Gay Twin Brothers On LOGO Reality Show

Scrolling through satellite or cable menus these days takes so long that most people long ago gave up searching for new channels that way. So it would be easy to miss the Logo channel's reality series, "Jacob and Joshua: Nemesis Rising." (beginning Monday, 10-11 p.m. ET) Logo is owned by MTV networks, which advertises it as the country's leading source of entertainment for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender audience. Yet you don't have to be a niche viewer to experience the poignancy at the heart of "Nemesis Rising."
Jacob and Joshua Miller are attractive identical-twin brothers from a Montana farm who were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and are now trying to make it as a (nonreligious) pop/rock duo called "Nemesis." Musically speaking, they don't seem to have a lot to say, but they do have a gimmick of sorts: The twins are gay.
Swining Life
The trouble is that one of them, Josh, is not so sure he wants to be marketed as a gay guy. Brother Jacob, the more organized and driven of the two, has a live-in boyfriend and is constantly after his twin to come out to everyone, including their still-in-the dark parents up in Montana.
Pressure is coming from the brothers' record label and manager too, who apparently figure that the band is not worth investing in any longer unless the boys find a new hook -- their gayness. But Josh can't stop worrying about the heartache this might cause his parents, for instance. Unnecessary heartache, in his view.
Not that Josh is shy or sexually inactive. "When it comes to hooking up with guys in the Internet, I'm like a kid in a candy store," he says. He's definitely out in the clubs, dancing the night away while brother Jacob stays at home worrying about their floundering career.
In endless arguments with his twin, though, Josh keeps insisting that his sexual orientation is only a tiny fraction of who he is, and that what seems hip and easy about their swinging life in L.A. makes his brother forget "that this is not the way the rest of the world lives." Besides, he adds, "I think that the whole gay thing is a little weird. All of a sudden everybody is gay. I don't get it."
Both Ways
Does that make Josh a pathetic coward, a victim, in a sense, of straight-world norms and perceptions? Who knows. Logo helpfully gave reviewers a "Nemesis" music video. In a couple of scenes we see the beefcake twins briefly eyeing beefcake men. In other, longer sequences, however, they're caressing or undulating over women. Looks like even if Josh and Joshua have since come out to their parents, the record company decided it was safer to sell them both ways.
from The Wall Street Journal