The Sebastian Stan Character Comparison: Jack Benjamin and T.J. Hammond

I recently watched the short-lived series Political Animals, mainly because of its knockout cast including Sigourney Weaver, Ciarán Hinds, Sebastian Stan, and James Wolk.  I liked the show, despite its problems, and especially enjoyed Sebastian Stan’s T.J.  I always like Stan’s work, but here, I’m especially taken by the parallels between T.J. and my first and still-favorite Stan character, Jack from Kings.  (Character-related spoilers for both shows to follow.)

The same one-line description fits both characters:  the (gay) younger twin son of a world leader.  Jack’s father is a king while T.J.’s was president (with his mother planning her second attempt,) so the stories play out differently – Jack’s plot, for instance, involves issues of succession that T.J.’s doesn’t.  Still, it’s pretty close.  Both are closer to their mothers and uneasy with their fathers – former president Bud shifts between dismissiveness and tough love, and King Silas is downright ugly.  Both are regarded as less put-together than their older twins; T.J.’s brother Doug is a hard-working politico who ran his mother’s first campaign, and Jack’s sister Michelle makes frequent legislative appeals before Silas’s council.  The contrast between T.J. and Doug is starker, since T.J. is an addict recently out of rehab who hits up his more financially-stable family members for investment in his latest pursuit.  Jack, an army major, is better positioned, but he’s tarnished by misplaced blame for an ambush on his unit that resulted in his capture, and he’s generally thought more frivolous than the dedicated Michelle.

What interests me most, though, are the ways the shows deal with the characters’ sexuality.  In both cases, it’s a little uncomfortable because the straight sibling is clearly painted as the “good” twin, and Jack and T.J.’s orientations are involved in that dynamic to an extent.  However, it’s the extreme demands of being the gay son of a king/president, not being gay itself, that causes most of their issues.  Jack is desperately closeted, masquerading as a womanizing party boy for the paparazzi to deflect suspicion.  Neither of his parents are what you’d call allies.  Silas throws Jack’s secret in his face, threatens his future as king, and makes some truly awful homophobic insinuations.  When Jack, backed into a corner, confides the truth to Queen Rose, she slaps him in the face and then tries to make up for it with a hug.  No wonder he’s fears the throne will be given to Michelle and golden-boy David, why he thinks David is trying to steal what should be his and looks for unscrupulous means of ensuring his place.

By turns, T.J’s sexuality seems a non-issue at first.  He makes no secret of it, and his whole family is supportive.  However, the cheery veneer is quick to crack.  Would-be president Elaine, his mother, tells a grasping reporter, “You will never know the vitriol, the evil he suffered when he came out against his will as a boy in the White House.”  The words “against his will” aren’t explained, but they fascinate me.  Did a scandal-chaser snap an illuminating photo of young T.J.?  Was it a political maneuver by Bud, pulling his gay son from the closet to show how progressive he was?  The first openly-gay child of a president, T.J.’s life was a much bigger media circus than that of most presidential progeny, and Elaine’s words suggest that, though his parents’ careers weren’t adversely affected, T.J. was the target of a lot of ugliness.  Suddenly, we see why T.J. couldn’t “handle” the White House fishbowl like Doug could, why he started abusing drugs.  The family’s upbeat comments and tongue-in-cheek jokes start to look like forced grins, loudly being okay with T.J. because no one wants to talk about the mud he was dragged through as a child.  Do they feel guilty that he was thrown to the wolves in a way that they weren’t?

Favorite Characters: Jack Benjamin (Kings)

 

Thinking about the excellent television specimen that is Kings naturally lead me to think about this character.  In a show populated with complex, richly-drawn people, Jack is maybe the most interesting to watch.

 

The only son of King Silas, Jack couldn’t be too much further from his biblical counterpoint.  While the Jonathan of the Old Testament is defined by his love for David and the endless, selfless aid he gives his friend in difficult times, Jack isn’t exactly a big David fan.  At every turn, the new golden boy of Gilboa seems to undermine Jack’s already-tenuous position – he comes seemingly out of nowhere to gain the people’s acclaim, coveted military posts, and the heart of Jack’s sister Michelle (who could potentially succeed their father on the throne, depending on Silas’s whim.)

 

As such, Jack feels threatened by David, and various points of the season find him at odds with everyone’s favorite hero.  His desperate attempts to outshine David often come frustratingly to nothing, and his unsure claim on the future crown leaves him vicious and bitter.  But then, Jack has a lot to feel vicious and bitter about.  Despite the skirt-chasing antics Jack performs for the paparazzi, Silas knows about his secret boyfriend.  He tells Jack in no uncertain terms that, if he wants to be king, he “cannot be what God made [him]” and has to cut Joseph out of his heart.

 

In other words, Jack has been living with the pressure of staying closeted when he’s the most photographed eligible bachelor in Gilboa, his own father calls him a disgrace (literally, “disgrace” is the word he uses – it’s disgusting,) he’s forced to give up the man he loves in order to become what he’s been wanted since birth, and some aw-shucks kid from the sticks has just breezed into town, seemingly replacing him before his eyes.  Jack is “fighting for [his] right to exist,” and given his moral upbringing at the Machiavellian hand of Silas, this leads him to do some unscrupulous and downright despicable things.

 

He’s a great character because there are so many forces at work in him.  He’s frequently self-serving, and that often expresses itself in at least borderline villainy, but over the course of the season, he also grows and makes small steps toward being a truer person (it has to be said that these steps forward are usually followed by three or four steps backward – Jack will be Jack.)  He’s a character forever in flux, and he always brings good drama.  On the more sympathetic side, his moments of pain and self-loathing are almost shockingly searing, and the show, to its credit, deftly makes sure that they explain his behavior without justifying it

 

I remember when the show first aired, rumblings were made online about the tired insensitively of the only gay main character being nefarious.  However, while a good portion of Jack’s anger and mistrustfulness comes from feeling forced to live a lie, there’s no indication that his sexuality makes him inherently immoral.  Other characters make sneering remarks about his “boys,” insinuating something dirty in his orientation, when in actually, he wants nothing more than his loving monogamous relationship.  Furthermore, as the series goes on, we see that Jack’s love for Joseph is perhaps his best chance for redemption.  The romantic scenes between them give us our most genuine look at Jack, and his bravest and most altruistic actions come as a response to Joseph, “the only real thing [he] ever touched.”  I really appreciate that.

Kings (2009)

 

After a while, it gets a little repetitive to say “X is unlike anything else on television,” but Kings is so novel that it isn’t readily described.  I remember watching it on NBC when it first aired – I’d been drawn in by the premise, but the show itself didn’t seem to be living up to its potential, and for a few weeks, I watched with an entertained but slightly inattentive air.  Still, I was disappointed when it was canceled and made a point to seek it out when the remaining episodes were burned off during the summer.

 

Somewhere along the line, though, Kings became something wonderful.  I can’t quite pinpoint the when, where, or why.  It’s wholly possible that I wasn’t giving it the proper focus to start with, or that the show comes together in retrospect – whenever I rewatch it now, it seems awesome from start to finish, and I can’t figure out why it didn’t grab me right away.

 

Kings is a present-day, alternate-universe retelling of the biblical story of David.  In the fictional country of Gilboa, modern technology, media, and weaponry meet a ruling monarchy where the king talks to God and has visions from heaven.  He and his capital city are rocked by the arrival of David Shepherd, a young Gilboan solider who made headlines when he stood up to an enemy tank.  Salt-of-the-earth, guileless David navigates his newfound celebrity status, looking for signs of God in his life and trying to stay on the good side of the often-tempestuous royal family.

 

Most TV shows that take place outside the real world are sci-fi or fantasy (like Battlestar Galactica or Game of Thrones,) and even shows with fantastical elements often ground them in real-life settings (like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dead Like Me.)  Kings, however, is in some ways a standard drama that puts time and effort into world-building that’s generally relegated to genre pieces:  Gilboa has its own emblems, flags, and bordering countries, its own history separate from ours.  The lush art direction has a sharp eye for detail, and despite the familiarity of the modern-day trappings, you never lose sight of the fact that this is somewhere new.

 

The dialogue has an elevated, almost Shakespearian flair that goes well with the loftiness of the drama.  Exalted speech trips fluently off of King Silas’s tongue, and David speaks an interesting mix of earthy and poetic.  With political puppet theater, prophetic dreams, and fatal flaws, there’s an old-world feel to the plot, stories that don’t get told much anymore.  The biblical source material is cleverly incorporated and reimagined, but the show has its own story to tell as well.  Sadly, there’s only twelve episodes, and the ending far from resolves matters, but numerous threads that seem disparate early on entwine to create a vivid tapestry by season’s end.

 

The whole show is propelled by a strong ensemble of fascinating characters.  The royal family is a narrative feast, and David makes a good, conflicted hero, a man trying to do his best under massively difficult circumstances.  Chris Egan gives a fine performances, and the rest of the cast, which includes Ian McShane, Sebastian Stan (the Winter Soldier!), Eomann Walker, Susanna Thompson, and Macaulay Culkin (surprisingly great in a supporting role), is sublime.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content, swearing, drinking, a few drug references, violence, and thematic elements.