Bradley James & Colin Morgan - Hocus Pocus [article @ mcv.e-p.net.au]
"Are we imagining it, or is something going on between Arthur and Merlin? asks David Knox."
Article @ mcv.e-p.net.au
Hocus Pocus
Written by David Knox
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Are we imagining it, or is something going on between Arthur and Merlin? asks David Knox.
“Arthur drank a lot. Usually, Merlin would drag him back to his room while Arthur giggled and blushed and groped him. Tonight though, Arthur had allowed his manservant to drink alongside him, and by the end of the night Arthur giggled and blushed and groped as always, but Merlin didn’t resist.” - Merlin fansite.
With the pretty boy looks of Colin Morgan as Merlin, and the steely resolve of his blonde, youthful master Arthur (Bradley James), is it any wonder there are now countless blogs and 'slash fiction' sites creating their own gay shrine to the hit series? Merlin has it all - not the least of which is the 'magic' secret he can never share with his best friend.
But Morgan, 23, merely laughs at the suggestion his young wizard has the hots for the Prince of Camelot.
"It's really weird! I think there are some strange fans who create scenarios," he says, "but there's been no intention to try and create anything."
Since taking on the title role, Morgan has been catapulted to heartthrob status and romantic hero. YouTube even hosts clips of a doey-eyed Merlin and Arthur swooning to the strains of Vanessa Carlton's ‘Pretty Baby’.
"I've heard about this, but I've completely avoided the internet,” Morgan says. “It's a dangerous place where people can do anything. I suppose that's just an example of what people like to create. Any show can be interpreted any way if you want to fix it.
"I think it's quite bizarre, but I guess each to their own."
Co-creator and producer Johnny Capps is more considered about the emerging attention. "Merlin knows it's his destiny to look after Arthur, Arthur knows that Merlin is important to him. So it's a friendship in which there is a lot of respect. And I think in those situations there's always going to be a slight undertone of homoeroticism, because it's an intense male friendship.
"We never set out to tell any love story or subversively put an undercurrent there. But I think whenever you've got men fighting, whenever you've got those medieval battles and people getting ready for battle there's always an underlying homoerotic thing going on. You can't escape from it."
The inspiration for the series was Smallville, another show that attracted comment for the tension between the young Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. Xena even turned its subtext into a continuing storyline. Does homoeroticism come with the territory?
"Get men with their tops off fighting and people will start talking," Capps says.
"But it doesn't worry us at all. When we're storylining we are aware of it, but we don't shy away from it at all because it is part of it. I think if you started worrying about, ‘Oh, will people think this is gay?’ it will limit you.
"Because at the end of the day these are two men who are in an incredibly intense friendship so of course there is a certain amount of love there. I think that's good. It's great for kids to see that two men can have an intense friendship."
