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Authors: Stephen Tropiano
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BOOK: The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV
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PUBLIC (INCLUDING HOMOSEXUALS) TELEVISION
CBS, as well as the other networks, make programming decisions based on the potential appeal of a series, TV movie, or special to a mainstream audience. When more people are watching, the ratings are higher, which translates into increased advertising revenues and more money in the pockets of the network and their shareholders. The networks don’t necessarily shy away from trying something new or dealing with controversial subject matter, particularly if it will attract viewers. They have also renewed some “quality series” that received critical acclaim but didn’t score high ratings, like
Picket Fences
(four seasons) and
thirtysomething
(three seasons). Both shows did, however, have strong appeal among 18- to 34-year-old men and women.
27
Picket Fences
(four seasons) and
thirtysomething
(three seasons). Both shows did, however, have strong appeal among 18- to 34-year-old men and women.
27
Some of the most innovative and original programming dealing with the subject of homosexuality has aired on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and cable television, which includes both commercial channels (Lifetime, MTV) and pay channels (Home Box Office, Showtime). These three alternatives to the major commercial networks — public TV, commercial cable, and pay cable — make programming decisions based on their respective target audience and the means by which they generate revenue or, in the case of public television, private or public funding.
PBS has certainly been the leader in presenting both fictional and non-fictional gay-related programming. As the chief importer of British television in the United States, PBS introduced American audiences to such gems as
The
Naked Civil Servant
(1979), starring John Hurt as writer Quentin Crisp, who defied social convention by living openly and unapologetically as a homosexual in England from the 1930s through the 1960s;
Brideshead Revisited
, a superb, faithful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel about a British army captain (Jeremy Irons), who recalls his “special relationship” with a rebellious aristocrat (Anthony Andrews) and his oppressive family;
An Englishman Abroad
(1984), based on the friendship between actress Coral Brown (who plays herself) and gay British spy Guy Burgess (Alan Bates) during her trip to Moscow in 1953; and
Breaking the Code
(1997), a fascinating portrait of mathematician Alan Turing (Derek Jacobi), who cracked the Nazi’s military code and subsequently struggled to live his life openly as a gay man after being declared a national hero.
The
Naked Civil Servant
(1979), starring John Hurt as writer Quentin Crisp, who defied social convention by living openly and unapologetically as a homosexual in England from the 1930s through the 1960s;
Brideshead Revisited
, a superb, faithful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel about a British army captain (Jeremy Irons), who recalls his “special relationship” with a rebellious aristocrat (Anthony Andrews) and his oppressive family;
An Englishman Abroad
(1984), based on the friendship between actress Coral Brown (who plays herself) and gay British spy Guy Burgess (Alan Bates) during her trip to Moscow in 1953; and
Breaking the Code
(1997), a fascinating portrait of mathematician Alan Turing (Derek Jacobi), who cracked the Nazi’s military code and subsequently struggled to live his life openly as a gay man after being declared a national hero.
WAY OFF THE BEATEN PATH
In
Sexual Generations: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Gender,
Robin Roberts examines how science fiction has been used to critique social attitudes toward gender and feminist issues, including sexual orientation.
27
Science-fiction series set in the distant future or in a galaxy far, far away provide the perfect setting for showing homosexuality as anything but alien. The following episodes give us a glimpse of what the future may hold:
Sexual Generations: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Gender,
Robin Roberts examines how science fiction has been used to critique social attitudes toward gender and feminist issues, including sexual orientation.
27
Science-fiction series set in the distant future or in a galaxy far, far away provide the perfect setting for showing homosexuality as anything but alien. The following episodes give us a glimpse of what the future may hold:
“The Host”
Star Trek: The Next Generation
May 13, 1991
Written by Michael Horvat
Star Trek: The Next Generation
May 13, 1991
Written by Michael Horvat
Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), the Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer, falls in love with Odan (Franc Luz), who is being transported by the Enterprise for a peace conference. Odan’s a Trill, a human parasite who lives inside a male or female human host body. When Odan is injured, the Trill temporarily enters Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) until a replacement body arrives. While inhabited by Odan, Riker and Beverly make love. The body arrives and the transfer is made. Dr. Crusher is shocked because Odan is now a woman. A female loving another female is completely natural for Odan, but not for Beverly. “Maybe someday our ability to love won’t be so limited,” confesses Beverly. Before saying goodbye, the Trill says “I will never forget you.”
“The Outcast”
Star Trek: The Next Generation
March 16, 1992
Written by Jeri Taylor
Star Trek: The Next Generation
March 16, 1992
Written by Jeri Taylor
Soren, a member of the J‘naii, an androgynous race, seeks help from Commander Riker to rescue the J’naii’s lost space shuttle. Soren admits having “female tendencies” to Riker, which are considered deviant by the J’naii. Soren and Riker fall in love, but when her tendencies are discovered, she is put on trial. Riker’s efforts to save him/her fail, and even though Soren is a hero, he/she is brainwashed back to a “normal” androgynous state. As Roberts points out, the episode, particularly the military-style courtroom scene, “emphasizes the parallel between Soren’s situation and that of gay and lesbian members of the armed forces.”
28
28
“Rejoined”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
October 28, 1995
Written by René Echevarria
Story by Rene Echevarria and Ronald D.
Moore
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
October 28, 1995
Written by René Echevarria
Story by Rene Echevarria and Ronald D.
Moore
When a team of Trill scientists arrives to conduct experiments, the group includes Lenara Kahn (Susanna Thompson), who, in a previous host, was the wife of Dax’s (Terry Farrell) host, Torias. According to Trill law, society forbids reassociation between loved ones of a past host. Dax and Lenara fall in love and although he is willing to risk everything, she’d rather not be exiled from her homeworld.
“Racing Mars”
Babylon Five
April 24, 1997
Babylon Five
April 24, 1997
Posing as a newlywed couple, Dr. Stephen Frank (Richard Biggs) and Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) travel to Mars to infiltrate the planet. The episode treats same-sex relationships in a very matter-of-fact manner as the two men show affection and bicker about their in-laws — just like a few gay couples I know.
One trait these British dramas share is how homosexuality and gender issues are linked to social and political themes, particularly class relations and national identity. Although they contain gay characters, homosexuality isn’t
the issue,
but rather an integral part of a larger critique of the oppression in a patriarchal Britain. By comparison, American television series and made-for-TV movies only began to integrate gay characters into story lines in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Even now, television in the U.S. rarely comes close to addressing social and political themes with the same complexity as the British.
the issue,
but rather an integral part of a larger critique of the oppression in a patriarchal Britain. By comparison, American television series and made-for-TV movies only began to integrate gay characters into story lines in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Even now, television in the U.S. rarely comes close to addressing social and political themes with the same complexity as the British.
One definite sign of progress was the six-hour PBS miniseries version of Armistead Maupin’s
Tales of the City,
presented by PBS’s
Americans Playhouse
. The novel originated in serial form in the
San Francisco Chronicle
back in 1976, and featured an assortment of colorful and loopy characters — gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual — living in San Francisco in the 1970s. Like Maupin’s book, the miniseries captures the vitality and spirit of gay life in the pre-AIDS era as it follows the intersecting lives of over a dozen characters. The action centers on an apartment house at 36 Barbary Lane, home to new-girl-in-town Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney), bohemian Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), her gay soulmate Michael “Mouse” Tolliver (Marcus D’Amico), and their landlady, the free-spirited Mrs. Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis), who harbors a big secret.
Tales of the City,
presented by PBS’s
Americans Playhouse
. The novel originated in serial form in the
San Francisco Chronicle
back in 1976, and featured an assortment of colorful and loopy characters — gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual — living in San Francisco in the 1970s. Like Maupin’s book, the miniseries captures the vitality and spirit of gay life in the pre-AIDS era as it follows the intersecting lives of over a dozen characters. The action centers on an apartment house at 36 Barbary Lane, home to new-girl-in-town Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney), bohemian Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), her gay soulmate Michael “Mouse” Tolliver (Marcus D’Amico), and their landlady, the free-spirited Mrs. Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis), who harbors a big secret.
Tales
originally aired on PBS in two-hour installments on three consecutive nights. The miniseries format provided writer Richard Kramer
(thirtysomething)
ample screen time to introduce, develop and intertwine each character’s story line, an impossibility in a two-hour theatrical film or made-for-TV movie.
originally aired on PBS in two-hour installments on three consecutive nights. The miniseries format provided writer Richard Kramer
(thirtysomething)
ample screen time to introduce, develop and intertwine each character’s story line, an impossibility in a two-hour theatrical film or made-for-TV movie.
In Maupin’s world, characters that are traditionally marginalized on the basis of their gender identity and/or sexual orientation are at the center of the narrative. At the same time, they’re not relegated to some “sexual ghetto,” for the richness of Maupin’s book derives from the way a wide variety of characters — from Mary Ann’s conservative boss Edgar Warfield Halcyon (Donald Moffat), to straight liberal ex-lawyer Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross), to black model D’Orothea/Dorothy Williams (Cynda Williams) — occupy the same world.
The miniseries was produced by Channel Four Films, Britain’s commercial television station, which over the years has produced, co-produced, and aired a long list of gay-themed fictional and non-fictional features and miniseries, including
My Beautiful Laundrette
(1985),
Maurice,
(1987),
The Celluloid Closet
(1995),
Hollow Reed
(1996),
Bent
(1997),
Like It Is
(1998),
Paragraph 175
(1999), and
Metrosexuality
(2001). Like these and other Channel Four productions, there is explicit “gay content,” particularly in bedroom scenes between Michael and his new beau John (Billy Campbell). Unlike the “Strangers” episode of
thirtysomething
(also penned by Kramer), they are permitted to actually touch and even kiss. While a scene such as this is nothing new for British audiences, a few red flags were raised in the States before the program even aired.
My Beautiful Laundrette
(1985),
Maurice,
(1987),
The Celluloid Closet
(1995),
Hollow Reed
(1996),
Bent
(1997),
Like It Is
(1998),
Paragraph 175
(1999), and
Metrosexuality
(2001). Like these and other Channel Four productions, there is explicit “gay content,” particularly in bedroom scenes between Michael and his new beau John (Billy Campbell). Unlike the “Strangers” episode of
thirtysomething
(also penned by Kramer), they are permitted to actually touch and even kiss. While a scene such as this is nothing new for British audiences, a few red flags were raised in the States before the program even aired.
Several PBS affiliates received phone calls from irate viewers, who demanded that the station not broadcast the miniseries. WTCI-TV in Chattanoga, Tennessee, received a bomb threat, prompting them to cancel
Tales
an hour before the series’s scheduled debut.
Tales
an hour before the series’s scheduled debut.
RIGHT-WING TARGETS
Over the years, PBS has been the target of right wing religious and conservative groups, who have objected to their funding and presentation of non-fictional programming that addresses social and political issues affecting our daily lives. Here are two examples:
Tongues Untied
July 15, 1991
Directed by Marlon Riggs.
July 15, 1991
Directed by Marlon Riggs.
Riggs, who died of AIDS in 1994, describes his 55-minute video as “a nationwide community of voices — some quietly poetic, some undeniably raw and angry — which together challenge society’s most deeply entrenched myths about what it means to be black, gay, a man, and above all, human.”
29
,
30
When P.O.V. decided to program the piece, nearly half the PBS affiliates decided not to air it, and some that did were the subject of indecency complaints filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Right wing groups seized the opportunity to lobby Congress and the FCC because both Riggs and
P.O.V
received government funding through the National Endowment of the Arts. Conservative newspapers also had a field day. Dick Williams of the
Atlanta Constitution
denounced
Tongues
as “without a doubt the most explicitly profane program ever broadcast by a television network.”
31
The
Washington Times
’s Don Kowet concurred, suggesting that the film belongs “in the bawdy leather bars that litter such gay havens as Castro Street in New York, but not on public television. Unless the ‘P’ in PBS now stands for ”Pornographic.“
32
29
,
30
When P.O.V. decided to program the piece, nearly half the PBS affiliates decided not to air it, and some that did were the subject of indecency complaints filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Right wing groups seized the opportunity to lobby Congress and the FCC because both Riggs and
P.O.V
received government funding through the National Endowment of the Arts. Conservative newspapers also had a field day. Dick Williams of the
Atlanta Constitution
denounced
Tongues
as “without a doubt the most explicitly profane program ever broadcast by a television network.”
31
The
Washington Times
’s Don Kowet concurred, suggesting that the film belongs “in the bawdy leather bars that litter such gay havens as Castro Street in New York, but not on public television. Unless the ‘P’ in PBS now stands for ”Pornographic.“
32
It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in
School
June 1999
Directed by Debra Chasnoff.
School
June 1999
Directed by Debra Chasnoff.
Academy Award-winner Debra Chasnoff
(Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons, and Our Environment)
directed this controversial documentary that explores how educators can address gay and lesbian-related issues, such as prejudice, discrimination, and, depending on the age group, violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Right wing religious organizations such as the American Family Association and the Family Research Council spearheaded a campaign to stop PBS affiliates from airing the piece. In Idaho, Frank Vandersloot, owner of a beauty products company (!), put up 25 billboards lambasting public television for promoting the homosexual lifestyle to children. When the Idaho state legislature threatened to cut funding for public television, Governor Dirk Kempthorne screened the video and requested that stations air it after 11 p.m. and precede it with comments from a member of the state board of education. Both Idaho Public Television and the stage legislature approved the compromise.
33
Visit the film’s website at
www.womedia.org/elem/
.
(Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons, and Our Environment)
directed this controversial documentary that explores how educators can address gay and lesbian-related issues, such as prejudice, discrimination, and, depending on the age group, violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Right wing religious organizations such as the American Family Association and the Family Research Council spearheaded a campaign to stop PBS affiliates from airing the piece. In Idaho, Frank Vandersloot, owner of a beauty products company (!), put up 25 billboards lambasting public television for promoting the homosexual lifestyle to children. When the Idaho state legislature threatened to cut funding for public television, Governor Dirk Kempthorne screened the video and requested that stations air it after 11 p.m. and precede it with comments from a member of the state board of education. Both Idaho Public Television and the stage legislature approved the compromise.
33
Visit the film’s website at
www.womedia.org/elem/
.
Anticipating such reaction, PBS offered an edited version. But apparently that wasn’t enough. Even after an Oklahoma PBS station aired the edited version, the Oklahoma State legislature passed a bill stating that “no monies shall be expended herein for program material or content which promotes, encourages, or casts in a favorable light homosexuality or any activity violative of state law.”
34
The Lieutenant Governor of Georgia also threatened to cut $20 million of the state’s allocated funding, even though he admittedly had not seen the program.
34
The Lieutenant Governor of Georgia also threatened to cut $20 million of the state’s allocated funding, even though he admittedly had not seen the program.
Tales
also gave right wing groups like Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and other “bastions” of morality plenty of reason to go after the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, which allocates government money to PBS projects, for funding, in the words of the Research Council’s Robert Knight, “a slick of piece of gay propaganda.”
35
also gave right wing groups like Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and other “bastions” of morality plenty of reason to go after the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, which allocates government money to PBS projects, for funding, in the words of the Research Council’s Robert Knight, “a slick of piece of gay propaganda.”
35
Fortunately, they were in the minority. The critics praised the show, which garnered PBS’s highest ratings ever for a dramatic series. In San Francisco,
Tales
even beat out the network competition. The series received a George Foster Peabody Award (1994), was awarded “Best Miniseries” by the National Board of Review, a GLAAD Media Award for best miniseries, and two Emmy nominations.
Tales
even beat out the network competition. The series received a George Foster Peabody Award (1994), was awarded “Best Miniseries” by the National Board of Review, a GLAAD Media Award for best miniseries, and two Emmy nominations.
Two GOOD REASONS WHY You SHOULD SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC TV STATION
Reason #1:
In The Life
In The Life
Over 130 public television stations around the country air this gay and lesbian public affairs/new magazine program devoted to gay and lesbian issues and culture. Each hour episode includes six to eight stories on topics ranging from youth and education, health and AIDS, arts and culture, the workplace, families and relationships, and global issues, such as the continuing struggle for gay rights around the world. A national membership network and the H. Van Amerigen Foundation provide funding for the program. Visit their Web site at
www.inthelifetv.org
.
www.inthelifetv.org
.
Reason #2: P.O.V.
Since 1988, this series has showcased some of the best gay, lesbian, and transgender-themed documentaries. In addition to Tongues Untied, works that have aired under the P.O.V. banner include:
“Absolutely Positive” (June 18, 1991) Directed by Peter Adair.
A moving portrait of eleven HIV-positive men and women, gay and straight, who candidly tell their stories.
“One Nation Under God” (June 15, 1994) Directed by Teodoro Maniacia and Francine Rzeznik.
A disturbing look at the controversy over attempts to “cure” homosexuality with shock therapy, 12-step programs, and beauty makeovers for lesbians.
“The Transformation” (July 9, 1996) Directed by Susan Aiken and Carlos Aparicio
Profile of a former homeless transvestite and his transformation with the help of a Dallas ministry into married churchgoer.
“License to Kill” (June 23, 1998) Directed by Arthur Dong
A candid, insightful examination into the minds of prisoners who have murdered and committed violent acts against homosexuals.
“Golden Threads” (June 8, 1999) Directed by Lucy Winer and Karen Eaton.
Profile of Christine Burton, founder of Golden Threads, an international network for older gay women.
“Scout’s Honor” (June 19, 2001) Directed by Tom Shepard
Insightful and informational look at the campaign led by 12-year-old Steven Cozza to overturn the Boy Scouts of America’s ban of gay scouts and leaders.
BOOK: The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV
12.33Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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