|
|
Alternate
Channels by Steven Capsuto (New York: Ballantine, 2000).
495 pages.
- Semifinalist
for the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual
& Transgender Book Award
- Chosen
by the Southern Voice newspaper as one of its "10
Significant Books" of the year
Alternate
Channels traces the colorful history of gay, lesbian and bisexual
images in American network broadcasting, from effeminate "sissy"
roles on 1930s radio to Bob Hope's "queer" jokes in
the mid-twentieth century; from the worst and best of the 1970s
and 1980s through the remarkable breakthroughs of the past decade,
such as Roseanne, Friends, My So-Called Life,
Ellen, Spin City, Dawson's Creek, ER and
Will & Grace.
Alternate
Channels provides a rare, thoroughly documented look at this
forgotten corner of American broadcast history, filled with unthinkable
shows, bizarre personalities, unlikely heroes, and some of the
strangest protests ever staged in the name of equality.
It is the story of TV networks caught in the crossfire among creative
talent, actors' unions, gay pressure groups, and the antigay Religious
Right. The book also describes PBS's long history of unapologetic
GLB content, and how opponents of public television used this
as a weapon in the battle to cut PBS's funding.
This
project began in 1987, when I was a volunteer at a crisis hotline
in Philadelphia. Many of the phone-in clients were gay or bisexual
teenagers who had internalized so much of society's prejudice
that they were contemplating suicide. The hotline's clinical
supervisor said to ask these kids, "What do you think gay
people are like?" The response was almost always the
same: "I only know what I see on TV." By the third
time I heard that answer, I knew I had to find out more about
what images were appearing on TV, and the off-camera politics
that shaped those images.
|
