The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV (32 page)

HOMOSEXUALITY AND TELEVISION COMEDY

 

 

T
elevision situation comedies follow a relatively simple format: a conflict or dilemma is introduced, the characters exchange one-liners as they work toward a solution, and, thirty minutes later, all problems are resolved. Of course, the characters do learn a valuable lesson, which, thankfully, by next week is forgotten. Lucy will again wreak havoc trying to get into Ricky’s nightclub act. Ralph Kramden will attempt another one of his get-rich-quick schemes. The castaways will once again try (but fail) to get off the uncharted desert island.

There were no gay men or lesbians living next door to the Ricardos and the Kramdens or waiting to be rescued on
Gilligan’s Island.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters didn’t appear in situation comedies until the early 1970s. Around the same time, sitcoms began to devote single-episode story lines to mature subjects and themes, such as racism, alcoholism, abortion, anti-Semitism, and homosexuality. Before sitcoms like
All in the Family, Barney Miller,
and
Maude
hit the airwaves, gay viewers had to settle for shows exhibiting a certain “gay appeal.”

At the top of this list are sitcoms that highlight a female character constantly breaking the rules:
I Love Lucy’s
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball),
The Burns and Allen Show
’s daffy Gracie Allen,
I Married Joan’
s clownish Joan Stevens (Joan Davis),
Our Miss Brooks’s
wisecracking Connie Brooks (Eve Arden), and
My Little Margie
’s mischievous Margie Albright (Gale Storm). These independent-minded women of the 1950s sitcom world, who were always defying their husbands, fathers, and bosses, made challenging authority fashionable. They also had a special knack for creating chaos in the process. The “rule breakers” spoke to gay and lesbian viewers because they defied the traditional gender roles being reinforced
ad nauseum
by their “family-oriented” competition, i.e.,
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show,
and
Leave It to Beaver.

In the early 1960s, a second wave of sitcoms gave that backbone of American patriarchal society — the nuclear family — a much-needed makeover. Although they advocated the same pro-family values,
The Addams Family
,
Bewitched,
and
The Munsters,
all of which debuted in the 1964-1965 TV season, had definite gay appeal. They represented the “other” kind of American family — the one that didn’t live in the white-picket-fenced-in world of the Nelsons and the Cleavers.
The Addams Family
and
The Munsters
were domesticated ghouls and monsters who thought
they
were normal and everyone around them was odd. Like many gay men and lesbians, the Stephens family had a secret — Mom’s a witch! But witchcraft sure made their lives more colorful than Ozzie and Harriet’s.

The third group of sitcoms features characters in supporting roles that for all purposes
should
be gay or lesbian. There’s certainly something different about the way these characters walk, talk, dress, and crack a joke. Many were played by gay, lesbian, and bisexual actors (and if they weren’t gay, to quote a friend of mine, “they should be”).

Sometimes it was difficult to separate the actor from the role. The gay-straight male characters were typically flamboyant or had “feminine” characteristics:
Bewitched‘
s practical joker Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde), shy science teacher
Mr. Peepers
(Wally Cox),
Ghost and Mrs. Muir’s
scaredy-cat landlord Claymore Gregg (Charles Nelson Reilly), and
The Odd Couple
’
s
fussy Felix Unger (Tony Randall). On the other hand, a touch of masculinity made female gay-straight characters, such as
The Beverly Hillbillies
’s Miss Jane Hathaway (Nancy Kulp) and
The Brady Bunch
’s mannish maid, Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis), the models of efficiency.

The first situation comedy to devote an entire episode to the subject of homosexuality was
All in the Family
. In “Judging Books By Covers,” Mike (Rob Reiner) and Gloria (Sally Struthers) invite their friend Roger (
General Hospital
’s Tony Geary) over for lunch. A sensitive, effeminate intellectual, Roger talks, walks and acts like a stereotypical gay man. Before he arrives, Archie (Carroll O’Connor) goes on a tirade about “Sweetie Pie Roger,” whom he claims is as “queer as a four dollar bill.”
¹
Tired of listening to his father-in-law’s homophobic comments, Mike blurts out that it’s not Roger who is gay, but Archie’s friend Steve (another future soap star,
One Life to Live
’s Phillip Carey). Archie refuses to believe it, even when Steve admits it’s true during a friendly arm wrestling match.

First broadcast in February of 1971, “Judging Books” broke new ground by directly challenging viewers’ preconceived ideas of how a homosexual looks and acts. In what seems today like an obvious reversal, heterosexual Roger is fey and flamboyant, while homosexual Steve, an ex-pro football player, is 100 percent all-American male. More importantly, unlike the portrayal of gay men in many dramatic series of the late 1960s/early 1970s (
N.Y.P.D., The Bold Ones, Marcus Welby, M.D.,
etc.), Steve isn’t ashamed, embarrassed, or troubled about being gay. The real issue here isn’t Steve’s sexual orientation, but the unreliability of labels and the danger of stereotyping on the basis of appearance.

The humor in
All in the Family
stems from Archie Bunker’s ignorance, which continually puts him at odds with his liberal son-in-law. Throughout the episode, Archie spews a seemingly endless stream of derogatory terms, including such anti-gay favorites as “fag,” “pansy,” “fairy,” and “queer.” Mike retaliates by arguing how even if Roger was gay, it’s acceptable these days in certain places such as England, where homosexuality was legalized in 1967. Archie believes that doesn’t prove anything. “England is a fag country,” he declares. “Aren’t they always picking handkerchiefs out of their sleeves?...The whole society is based on a kind of fagdom.”

The studio audience’s reaction to Archie’s homophobic comments is difficult to read. Is the audience (in the studio, on the laugh track, or at home) laughing
at
Archie or
with
Archie when he makes fun of Roger? Is the episode’s message about judging others undermined by Archie’s anti-gay jokes and his use of words like “fag” and “pansy” to get laughs?

The questions also apply to a 1977 episode of another Norman Lear sitcom,
Maude
. In “The Gay Bar,” liberal Maude’s (Beatrice Arthur) ultra-conservative neighbor, Dr. Arthur Harmon, is upset a gay bar has opened in Tuckahoe. Arthur (Conrad Bain) thinks homosexuality is sick and that impressionable youth must be protected. He intends to form an organization called “Fathers Against Gay Society” (which, as Maude points out, forms the acronym FA.G.S.) and launch a campaign to close down the bar because it violates several city ordinances. Maude thinks Arthur’s views on gays, like Tuckahoe’s ordinances regarding morality, are archaic. Although he’s more educated than Archie Bunker, Arthur’s opinions about homosexuals and homosexuality are also rooted in ignorance, as revealed in his discussion with Maude’s young grandson, Phillip (Kraig Metzlinger):

Maude educates Arthur by taking him to the bar in question, The Gay Caballero. There they talk to a “real-live homosexual person,” (Craig Richard Nelson) who Arthur accuses of indulging “in strange sexual behavior” that “has no place in this community.” (“But you straight people have to live someplace,” the gay man replies.) Arthur eventually calls off the protest when he discovers the bar is actually located outside the Tuckahoe city limits and thus not in violation of any law. Although he may not support the civil rights of gay people, he does believe in abiding by the law.

Whenever addressing the subject of homosexuality, sitcom “auteurs” like Norman Lear (
All in the Family
,
Maude
), Danny Arnold (
Barney Miller
), Susan Harris (
Soap, The Golden Girls
)
,
and Susan Bloodworth-Thomason (
Designing Women, Hearts Afire)
are unquestionably liberal in their treatment of gay themes and characters. The aim is to expose the ignorance and fear generated by the Archie Bunkers and Arthur Harmons of the world by challenging the following social myths: