Now
that gay content is seemingly ubiquitous on TV - from
sitcoms like “Will & Grace” and “Normal,
Ohio” on network television to the controversial
“Queer as Folk” on Showtime - it seems hard
to believe that even 10 years ago, virtually no gay
or lesbian content could be found on the tube. For years
now, scholar/ activist Steven Capsuto has chronicled
television’s depiction of gays, lesbians, bisexuals
and transgendered people from non-existence to jaw-dropping
stereotypes to suffering saints to sitcom stars.
“Alternate
Channels” begins with a quick overview of the history
of radio and television, noting that in the 1920s, “Homosexuality...
was generally considered so filthy, so warped, so unmentionably
dangerous that even antigay speeches were banned from
the airwaves.” Gay content would be censored from
plays and novels adapted for radio, but broadly played
“male comic-relief roles” were allowed, as
long as their gayness was merely implied. Network TV
initially followed similarly strict guidelines (straight
married couples slept in twin beds, Lucy couldn’t
say the word “pregnant,” etc.), but Christine
Jorgensen’s sex-change operation paved the way
for openness. So did the “live broadcast”
nature of early TV, which allowed comedians to ad-lib
“Denmark jokes” and similar risqué
material. As restrictions loosened over the years, a
clear pattern emerged: gay men made great swishy comic
relief, and lesbians (when infrequently portrayed) were
either vicious killers or tragic victims.
Naturally,
gay activists took exception to such negative stereotypes
and let their protests be known through civil disobedience
and meetings with network executives, with varying degrees
of success. For example, activists got infamous episodes
of “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “Police Woman”
pulled from repeats and syndication. Gay content increased
during the ’70s: there “were shows about gay
people but clearly for straight audiences,” the
classic example being a series regular’s non-stereotypical,
long-time friend coming out to them, then never being
heard from again.
From
negative to non-existent
But
as gay content became more prevalent, so did anti-gay
religious organizing and the Right Wing. “Soap,”
for example, featured an openly gay character played
by Billy Crystal, and the show received thousands of
hate mail letters long before it ever aired! Another
target of considerable protest was “Love, Sidney,”
based on a TV movie in which Tony Randall played a meddling,
older gay man. When it became a weekly series, Sidney’s
homosexuality was neutered into virtual non-existence
and has been looked on unkindly ever since - until this
book, wherein Capsuto views the show with less bias
than most critics.
A
high point of gay and lesbian TV representation in the
late 1970s quickly dissipated as conservatism spread
across the land with Reagan’s election. The rise
of AIDS also made gay men a risky subject at this time
(since many people erroneously equated gay men with
AIDS), which ironically led to greater lesbian visibility.
On “Dynasty,” supposedly gay Stephen Carrington
would vacillate between woman and men, and his boyfriends
typically met with grisly fates. A TV movie about AIDS,
“An Early Frost,” would not air until November
1985, coincidentally after Rock Hudson disclosed that
he had AIDS. But things would soon improve; as Capsuto
notes, “Some fifty network series in the 1990s
had gay or bisexual recurring roles … more than
twice the combined total for all previous decades,”
paved by two years of round-the-clock news coverage
of the issue of gays in the military and “Don’t’
Ask, Don’t Tell.”
After
a cogent discussion of the rise and fall of “Ellen”
- and a surprisingly cursory look at “Will &
Grace” - Capsuto concludes that “the heyday
of ‘queer’ TV characters is over: that heady
period lasted from fall 1994 to early 1998, after which
the portrayals dropped off quickly. Ongoing sexual-minority
roles now are far fewer and less varied than they were
just three years ago.”
Although
firmly grounded in years of research, “Alternate
Channels” has a breezy, engaging quality which
makes the pages fly by. Occasional scathing comments
underscore the arbitrariness of networks’ attitudes
about homosexuality: “Murder, rape, and the bisexuality
of a sociopath were acceptable subjects for a family
show; tenderness between two nice, young women was not.”
And on the two-second “L.A. Law” lesbian kiss,
he opines, “for many gay viewers, it was the first
time they had ever seen their love reflected, however
remotely, in the nation’s most influential medium.
Accustomed to total starvation, they savored this tasty
crumb.”
TV
fans who thought they knew it all will be surprised
by many tidbits, especially from TV’s early days,
and the true identity of network TV’s first gay
character as part of the main cast. However, some of
the coverage is spotty; for example, the hilarious sitcom
“Doctor Doctor,” one of the only shows from
1989 to 1991 to feature much gay content, gets short
shrift, leading one to wonder what other obscure shows
might have been missed. Still, even the author himself
admits defeat as of 1995 in hopes of capturing more
than a fraction of all the gay content now out there.
In spite of its occasional flaws and sometimes hiccuppy
structure, “Alternate Channels” is a ground-breaking,
long-overdue exploration of pop culture’s most
popular medium and how it has reflected us.
