4.
Michael and Justin both try to warn Brian to face reality: his body’s not in any shape to handle the bike ride. Brian, true to form, does not care. When reality sets in and Brian breaks his collarbone yet still insists on continuing, Michael sets in to help him along. Even when reality is crushing, if they help each other, they can achieve the impossible. Loving relationships make a little magic, bring a little fantasy to our world.
At the end of the race, Justin waits for Brian over the finish line, but Brian needs Michael to get there. The metaphor is clear: Justin is endgame. But Brian would never get there if it were not for Michael.
Season Five: Michael, Brian, and Justin as Fully Realized Individuals
Come season 5, Michael, Ben, and Hunter move to the suburbs. Michael’s reality is what Brian sees as a fantasy, and Brian doesn’t respect it. He lashes out at Michael for Michael’s life looking differently than Brian’s own, and panics when Justin’s desire to have a domestic life becomes more and more apparent. He blames Michael for it, trying to see Michael as the problem. But as Michael tells him, the problem is Brian:
Brian: You infected him, with your petty, bourgeois, mediocre, conformist, assimilationist life! Thanks to you he’s got visions - babies, weddings, white picket fences - dancing in his blond little head.
Michael: And you think I put them there?
Brian: Before you and your husband tied the noose around your necks he was perfectly happy! But now, he’s a defector, just like the rest of you!
Michael: He was never perfectly happy! Waiting for years for you to say “I love you, you’re the only one I want.”
Brian: That’s not who I am!
Michael: Don’t we all know!
The reality is, as has been clear to any viewer of the series, that Justin has always wanted these things. Like, he’s talked about it since the first season.
Here, Michael stands up to Brian and says no, he cannot project Justin’s desires onto Michael. They are Justin’s, and if Brian wants to be with Justin, Brian has to decide what to do on his own. That’s what it means to be an adult. Justin, too, needs to think about what he wants.
Of course, it all comes to a head when Babylon–the safe haven–gets bombed and Michael almost dies. Brian rushes into Babylon to save Justin. Justin is the one who brings up that he can’t find Michael, and only then do we realize Michael’s been gravely wounded. Brian tries to donate blood to save Michael, but he’s not able to.
Through what happened to Michael, Brian finally gets the courage to tell Justin what he has never said in direct words to Michael: I love you. Out of fear of almost losing Michael, Brian then proposes to Justin, but neither of them are quiiite ready for that yet. However, I’ve talked extensively about Season 5 before, and how the ending is more to symbolize Brian and Justin being fully alive than anything else, and imo a happy ending for Brian and Justin was clearly implied to the point where it’s barely implied.
Yet again, we can look to Michael and his relationship with Brian as part of this implication. They may be on different paths at the time. Accepting this is also part of growing up–leaving your egocentric, childish beliefs behind. Yet still, the thumpa-thumpa continues, and they’ll continue to meet and celebrate life together with their other loved ones, too.
Michael: Some things aren’t meant to change.
I don’t think this line was ever about Brian’s hedonistic lifestyle necessarily, but instead about the core love that binds the relationships in the show–Justin and Brian’s included. Time won’t change their love. They will always love each other. Even if they part ways for a bit, they’ll always find their way back to each other. It’s been true for Brian and Michael, Michael and Ben, Blake and Ted, Emmett even dances with an old high school pal of his; it’ll be true for Justin and Brian as well.
Love might be a fantasy in some ways–it’s an ideal. The reality is that love is an awkward path to follow, full of potholes and debris and steep climbs. But the story of Queer as Folk suggests that love, no matter how hard it is, is the only way to grow and navigate the difficult reality of life.
Thereby, reality and fantasy aren’t actually two binaries. It was never about reality vs. fantasy, but instead about integrating reality and fantasy–because we all hope for a better life each day, despite the quagmire and disappointments and injustice of daily life. Through our friendships, romantic relationships, parental ones, we bring that divine magic into the world.
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