Television's ongoing flirtation with
______ gay and lesbians______
Television is giving heterosexual
America ideas about what we are like
BY ED
S C H I F F E R
involved Suzanne realized her former rival
was not talking about debutantes and cotil­
n the quick but somewhat confused
lions, she retreated from the friendship in
response to the Andy Rooney affair, many classic homophobic fashion.
of us found ourselves arguing simultaneously There were several good things about the
for Rooney’s muzzling and for increased
show. With the help of the three more
media access for gays and lesbians. Never
progressive designing women, Suzanne was
mind that censoring Rooney displays the same made to confront her stereotypes, and the
mind set which prevents positive (or even
episode took pains to show how even the self-
recognizable) depictions of gay culture on
proclaimed liberals harbored irrational fears
television; we’re mad as hell and not going to about lesbians in their midst. Suzanne
take it anymore.
^
reconciled with her lesbian friend, but the
episode ended with her declaring “If they can
put a man on the moon, we can put one on
you.”
In some ways, the episode’s creators were
not simply indulging some homophobia of
their own with that line. It is entirely in
But unlike the disgruntled viewers in the
character for Suzanne to resist having her
movie Network, we would do well not to throw consciousness raised, and by giving her such
our TV sets out the window. True, reviewing an absurd last line, we're reminded that
TV’s images of gays and lesbians can seem a
people arc not easily converted. It would be
little bit like reviewing an art exhibition in
nice to think that’s what the show’s writers
which most of the paintings are turned to the
were getting at; that they were winking at us
wall. B*t television is giving heterosexual
with-that finale, but unfortunately, their
America some ideas about what gay and
“realism” ends up winking at the very
lesbian people are like. We need to consider
prejudice the rest of the show worked to
the variety of ways in which television talks
discredit. Ever since All in the Family, liberal
about us if we are ever to get it to talk to us.
TV viewers have had to worry whether the
By far our most common appearance on
depiction of prejudice exposes it s dubious
the small screen comes in single episodes of
assumptions or whether it actually serves to
established shows. Last month. Designing
endear to us this all-too-human failing.
Women, CBS’s sitcom about four women who
The answer, of course, is that it works both
run a decorating business, featured a plotline
ways, depending on who’s watching. If the
with a lesbian theme. A generally enlightened makers of Designing Women made sure that a
show (two years ago, it was among the First
whole spectrum of straight viewers could
series to feature a sympathetic AIDS
“plug into” the show, any gay or lesbian
storyline), Designing Women’s treatment of
watching the episode would have to note the
lesbianism nevertheless revealed several
curiously superficial characterization of the
problems with the presentation of gay themes
lesbian and conclude that homosexuality is,
on television.
after all, just something that impinges on
The episode centered on Suzanne Sugar-
straight people from time to time.
baker’s relationship with an old friend from
There is some encouraging evidence,
her days on the beauty pageant circuit. The
however, that television is finding alternatives
old friend, now a successful weathercaster, had to this “heterocentric” way of presenting gays
recently “come out’’, and once the self­
and lesbians. The unlikely force for change
I
Please £» thank you aren’t th e only
magic words: When supporting our
—i-------=-----------mention Just Out.
■■■
here has been the Fox network, whose two
variety programs. The Tracey Oilman Show
and In Living Color (now seen back-to-back
on Saturday nights at 9), have demonstrated a
willingness to grapple with gay people
themselves, rather than the problems they pose
for straights.
Among the various recurring characters
featured on the versatile Ms. Ullman’s show is
Francesca, a teenaged girl who lives with
“Daddy and William.” Skits involving this
gay family have focused on such “issues" as
how to present themselves when buying a co­
op and whether William gets to accompany his
lover on business trips, but these are simply
treated as the kinds of problems nice ordinary
gay parents run into.
A similar matter-of-factness characterized
the gay skit on the April debut of Keenan
Ivory Wayan’s In Living Color, a show that
already deserves ample credit for putting a
black point-of-view on the small screen. A
parody of Siskel and Ebert, “Men on Films”
featured Blaine and Antione, two flamboyant
black film reviewers. Interpreting Do the
Right Thing as a call to come out of the closet,
they proceeded to wax rhapsodic over the
possibilities of the relationship at the heart of
The Karate Kid, Part III. Self-consciously
over the top, the skit flirted with queeny,
misQgynistic stereotypes of gay men, even as it
flaunted Hollywood’s undeniable homoerotic
undercurrents.
The complicated satire of both Fox variety
shows points up a different sort of problem
afflicting gay content on television. The
“girls” hosting “Men on Films,” like the overly
prissy “William and Daddy,” are presented as
variations on familiar stereotypes, and it’s easy
to feel guilty laughing so hard at them. It’s
easy to imagine unsympathetic viewers taking
these characters seriously and using them to
confirm their prejudices. Even without
knowing the sexual orientation of these skits’
writers, though it’s clear where their sympa­
thies lie. For all their exaggerated manner­
isms, Blaine and Antoine and William and
Daddy are vital, self-affirming characters who
occupy center stage in their own lives. And
that’s rare enough in television's ongoing
flirtation with homosexuality.
^
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