AS
NOT SEEN ON TELEVISION
BY PETER TERZIAN
Alternate
Channels
Steven Capsuto
From
the 1950s, when members of the early gay activist
group the Mattachine Society were interviewed in
shadowed profile on local talk shows, through the
endless sissy ("thithy") jokes on Bob Hope's comedy
specials and Laugh-In, and the earnest "issue"
episodes of seventies sitcoms (often presented with
parental discretion advisements), to Ellen Morgan's
long-awaited outing over an airport intercom, gays
and lesbians have searched for their faces and voices
on the airwaves. In Alternate Channels: The Uncensored
Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television
(Ballantine Books), gay activist and media studies
specialist Steven Capsuto traces the roller-coaster
ride sexual minorites have taken to the small screen.
(Despite the book's subtitle, only 1 of its 40 chapters
is devoted to radio.) Capsuto points us to the so-called
"liberated" years - the mid-seventies, the mid-nineties
- and the alternating periods of repression and,
at times, soft censorship. (When Ronald Reagan was
elected president in 1980, studio heads quietly
rejected shows that reflected liberal values; regular
gay characters didn't resurface for a few years.)
The history of gays on television may seem like
a steady evolution, but, as Capsuto illustrates,
progress is unerringly - and unnervingly - tied
to what happens at the ballot box.
Capsuto's
obvious forerunner is The Celluloid Closet,
the late Vito Russo's 1987 history of gays and lesbians
on film. Russo's book benefited from copious movie
stills and, later, a documentary that assembled
film clips as damning evidence of Hollywood's neglect
and stereotyping of gays. Russo was also a breezy
stylist; by comparison, Capsuto is dry and a little
humorless. The book's laughs stem largely from its
recountings of good gags from Soap or The
Golden Girls. And, alas, there are no pictures
to complement the book's inevitable nostalgia buzz.
(Remember Edith Bunker's "female impersonator" friend
Beverly LaSalle?) As a history of the gay activist
movement, Alternate Channels is nonetheless
thorough and compelling. Capsuto patiently explains
the day-to-day peregrinations of network indecision
and activist campaigns, of story meetings and sit-ins.
And he's a dead-on analyst of trends and political
patterns, championing the many people who have fought
to bring gay lives and stories into our living rooms:
Fannie Hurst, Phil Donahue, Roseanne, and, of course,
Ellen DeGeneres. (Even Bob Hope came around in the
end, taping a public service announcement for Gay
& Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.)
What
will the future hold? Capsuto cautiously predicts
a convergence of television and the Internet, imagining
"several online gay TV stations." Capsuto speculates
that the sheer number and diversity of channels
available will inevitably encourage a new openness.
If this Utopian ideal ever comes to pass, Will
& Grace may look as quaint in 20 years as Rob
and Laura Petrie's single beds.
