Bash

[DianeDobbler]

Just wanted to say I read an interview with Chris Lowell, and he sides with all the viewers who believe Bash is blind to himself, doesn't recognize that he's gay, and has not had gay experiences. Florian's death brings it out of him. So I was wrong.

I have trouble accepting this - where's the girlfriend, then? He's been celibate all this time?

There were plenty of people who dated the opposite gender in the 1980s (and I guess now as well) because they wouldn't acknowledge to themselves they were gay OR because their lives were severely compartmentalized, but if Bash isn't out to himself, is inexperienced in gay sex, and had a physically platonic relationship with Florian, what exactly has his official romantic status been? The guy is in his early thirties. Where, for example, is the frustrated or vaguely uneasy girlfriend? That's almost de rigueur for a rich young-ish man in his circumstances/predicament of the time.

Edited July 18, 2018 by DianeDobbler

[Danny Franks]

On 18/07/2018 at 5:40 PM, DianeDobbler said:

 He's been celibate all this time?

Yes? Just because he's not able to accept the fact that he's gay doesn't mean he's forced himself to adhere to societal standards and pretend to be interested in women. I think we've seen enough of his interactions with the women in the show to see that he's clearly not interested in them sexually. 

I imagine everyone around him believes he's gay, including his mother, but they just never speak about it with him, and so he's never under pressure to find himself a wife. Perhaps his family assume he and Florian are together, but don't want to discuss it, perhaps they just try to avoid thinking about it at all. The subtext indicated that Florian is on familiar enough terms to ask Bash's mother for money. But whether she sees it as an allowance to her son's close friend, or hush money to a source of embarrassment, we can't say.

For what it's worth, I think he has had gay experiences, but only with Florian. And I think he's been able to rationalise them as 'it's just Florian, it doesn't mean I'm gay'. And I think the tension between them was at least partly about Florian being more open about his sexuality, but also knowing that Bash was firmly closeted, and unlikely to come to terms with it any time soon.

He may also have had sexual experiences with women (though I doubt it, given his discomfort at seeing Debbie naked, and the way he giggled nervously when the girls were talking about their breasts), but had no desire to have more of them.

[Jextella]

I just discovered GLOW and binged all the way to present.  It is one of my all-time favorite shows!

Bash is probably my most favorite character.  Given where he came from, e.g. money, it would have been easy to make him into a complete asshole of a person, but the writers/producers made him be a really nice and decent person which I really, really love.

[GrahamV]

On 8/22/2019 at 1:14 PM, Jextella said:

Bash is probably my most favorite character.  Given where he came from, e.g. money, it would have been easy to make him into a complete asshole of a person, but the writers/producers made him be a really nice and decent person which I really, really love.

Bash is my favourite character too! I also appreciate how the writers and Chris Lowell have made him less of a spoiled rich kid than a surprisingly innocent, sweet, well-meaning guy. Of course, that baseline makes his arc in season three so much more interesting. He kind of becomes a huge prick, but you know most of it is stemming from an inability to be vulnerable, and deeply rooted insecurities that he refuses to face. I'd love a season four for so, so many reasons (GLOW has also become one of my all time favourite series), but Bash's road to self-acceptance (or not) is primary among them.