ESPN’s LZ Granderson has a really interesting article up that talks about how popular HBO’s The Wire is with athletes and how they all tend to have a favorite character: Omar.What makes this interesting is that Omar is very openly gay, but that hasn’t stopped prominent professional athletes from seeing him as an uber-badass (which he is!). I bet this goes beyond just professional athletes though, Omar really dumps all over the idea of a gay man automatically being effeminate. Sadly this is a perception that movies and TV shows (with the exception of Six Feet Under) have been all to happy to perpetrate. Just think of the type of gay characters on prime-time, they are all too often just caricatures of homosexuality (not that I’m an expert on it, but still). Kudos to HBO for taking on this perception and placing gayness in the context of everyday life.