First season Blake was pretty bad ass, or maybe just an asshole. Anyway, in the first episode of Dynasty., Oil, Blake is determined to get his family in order before marrying Krystle. And, that includes straightening out his son Steven who has spent the last two years in NYC, following graduation, finding himself. Blake believes Steven has had sufficient time.
Steven has returned for the wedding and Blake waits to call for Steven to speak to him about his future. Blake wants Steven to work at Denver Carrington and finally give back to what he has taken for so long. (Fallon will give back by marrying Jeff.) Blake actually has a point here and Steven’s counter that the oil business is corrupt and harmful to the United States really is not much of an argument. It does provide a debate about capitalism (which we only see in Season 1, after Season 1- capitalism is great!).
Blake let’s his real motive out when he tells Steven how can he respect the opinion of a man who would touch another man. Wow! That is pretty harsh. Blake swears he did not want to tell Steven what he learned in such a manner, but he clearly did. Or, maybe Blake thought that he could force Steven to return to Denver to work and his homosexuality would just magically go away. Yes, Blake has a lot of power, but he is not that powerful.
Blake is ready to help Steven go straight, but Steven does not know whether he wants such help or that he wants to change. That, of course, sets off Blake who notes that it is a shame that the American Psychiatric Association no longer considers homosexuality a disease since he could have endowed an Institute for the study of “Faggotry” (that’s a new word). I don’t know why Blake still could not create such an Institute - it would be interesting. For the record, Magnus Hirschfeld had founded such an institute in Germany in 1897, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (which was destroyed by the Nazis). Blake was only 80 years late.
The scene works because this is when the audience learns that Steven is gay and really sets up the tension between Blake and Steven for the next 5 seasons (until poor Luke is shot and killed at Amanda’s wedding). The treatment of Steven’s sexuality is very Freudian and clinical. Blake has this weird mix of understanding of Steven’s sexuality and determination to make Steven straight.
The scene is also interesting because of this conflict between Blake the capitalist and Steven the anti-capitalist, living off Blake’s labor. Blake, rightly, calls Steven out for his hypocrisy. Further, Steven’s critique of Denver Carrington is not its harm to the environment, but the selling out of the United States by getting in bed with Middle Eastern despots and manipulating oil prices. Of course this is a product of the times - OPEC boycotts, price increases and the Iranian Revolution.
Things never go well between Blake and Steven in the library
Audiences today would definitely be harsh on Blake for trying to change his son (and saying he cannot respect his son because he is gay) but homosexuality was not an issue that most people spoke of in 1981 - which makes the storyline itself revolutionizing. There is a mixed record as to how Dynasty treated Steven’s sexuality but it also mirrors America’s changing attitudes at the time. Because of disco and the growing gay rights movement, discussions of sexuality were more common in 1981, but the growing evangelical movement and the AIDS crisis distorted the national conversation and Dynasty tried to steer a path.