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 | 1972: An ABC made-for-TV movie "That Certain Summer" featured Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen as a gay couple. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1975: The first gay couple was portrayed in the series "Hot l Baltimore" ("Hot l" is Hotel with the "e" burned out). It was a Normal Lear production on ABC. George and Gordon were a older gay couple. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1977: Billy Crystal played the role of "Jodie Dallas" a bisexual man in "Soap". | ||||||||||||||||
| 1979: Michael Palin, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner and others appeared in the Raging Queen sketch on Saturday Night Live. The Raging Queen is an imaginary ship staffed by some rather effeminate gay sailors. 1 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1981: NBC adapted the TV movie "Sidney Shorr into the TV sitcom "Love, Sidney" In the movie, Sidney was gay, but pressure groups successfully influenced NBC to change the lead part into a person of indeterminate sexual orientation. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1985: NBC showed TV movie "An Early Frost" which featured Aidan Quinn as a young gay man who had to tell his parents that he had AIDS and that he was gay. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1986: My Two Loves was a made-for-TV movie featuring Lynn Redgrave and Mariette Harley. Harley played the role of a recently widowed woman who began to question her sexual orientation. She had an affair with Redgrave in the movie. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1986 to 1994: Homosexuality had
become a controversial topic. By the mid 1990's most North Americans, while not
necessarily "approving" of gays and lesbians, recognized their existence and
became in favor of equal rights for persons of all sexual orientations.
Some TV events were:
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| 1995: Chris Bruno played the role of a gay school teacher on "All My Children" from 1995 to 1997; he expects to return periodically in the future. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1996: Friends celebrates a "lesbian wedding." Carol and Susan, played by Jane Sibbett and Jessica Hecht do not kiss. | ||||||||||||||||
| Circa 1997: Many gay and lesbian non-lead characters were being featured in TV comedies such as: "Melrose Place" and "Roseanne". "Friends" featured a lesbian couple. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997-JAN The ABC drama series Relativity broke new ground. The JAN-11 episode contained a lesbian scene which included caressing, nuzzling and passionate, open-mouthed kissing. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997-MAY: On the MAY-30 episode of Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres became the first openly lesbian actor to play the lead role as a lesbian in a TV sitcom. Chrysler, Mazda, Wendy's and J.C. Penney withdrew their ads from this episode. However, ABC did not lose any advertising revenue. They charged replacement advertisers twice the normal rate. Volkswagen had an interesting ad on this episode. It portrayed two men tossing a discarded chair into the hatchback of their VW. "...many lesbians and gays immediately thought the VW-two were supposed to be a couple, while most straights assumed them to be roommates." 3 | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997-MAY: Jorja Fox played the role of Maggie Doyle -- a doctor on "ER" (Emergency Room) who is a Roman Catholic. She came out as a lesbian. But apparently none of the media watchdog groups noticed; there was no response to this development by conservative Christian groups. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1997-JUL-4 A special collectors' issue of the TV Guide was published. The
editors devoted almost 40 pages to rank "the very best shows from five decades of
television history." (1950's to the present time). They prepared a list of "The
100 Greatest Episodes of All Time" These are "timeless treasures,"
originally shown on prime-time:
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| 1997-OCT-29: "Ellen" has an episode showing her first awkward meetings with another woman in a developing lesbian relationship. Ellen (played by Ellen DeGeees) and friend Joely Fisher kissed in a bar. Advertisers pulled their ads. Religious conservatives were outraged. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1998: An NBC sitcom, Will and Grace is structured around two gay men and a couple of heterosexual women. It debuted in the fall and appears to have been successful. One Canadian reviewer described it as "dialogue-rich" and "one of the season's best new shows." | ||||||||||||||||
| 1998: Coral Ridge Ministries, a Fundamentalist Christian group, aired an add which featured Michael Johnston, a gay male, and his mother Frances. She indicates her love for her son. But she says: "Just because you love your children, it doesn't mean you approve of everything they do. Sometimes they make bad choices. My son Michael found out the truth -- he could walk away from homosexuality. But he found out too late -- he has AIDS. If you love your children, love them enough to let them know the truth, that there is hope for change, hope for the future." The implication is that gays can change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. The ad raised a great deal of anger from gay-positive groups who felt that the ad was grossly deceptive. Essentially all human sexuality researchers agree that gays can "walk away from homosexuality" only by deciding to be celibate. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999: ABC aired an episode of "thirtysomething" which contained a scene in which two gay men were in bed talking. The network lost over $1 million in advertising revenue. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999: Actors portraying characters with a homosexual orientation
became more common on TV drama shows. In many cases, they were not brought in for one or
two episodes; they are permanent characters who are seen weekly. For example, In 1999:
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| 1999: A Hyundai advertisement was aired in Sweden, Belgium and France. It shows a woman driving a Hyundai and hiding her boyfriend from view. Then her husband appears in another Hyundai, shielding his lover from view - a young man. It was given the "Gayest Commercial of All Time" Award by visitors of gay.com-PlanetOut. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999-APR-8: After decades of anti-gay broadcasts by conservative Christians, the Cathedral of Hope aired a program by and for lesbians and gays. 4 They billed it as the "first-ever Lesbigay National Telecast." It is available from their website via RealAudio and RealVideo. The beginning of the program features anti-gay hate signs, banners, and speech. This is a total contrast with the rest of the program which is gentle, inclusive, dignified and spiritual. Rev. Michael Piazza, senior pastor, said: "For too long homophobia and religion has been synonymous on TV in this country. Although the Cathedral's first broadcast is only a small drop in a sea of oppression, we have discovered that a drop of hope can neutralize oceans of hate." Their program was rejected by The Oddessy Network, The Discovery Channel, Lifetime, BET, and The USA Network. It took almost two years of struggling and a nine-month legal battle. But the program finally found a home on the Chicago TV superstation WGN which is carried by many cable TV companies. The church received many bomb threats; it was visited by the KKK, picketed by Rev. Fred Phelps of http://www.godhatesfags.org, and Operation Rescue. Main goals of the program are to offer hope to homosexual youth who are at a high risk of suicide, and to help counteract the isolation of rural gay people. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999: On Spin City, Carter was openly gay and was portrayed as a sensitive individual. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999: On the program Ally McBeal, Ling (played by Lucy Liu) has a dream of a sexual encounter with Ally (played by Calista Flockhart). Later in the episode, they re-enact the scene. | ||||||||||||||||
| 1999: Queer as Folk debuted in England. "Its steamy, pill popping, no holds-barred depiction of life in Manchester's club scene had tongues wagging as soon as it was commissioned, and the rumormongers weren't disappointed." 5 |
Other developments:
| The Simpsons cartoon series has featured gay characters. Waylan Smithers chronically has a obvious crush on his boss, industry mogul Montgomery Burns. The character Carl was at one time a personal assistant to Homer. He kissed Homer in one episode. |
References used:
- "The adventures of Miles Cowperthwaite," Saturday Night Live, at: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/
- "Lesbian kiss is daytime first," Associated Press, approximately 2003-APR-15, published by the Toronto Star, 2003-APR-16, Page F4.
- "Sunday Afternoon: Ad overview," CommercialCloset.org, at: http://www.commercialcloset.org/
- The Cathedral of Hope's webpage is at: http://www.cathedralofhope.com/
- "The Original British Series: Queer As Folk," C1TV Entertainment Television, at: http://queerasfolk.c1tv.com/
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Copyright © 1999 to 2005 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2005-FEB-25
Author: B.A. Robinson
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