I fear the gay magazines are all part of the entertainment conglomerates dominated by a few large corporation like Disney, Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's Global news media. The magazines don't want to be critical because they lose access to interviews with the talent (actors and writers) and visits to the set. The writers fear to criticize and lose the opportunity to move up in the media world. What gets lost is the truth IMHO.



Thank gawd for the internet and boards like this that allow for a grass roots movement to get the views of many of the fans both gay and gay friendly out there. Fans and regular folks are taking the initiative to complain about the cliches out there from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and AMC to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Any group of people deserve better than cliches. They say be glad that you are represented on the air at all. I say that I want all of the pie not half. I want the whole tapestry of gay life portrayed not just the stereotypes.



We may be relegated to the letters page ghetto and subjected to article after article telling us that we shouldn't think as we do but we still have the ability to get the word out. I hate when editors print letters on the letters page only to write in their magazine editorial or articles that all the letter writers are wrong. Why not simply say they disagree but present both sides? I guess that takes journalistic integrity which is in short supply these days considering scandals like the New York Times thing. Frankly, I don't subscribe to magazines anymore. I found the information more timely and less biased online. You have to apply a filter to it but at least you are not limited to a few "accepted" viewpoints.



Remember they can dismiss us but they cannot silence us.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 8/21/03 11:22 am

Personally I'd prefer these so called 'gay media' types to grow up and start calling for support of QUEER filmmakers, musicians, authors, etc.... and stop worry about what all the straight people are doing. Perhaps then we wouldn't have to worry so much about how they are portraying us we could be busy showing the world the diversity and talent of another slice of the pie that makes up humanity.



and to all you straight people personally I don't think you should forgive Joss - bad writing, bad decisions, bad cliche's - you can do better - lots of good straight writers out there - and some in pens can even do lesbian smut really well

The San Francisco Chronicle had this article last Sunday. They don't even mention 'Buffy', which is interesting, though they seem to be referring mostly to cable shows. Also, if you look at the article on their website (at the link below), there's a small photo (on the right) of Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman in the Showtime series 'The L Word'.

Quote:

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www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ar...117666.DTL

The gaying of TV

Advertisers step up as more shows step out

Los Angeles -- Reference to the Beatles' old nickname seemed perfectly apt when America's new sweethearts, the Fab Five, strolled onto the "Tonight Show" stage earlier this month. Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley and Jai Rodriguez, the gay stars of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," received a heroes' welcome from uber-heterosexual Jay Leno, who begrudgingly gave himself over to the makeover artistes.



By night's end, they'd transformed the formerly pedestrian greenroom, given the booze cart swinging new panache and subjected the grimacing host to a facial. All the while, Kevin Costner watched bemusedly from the couch.



Since premiering to record-breaking ratings six weeks ago on Bravo, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" has become the most talked-about show of the summer. And there's plenty more gay-themed TV in the pipeline.



-- "It's All Relative," an ABC sitcom about two gay parents trying to find common ground with the family of their prospective son-in-law, premieres Oct. 1. It's co-created by gay writer-producer Chuck Ranberg, who earned five Emmys for his work on "Frasier."



-- Ellen DeGeneres begins hosting her new daytime program, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," on Sept. 8 on KNTV.



-- "The L Word," a new Showtime series coming in January, focuses on lesbians in Los Angeles. Lesbian filmmaker Rose Troche ("Go Fish" directs the pilot episode.



-- NBC's "Will & Grace" begins its sixth season on Sept. 25.



-- Showtime's "Queer as Folk" returns with a new season next spring.



-- HBO's "Six Feet Under," up for 16 Emmy nominations, stars Michael C. Hall as a gay undertaker trying to sustain a relationship with his boyfriend (played by Mathew St. Patrick).



-- "Boy Meets Boy," Bravo's reality-based dating series, looks at a group of men, including some heterosexuals who are pretending to be gay, as they vie for the affections of a single gay man.



-- Elsewhere on cable: Gay personalities Graham Norton (BBC America) and Isaac Mizrahi (Oxygen Network) host their own shows, while AMC recently included a special on "Gay Hollywood" profiling five struggling gay men trying to make it in show business.



It's a far different TV landscape from 1997, the year Ellen DeGeneres caused an uproar by coming out of the closet while starring in her ABC sitcom "Ellen." DeGeneres declined to comment for this story, but Jim Paratore, president of Telepictures Productions, which is producing the talk show, says she will focus on comedy, not lifestyle. Telepictures' research shows that the program's target audience -- women who watch daytime television -- don't care about DeGeneres' personal life. They just want her to be funny.



"Our target audience knows Ellen is gay, but they don't want a show about that, and that's where Ellen is in her life, too. She's at the point where she can say, 'OK, I'm gay, I'm not hiding anything anymore, but I'm not just about that. I'm an entertainer.' That's what she wants to bring to the show."



Jeff Gaspin, president of Bravo, also downplays the gay factor in his network's big summer hit. Despite the title, he says, "Queer Eye" is not a gay show. It is not directed at gay viewers. "Its biggest audience, by far, is women -- straight women, I suspect."



That said, keeping the "Queer" in the title was a major challenge for Gaspin when the show was in development. "Believe me, there was a lot of pressure to change it," he says. "Ad sales was afraid it would keep clients away, affiliate folks were afraid it would offend some of our affiliates, and frankly, even at the network there was some concern -- is queer a bad word? Is queer a negative? Given that 'Queer as Folk' was on Showtime three years earlier, I didn't see why the title would be objectionable, but I knew it would turn heads."



Gaspin continues, "It's the hook to get you in the door. The concept seemed edgy, cool and hip and got people talking. But really what people talk about now is how fun it is to watch. When I did my sales pitch to advertisers, I said, 'Don't let the title scare you because this show has a lot of heart and humor.' "



For "Queer as Folk" creators Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, the increase of gay-themed television represents huge strides compared with the resistance they encountered while writing their AIDS drama, "An Early Frost," for NBC in 1985. "It was very difficult," recalls Lipman. "We wrote 14 drafts. Standards and Practices said we weren't allowed to show our gay characters touching, much less kissing or being physically affectionate."



When they got the opportunity to produce their own series in 2000, Lipman and Cowen were determined to present a full spectrum of gay behavior.



"For straight audiences, as long as you don't show too much of what goes on behind the (bedroom) door, then they're OK," Lipman says. "But if you start showing gay people having sex, or if you show serious issues that gay people have to deal with, like prejudice, gay beating, bashing, then they're not comfortable. One of the things about 'Queer as Folk' is that our characters broke through stereotypes of the desexualized best friend and the comedy second banana. They became the lead characters."



Says Cowen: "We are not in the business of making everyone like us. In a lot of ways, the purpose of 'Queer as Folk' is to piss people off and to annoy people. If we're doing that, we're challenging the audience. There's an audience out there that's underserved, and there's also a surprising crossover audience with women, which I don't think people realize."



For network television and most cable channels, it is that audience, and by extension, the advertisers trying to reach those viewers, that ultimately shape what winds up on television. According to Michael Wilke, a former critic for Ad Age who now serves as executive director for CommercialCloset.org, advertisers "are much more comfortable than they ever were with the (gay) subject. Gay characters and story lines no longer have the controversial nature they once did, that caused them to flee."



Of course, nothing causes advertisers -- or network programming executives - - to flee faster than low ratings. "Normal, Ohio," Fox's gay-themed show starring John Goodman, fizzled with audiences, as did Nathan Lane's short- lived CBS sitcom "Charlie Lawrence."



Indeed, for "It's All Relative" co-creator Chuck Ranberg, the only buttons he's hoping to push are located in and around the viewing public's collective funnybone. "Shows like 'Will & Grace' and 'Ellen' paved the way and now we hope America's ready for double gay parents," he says. 'They don't go to bars and hang out and pretty much are conservative and parental," adds his producing partner Anne Flett-Giordano. "They live like your neighbors and your friends but they are still funny, I hope."



Ranberg points out that gay characters no longer seem to provoke the contretemps that TV creators encountered in years past. "When '30something' had a shot of a gay couple sitting in bed, advertisers threatened to pull out. In our show, we have almost the identical image at the end of our first episode, with the gay dads sitting up in bed talking, and it was never questioned by ABC."



"Or by the advertisers," Flett-Giordano adds. "Gay parents are one part of the show but the other part are people, in contrast to that, who are saying 'enough with the gay stuff.' So we actually have the point of view of the backlash built into 'It's All Relative.' It's your traditional comic clash of cultures set up."



Lloyd Braun, chairman of ABC's Entertainment Television Group, originally came up with the notion for "It's All Relative" on a retreat two years ago. He envisioned a two-gay-dad set-up as a fresh situation rife with comic opportunities. "We all recognize it is a show that's going to push some buttons in some places," he says. "But ultimately, if people are laughing, that's what we're going for here."



Ranberg continues. "Sitcoms should just be there to entertain people. We're representing a gay couple as sort of normal, and the fact that they're in a long term relationship, that they're monogamous, that they raised a kid, all of that is just a given but it's not the point. I think if you set out to do something like (social or poltical agenda) deliberately, you're in the wrong arena."



Gays will continue to sustain a mainstream-friendly presence on TV as long as people tune in to watch the shows, says Wilke. "Advertisers through the years have always said they're not afraid of the subject -- they're afraid of the controversy. Whether or not that is true, they finally put their money where their mouth was when it came to 'Will & Grace.' There was no controversy around the show, and in fact, they supported it properly. It also did well with audiences, so advertisers got what they want, which is ratings."

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Edited to add: An article from the Miami Herald which takes a much less optimistic view:

Quote:

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www.miami.com/mld/miamihe...618804.htm

Posted on Tue, Aug. 26, 2003



COMMENTARY

Gay TV making great strides in exactly the wrong direction

BY CHRISTOPHER KELLY

Knight Ridder News Service



The blond, stylishly dressed man bounds into the suburban Long Island home, squealing to the overweight husband of the house: ''Move over, bacon, there's something leaner.'' His name is Carson Kressley, and he is trailed by four men just like him -- handsome, urban professionals, all perfectly appointed in designer duds. They are experts in grooming, interior design, food and culture -- and, of course, in the art of the cutting, pop-culture-savvy quip. ("Look at that hair. You look like the Rev. Al Sharpton.'')



The straight couple whose home they have invaded looks upon them with both superiority and delight. They are the ersatz king and queen, welcoming their jesters to court. The gay men -- the ''Fab 5'' they call themselves -- have come to make over the husband and the house. They will also delight and entertain television viewers with a steady stream of witty banter and camp-it-up antics.



Welcome to the rise of the gay minstrel show.



The show I'm talking about, of course, is Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (10 tonight on Bravo) -- this summer's you-can't-escape-it pop-culture phenomenon. In addition to scoring the cable network its highest ratings ever, it is also now appearing on even-more-highly-rated reruns on NBC.



In this summer when a conservative Supreme Court has struck down Texas' anti-sodomy laws -- surely the most momentous step forward for gay civil rights in this country -- here is a show that is gay and proud of it; a show that has effortlessly crossed over into heterosexual living rooms; a show that portrays straight people and gay people as one happy community, bonding over foie gras, Lucky Brand Jeans and the virtues of eyebrow waxing.



Except for one problem: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is execrable -- a catalog of homosexual stereotypes, played to a throbbing, techno-disco beat, that also systematically denies its gay stars their complexity and their sexuality. From first scene to last, they trill and fuss, displaying their talents at traditionally effeminate domestic tasks. The straight guy, meanwhile, stands back, endures some innocuous flirting and emerges as the ultimate hetero stud.



Talk about reaffirming heterosexual primacy: the Fab 5 are the very literal fairy godmothers who help straight dudes hook up, and who then return to their own beds alone.



More a creepy case of gay self-ghettoization than a step forward, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy marks the culmination of a cycle that began with NBC's once-promising, now-idiotic Will & Grace (8:30 p.m. Thursdays on NBC), and continued with Showtime's tawdry soap opera Queer as Folk, wherein television executives have managed to define homosexuality as nothing more than a hip, cultural pose. What's worse, gay people have become complicit in their own oppression: playing up to grotesque stereotypes, and widely ignoring the troubling questions these shows raise.



SQUARE ZERO



The result is that nearly a decade after television's representations of gay life finally started moving in provocative directions -- on shows like L.A. Law, thirtysomething and Roseanne -- we are back at square one. Or square zero. There are now virtually no complex, gay people on television, and the future looks none too promising.



It may seem a bit unfair to compare shows like Queer Eye or Will & Grace to the minstrel show tradition, which, in its best-known form, featured white actors in blackface, grossly exaggerating African-American stereotypes and dialects for the amusement of mostly white audiences.



But much like, say, the 1950s television version of Amos 'n' Andy -- which featured black actors -- shows like Queer Eye peddle entirely in stereotypes, and then write off their offensiveness as good fun.



''The whole style of gay-themed humor as it's been brought into the mainstream of American television has really been all about exaggerating and making caricatures,'' says Bob Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "These kinds of things are just controversial enough to seem a bit shocking on network prime-time television. But they're not shocking enough to be outrageous.''



Thompson's argument certainly applies to Will & Grace, which in its past two seasons has turned into an exhausting barrage of bawdy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes, most of them centered on gay promiscuity (even as the show continues to offer no visual evidence that its gay male characters actually have sex).



''You certainly have gay characters in the center, but there's very little that's gay about them,'' says Larry Gross, director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication.



The message we're left with is that there are two kinds of gay men, each equally toothless, and no one in between: The Will version -- suave, handsome and essentially neutered; or the Jack version -- silly, campy and cartoon naughty.



Nor does the situation improve when one considers Showtime's Queer as Folk -- which replaces the mincing kitsch comedy of Will & Grace with gorgeously lit sex scenes featuring would-be underwear models. It seizes upon another stereotype, the sex-crazed Adonis, and turns the volume knob up to 11.



Where are the shows about gay people in which homosexuality is a taken-for-granted-but-never-ignored aspect of the characters' lives? In the early 1990s, lesbian characters like Amanda Donohoe's on L.A. Law and Mariel Hemingway's on Roseanne brought issues of homosexuality in the work place and straight people's homosexual curiosity onto mainstream television. Ellen DeGeneres' mid-'90s sitcom Ellen may have stumbled after its star's much-hyped coming out, but that show offered promise.



The promise remains unfulfilled. Now the only source of hope is on HBO's Six Feet Under, with its portrayal of the tortured relationship between David (Michael C. Hall) and Keith (Matthew St. Patrick).



There's another minstrel-show aspect to the current spate of gay television -- namely, the way these shows have co-opted gay viewers and gay critics. It's perhaps not unlike those African-American viewers who responded favorably to stereotype-steeped shows of the 1970s such as The Jeffersons or Good Times.



Part of what makes this subject so complicated is the fact that, yes, these shows are groundbreaking and entertaining. And, yes, they will likely lead to network executives taking more chances on gay-themed television in the future.



MARGINALIZED



But that doesn't mitigate the negative stereotypes they reinforce. Or the marginalized vision of gays they ultimately reassert. Consider the final moments of each episode of Queer Eye, and the message being conveyed: That gays can be popular, funny and universally adored, but they can't really be the center of attention. That they should be grateful for the space ceded to them in a straight world.



''In the end, who's the hero of that show?'' Thompson asks. "It's the straight guy. He's the guy who needs to be rescued, so he can either get the girl or the gallery showing. And these guys come in and make that possible. And then they leave before the climax, and they have to watch it on the periphery. Talk about being marginalized -- they literally have to watch the climax of the show from the margins. That's the biggest problem I have with that show. They can't even stay to take their bows.''

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Edited by: tyche at: 8/27/03 11:29 am

tyche: Thanks for posting that article. It seems to be focusing on current and upcoming series so BtVS is probably not mentioned because it is no longer on the air.



Here is an enlargement of the photo you mentioned:



The L Word

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"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson

Thanks Tyche! When I read articles like the "Gaying of TV", I'm reminded of another supposed TV renaissance for a minority group: the supposed African American renaissance of a couple of years ago. As that promise failed in the face of stereotypical portrayals and the "ghetto-izing" of African American TV to last place netlet UPN on Monday nights so will this gay renaissance fail. Already we see Bravo saying: "Queer Eye" is not a gay show. It is not directed at gay viewers. "Its biggest audience, by far, is women -- straight women, I suspect.". Indeed like the Miami Herald article say, we are seeing a gay minstrel show. Let's demean gay men to entertain straight women. It would be funny if it was not so sad.



It's true that "There are now virtually no complex, gay people on television, and the future looks none too promising.". Tara was a complex gay character but was killed and replaced by "another stereotype, the sex-crazed Adonis" or in this case Venus. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a perfect microcosm of the devolving of gay portrayals on TV. To look at their good gay portrayals of 2 years ago vs their awful sex hyped recent portrayals, is a lesson in the demeaning of gay characters for much hyped sex for ratings and more instances of the "neutered" gay male for laughs. The thing that is lost is treating gay people as just that people, real human beings.



Who can we blame? Well at least part of the blame goes to the gay press: "There's another minstrel-show aspect to the current spate of gay television -- namely, the way these shows have co-opted gay viewers and gay critics." The gay press cheers on whatever gay portayal the media deigns to give us no matter "the negative stereotypes they reinforce". Spike Lee made a movie in 2000 called "Bamboozled" about how "a frustrated African American TV writer proposes a blackface minstrel show in protest, but to his chagrin it becomes a hit." This movie premise has come to life for African Americans and now it has come to life for gays. Is it any wonder why feeling against gays becomes more negative with more exposure on TV? TV exposes only the worst aspects of gay people as being sexless & risible or sex obsessed & predatory with little in between.



What can be done? Writing to the gay press will get us letters printed in the letters columns but will rarely change their articles or editorials. When a rag like Girlfriends magazine can print a round of letters about the cliches in Buffy only to turn around a few issues later with one of their editors telling people to "forgive Joss Whedon and Eminem", I see that the letters to the gay rags make little difference. IMHO gay and gay friendly fans are better off writing the media outlets and the advertisers of the shows directly with their discontent. I personally will not watch gay mistrel shows like QEFTSG nor any other show with a gay portrayal that I find demeaning. Like Dekalog said, better to support gay artists who actually understand that being gay is still being human. The true solution is to get more gay people behind the camera as the executives who make the big decisions on shows and the writers/producers who create the shows.



ETA: It's ironic and sad the the mainstream press like the Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronice and the LA Times are much more willing to talk about the problems with gay portrayals in the media while the gay press simply cheerleads the media outlets. The 3 newspapers listed above all serve constituencies with a large gay population while the gay press only seem to serve themselves. Too bad.



ETA2: Thanks again Tyche! GLAAD has done something about media portrayal? Well color me stunned (and skeptical).

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 9/3/03 6:11 pm

Here's some interesting research, reported in 'Wired':

Quote:

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www.wired.com/news/medtec...35,00.html

Change Channels, Change Minds?



By Kristen Philipkoski



Increasing numbers of solidly heterosexual males across the country seem to be giggling at Bravo's new hit show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Stunned family members can't help but think: "Wow. The power of television."

But does television really have the power to transform people's views? Or does it simply reflect attitudes already prevalent in society? A Kansas State researcher studied about 200 relatively sheltered rural Kansas college students and found that popular TV shows dramatically improved their attitudes toward gays and lesbians.



Story Tools



Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, asked the students (who have had little contact with gay people) to share their thoughts about homosexuals. After considering gay characters they perceived to be portrayed in a positive light -- Ellen DeGeneres and Will from Will and Grace were two examples -- their attitudes toward gays and lesbians in general were significantly more positive.

"These are highly rated shows in the top 10 and have huge exposure," Harris said. "Here's a case where Will, for example, is a character from a group that a lot of people have very negative views about. But this character is portrayed in a very positive light and that influences our attitudes to be more accepting towards gays."

Harris interviewed three groups of about 60 students each. The first was asked to think of a gay or lesbian character on TV who was portrayed in a positive light. Twenty-eight percent chose Will, 18 percent picked Ellen DeGeneres, 9 percent chose Jack from Will and Grace, and the rest selected various other characters.

The study participants rated the characters on a scale of one to seven based on whether they thought they were, for example, serious or funny, responsible or irresponsible, moral or immoral. Then Harris asked them to rate themselves on a series of 40 statements on their attitudes toward gays and lesbians such as: "I think male homosexuals are disgusting," or "male sexuality is merely a different kind of lifestyle that should not be condemned."

The study participants' attitudes toward gay and lesbian people were significantly more positive than a control group and another group that were asked to consider a character that they thought was portrayed negatively.

The findings prove television's importance to creating tolerance in remote and isolated populations, Harris said.

But critics of the study said this type of research can't answer the question of whether television content is actually the cause of such change. Those intolerant of gay and lesbian people aren't likely to watch Will and Grace in the first place, they said.

"Although gays in the media have some effect, it is more that these shows reflect the opening that is happening in society as a result of the spread of higher education, growing secularism and political activism," said James Hughes, associate director of institutional research and planning at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Some wonder about the longevity of the media's potential influence.

"The findings suggest that people's attitudes in the short run are highly malleable, but that does not mean that they would answer the same way the next day or next month," said M. V. Lee Badgett, research director at the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies.

Life experiences are much more effective than television shows when it comes to changing beliefs, she added.

"Ongoing interactions with real people are more important than brief encounters with fictional characters, as other attitude research suggests," Bladgett said.

Nevertheless, Harris believes gay and lesbian advocacy groups could follow the lead of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has partnered with the producers of ER for an episode to encourage cancer screening. Prime time TV reaches far more people than a public service announcement, he said.

While organizations like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, may have not worked with television to develop specific episodes, they have been working for several decades with various media, especially TV and movies, to encourage positive and more accurate portrayals of gays and lesbians, said Mary Ann Tolbert, executive director at the center for lesbian and gay studies in religion and ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. She agrees that television has a powerful effect on social attitudes.

"I certainly support that work because I have always thought what this study seems to confirm: that popular media shows and figures can have enormous influence on the general public's opinions about social issues," Tolbert said.

A representative from GLAAD did not respond to requests for comment.

But Hughes said the approach could prove to be counterproductive.

"It tends to underestimate the intelligence and agency of the viewers, who see through overly blatant and simplistic moralizing," he said. "It can backfire, as the Bush anti-drug warriors found when they tried to get Hollywood to script more anti-drug messages."

Harris performed the study before Queer Eye for the Straight Guy aired its first show and quickly became a national phenomenon, but Harris predicts it will have even more Kansans clipping their nose hairs and reconsidering their choice of boxers or briefs.

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From the St Louis Post-Dispatch:

Quote:

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TV's come out of the closet into the living room

09/05/2003

By Gail Pennington, gpennington@post-dispatch.com

Post-Dispatch Television Critic



A gay married couple wins "The Amazing Race" and declares victory over stereotypes. A makeover show with "Queer" in the title is the pop-culture sensation of summer. Two new fall sitcoms feature gay couples in long-term, mainstream relationships.



In the real world, Americans remain deeply divided in their opinions on homosexuality, especially gay marriage. But on television, shows featuring gays are so prevalent and popular that questions of tolerance hardly seem to exist.



"You know what they say - gay is the new black," says actor Daniel Roebuck. On the new Fox comedy "A Minute With Stan Hooper," starring Norm Macdonald, Roebuck plays one of the manly, plaid-shirted "Peterson boys," who turn out to be not brothers but a married couple living happily ever after in small-town Wisconsin.



Whereas "Stan Hooper" attempts to defy stereotypes, ABC's new "It's All Relative" celebrates them. Liz, played by Maggie Lawson, is a Harvard student with two gay dads. That's fine until she falls in love with Bobby, whose father, a South Philly bar owner played by Lenny Clarke, is horrified. Meeting their potential in-laws, the gay dads (one of whom runs an art gallery) are equally appalled.



"It's All Relative" is the first sitcom from Craig Zadan and Neal Meron, prolific producers and recent Oscar winners for "Chicago." Both are gay and see the show as the next step in the evolution of gay TV characters that began with Ellen DeGeneres' coming out on "Ellen" in 1997 and continued with "Will & Grace," which became a huge hit for NBC while featuring a gay leading man and his out-there sidekick.



"Those shows certainly have paved the way," Meron says. "But with our particular show, dealing with the issue of gay parenting, it's pretty significant in terms of redefining exactly what a family is."



Executive producer Anne Flett-Giordano goes so far as to call "It's All Relative" the first show to present "a monogamous, committed gay couple, and they've been together forever. They've raised a child. This is Middle America gay."



Whether America, middle or otherwise, is as eager to embrace gays as TV assumes remains a matter for debate. Arguments can be made for both sides.



Gay-rights groups point to a long list of recent advances. The Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws, and the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop. Wal-Mart banned discrimination against gay employees, MSNBC quickly fired talk-show host Michael Savage for homophobic remarks, and Volvo featured gay couples in its ads. The media jumped on the bandwagon to declare this America's "Gay Summer." A VH1 special went so far as to label the world "Totally Gay!"



But surveys find Americans still polarized. Although most back equal rights for gays in the workplace and benefits for gay partners, polls show, less than half support recognizing gay marriages - and the number has dropped in recent months, perhaps as attitudes harden.



Vowing to fight what columnist Jonah Goldberg calls "the final stage of mainstreaming homosexuality," groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition and Concerned Women for America cite television as a major contributor to the trend.



"Americans just don't want this lifestyle to be shoved in their faces," Genevieve Wood of the Family Research Council told the Philadelphia Inquirer recently. Television shows like Bravo's gay-dating series "Boy Meets Boy" "have caused a softening of attitudes in the public square" by showing gays in a favorable light, she said. "These shows don't tell the negative aspects of the homosexual lifestyle."



On the other side, the softening of attitudes is applauded.



Reichen Lehmkuhl and Chip Arndt, who won CBS' recently concluded "Amazing Race," viewed the show as a chance to "educate people about the gay community," they said after their victory.



Reality shows, beginning with MTV's "Real World" and continuing with "Survivor," whose first edition was won by openly gay Richard Hatch, make a point of casting gay characters, both for diversity and for potential conflict. But "The Amazing Race" went a step further; Lehmkuhl and Arndt were billed throughout the show's run on CBS as married, in a matter-of-fact subtitle that popped up whenever they were on screen.



California, where they live, doesn't recognize gay marriages, but the two sealed their union in ceremonies attended by 200 friends. When they told the network that was how they would like to be identified, CBS agreed. Although the two were rarely seen being affectionate with each other on screen, that was a personal choice, not one urged by the network, they say.



Strength and fitness were the factors that made the duo particularly hard to beat. Weakness is "a stereotype of the homosexual male," Lehmkuhl said in accepting a $1 million check on CBS' "Early Show." "We said, we're gay and we'd like to show America that gay people can do anything that straight people can do."



Also hoping to change attitudes this summer are the Fab 5 of Bravo cable's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." The show, in which five gay fashion, food and decorating specialists make over a hapless straight man, routinely earning his affection, is the cable hit of summer, increasing audiences for Bravo more than four-fold. The Fab 5 landed the cover of Entertainment Weekly and other magazines, made the rounds of TV interviews and even did their work on Jay Leno and "The Tonight Show."



"Queer Eye" handily won its time period in three repeat airings on NBC as well, and although KOMU, the NBC affiliate in Columbia, Mo., opted not to show it the first time around, general manager Martin L. Siddall said the pre-emption had "nothing to do with the content of the show." The station did air subsequent repeats.



It has been criticized for perpetuating stereotypes of gay men as flamboyant and effeminate, but "Queer Eye" has won over audiences with its warmth and good humor. Even the most reluctant subjects, such as a Staten Island, N.Y., cop who strongly suggested that the guys keep their hands to themselves, typically come around in the end to talk about their five new friends.



As "Will & Grace" co-creator Max Mutchnick told ABC's "20/20" in a segment examining "America's love affair with homosexuals," "The big win on that show is when the straight man embraces the gay man. That's the much bigger message."



Also on Bravo, a soft-spoken Californian named James spent the summer looking for love (and possibly finding it) in TV's first gay-dating show, "Boy Meets Boy." The show sparked criticism for a twist in which some of the potential suitors turned out to be straight.



"I got involved in this to discontinue stereotypes," protested Franklin, the last straight man eliminated. "Sexuality is just like eye color," he concluded. "It's just a characteristic we all have."



"Boy Meets Boy" ended with kisses exchanged by James and his chosen one, Wes, but gay characters in fictional TV shows express their sexuality so rarely that it's a big deal when they do.



The sitcom "Hot L Baltimore," way back in 1975, portrayed what is considered television's first gay couple, but prime time's "first romantic gay kiss" between two men didn't occur until 1999, on "Dawson's Creek," according to the Web site Planet Out. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" featured a lesbian couple beginning in 2001, but daytime soaps didn't break the kiss barrier until this year, when Bianca Montgomery shared a rather chaste kiss with another woman.



"Will & Grace" is often criticized for failing to develop relationships for protagonist Will Truman (played by Eric McCormack, who is straight). Broadcast networks, requiring advertising to survive, take a more conservative route than some gay-rights advocates would prefer. Scott Seomin of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has complained that TV's gay characters are often "gay in name only. We don't see them in relationships equal to their straight counterparts."



But the mainstreaming of "Will & Grace" is particularly significant to Zadan.



"On one level it's just a comedy, and it's funny, and the characters are endearing and you love them and want to come back each week and spend time with them," he says. "And yet, on another level, clearly there's a political thing going on which has caused ripples across the country."



"It's All Relative" star Clark saw the potential for similar ripples when he showed the pilot to friends.



"They saw a different side of gay life that we haven't seen before. You know, it's two guys who are in love with each other. They raise a family. My friends go, 'Wait a minute, those guys are nice guys. They care, they have feelings, too.' And I go, 'Hey, there may be hope for you guys yet.'"



As Michael Wilke, a journalist who specializes in marketing to gay audiences, writes, television "gives straight viewers a chance to make friends with gays in their living rooms. It's like sensitivity training."

---

---------

"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson

I hate to see Buffy lauded for Willow/Tara with no mention of how it ended in the lesbian cliche. ME should not be praised without qualification for the cliched end nor for the awful lesbian cliches perpetuated after Willow/Tara. IMHO there really hasn't been a decent lesbian portrayal between two loving women since Willow/Tara that hasn't ended in tradgedy though there has been alot of "girl on girl action for the boys". The message now is that lesbians can only be happy if they make men happy by being sexy.



IMHO Buffy's lesbian portrayals is a microcosm of the degrading of lesbian portrayals on TV the last 2 seasons from women in love to two girls just having sex. Not really seeing the empowerment here for lesbians or women. NOW was right to give TV such a bad grade for portrayal of women in 2001 and it has gotten even worse since then.

NOW’s Report on Primetime TV: Women and Diversity Still Supporting Players



As the Miami Herald said (posted by Tyche): "There are now virtually no complex, gay people on television, and the future looks none too promising." Tara was a wonderfully interesting and complex character but she had to die because Joss Whedon ran out of stories for her. I hope some talented and imaginative writer/producer will take up the gauntlet to give us a lesbian portrayal that isn't just about titillating men but about the love between two women. Oscar Wilde called it "the love that dare not speak it's name". He was imprisoned for it in the 19th century. In the 21st century, it's still the love that dare not speak it's name since the media would rather give us empty images of sex that titillate straights but doesn't scare them by showing that gay relationships are real relationships.



Will we have to wait till the 22nd century to see gays represented in the media as they are in real life (in the same proportions and with the same amount of happy endings)? I hope not.

Edited by: sam7777  at: 9/9/03 1:40 pm

Ok, I picked up the local rag today (Seattle Gay news) and found an article regarding a HIV + man who had been terminated because he presented a high risk to everyone.

Now, this is the 1st I have heard of this so it immediately got my attention. I will try to compress the story into a smaller size but still retain the key points:





Mr. Cusick is a 31-year-old performer who was fired from the Cirque after show officials said he "will likely pose a direct threat of harm to others, particularly in the case of future injury."



(The writer of this story wrote a letter to Cirque and this was there response)

Dear Mr. Burriola: Thank you for your e-mail. Please accept my apologies for the delay in my response....

We also believed that since this was such a personal and highly sensitive issue, and as a matter of respect to the individual involved, that this would be treated in a discreet manner following the proper procedures.

...As you can surly appreciate, this is a very sensitive and complex situation. Cirque du Soleil makes, and always will make, the safety and well being of its artists, employees and patrons a priority. In that spirit, at all times, we must assess any and all risks that could compromise someone's safety.

In this particular case, we unfortunately had to terminate a short-term (2-month) employment contract with an HIV-positive acrobat for an aerial act...We believe the risk of exposing fellow artists, technicians and/or spectators to HIV.... is too great.

...We do not believe this case is one of discrimination. Instead, this situation involves serious safety issues.

This has been a very difficult decision for Cirque du Soleil, because we support many HIV related educational programs...

We are also very sensitive to respecting individual rights and liberties.

Over the years, we have been recognized worldwide as a progressive and non-discriminatory employer, and still are today. We do not discriminate against individuals on the basis of disability or any other protected characteristic...

We hope you understand our position is this very sensitive matter.



Best Regards Renée-Claude Me'nard







Oh My God. Do I really need to say how much that whole letter stunk? Well we support many HIV-educational programs!!! Does not sound it to me. Also, they had to make it a point that he was a short-term employee, would it had made a difference is he had been there for years? im guessing not. Grrrr narrow minded self serving @#$%@



Ok now I turn it over to the kittens what do you think?





Our local esteemed writer also had the foresight to include a contact address: Renee-Claude.Menard@cirquedusoleil.com



And in closing “It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.”-Charles Darwin.

I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

Hi there.



I would like to thank everyone who participanted in the survey of the impact of media on lesbian experience and self-perception. I completed the dissertation and graduated in December with my doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision. Thanks to the wonderful responses by Buffy and Xena fans I was able to conduct this valuable study. A summary of the study and its findings will be available through Dissertation Abstracts, which can be viewed on-line at any library. The title of the dissertation is: "The Impact of Media on Lesbian Experience and Perception of Self." For those of you in university settings, you may also be able to request a copy of the dissertation through your library. Again, I appreciate the time spent by those who chose to participate. Thank you all!



Noelle

Edited by: Ren at: 1/25/04 10:46 am

From The Pitt News:

Quote:

---

Pitt hosts film, talk about homosexuality

September 23, 2003

By NICK KEPPLER

Staff Writer



The Women's Studies Department kicked off its fall speaker series Friday with a showing of the documentary, "The Celluloid Closet," followed by a discussion that scrutinized homosexual stereotypes in today's entertainment fields. It may seem odd that the Women's Studies Department began its speaker series with a film - especially one that examines portrayals of homosexuals of both genders in cinema.



But Allen Larson, a professor of communications at Pitt, gave a scholarly introduction to the film and led a discussion afterward.



"In terms of women's studies and gender studies, sexuality and sexual orientation have always been at the heart of the discussions we have," Carol Stabile, director of the Women's Studies Department, said.



"Over the last year, this has been a hot topic nationally, with a big discussion about gay marriage. Locally, a topic of big discussion is that Pitt continues to refuse to extend benefits to same sex partners," she added. "We really wanted to stage a discussion on campus that would give people a place to talk about some of these issues."



"The Celluloid Closet," a 1996 HBO documentary, recounts the history of homosexual characters and homosexual undertones in American cinema, from two men dancing cheek-to-cheek in an 1895 Thomas Edison reel to Tom Hanks' Oscar-winning performance in the movie "Philadelphia."



In between those films were the comedic "sissies" of the 1930s; the self-destructive gays and lesbians of gritty, 1960s films like "Children's Hour" and "The Detective"; and the homosexual predators of the 1980s' "Cruising" and "The Fan."



The post-film discussion quickly turned to current portrayals of gays and lesbians in the entertainment industry. Many in the audience expressed their distaste for the stereotypical gays of sitcoms like "Will and Grace" and reality shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."



Larson pointed out that such mainstream shows are produced by heterosexuals and meant for a heterosexual audience, most of which is more comfortable with caricatures than three-dimensional gay characters.



"I don't think there is any reason to think that the representation won't be on the terms and in the interests of the articulators, and that is almost never us," he said.



Many audience members said they prefer programs that simply happen to be about homosexuals, rather than ones themed around homosexuality.



Samuel Buelow mentioned an episode of Animal Planet's "Pet Story" that documented a lesbian couple's adoption of a pet.



"The main story was about a guide dog who happens to be fostered by a lesbian couple," he said. "It was really interesting to see a portrayal of queer people in an arena where the fact that they were queer really wasn't an issue."



Stabile brought up Tara and Willow, supporting characters on the horror drama "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" who shared a lesbian relationship.



"It was dealt with in the same way you would deal with any emerging heterosexual relationship," Stabile remarked. "Every other time you see that, it's either mythologized or it's centralized or it's fetish-ized, and this was just a little love story that happened the way love stories happen. That's the kind of thing we need more of."

---

---------

"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson

Till they kill ya, don't they see that's why it meant more than other times because it was so unique. Oh well...

- - - - - - - - - - -
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."

-Me & Bobby
McGee

You can write them at letters@pittnews.com and remind them that W/T ended in the lesbian cliche. ME should not be praised without qualification for the cliched end nor for the awful lesbian cliches perpetuated after Willow/Tara.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 9/23/03 12:47 pm

Another thing, too, besides the cliché, is that, while it certainly wasn't fetish-ized and all that, it also wasn't really treated as "any emerging heterosexual relationship" either. We didn't get to see Willow and Tara doing a lot of what we did get to see the straight couples doing as their relationships were emerging.

---

Walking in space we find the purpose of peace. The beauty of life you can no longer hide.
Our eyes are open, our eyes are open. Our eyes are open, our eyes are open wide, wide, wide. -- Walking In Space

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Boomtown season premiere and for next Wednesday's new Enterprise.



Having seen the trailers for next week's Enterprise and for the Boomtown season premiere, it looks like they're both going to feature evil lesbian or bisexual characters.

I only saw the Enterprise trailer once (last night), and the episode looks awesomely tacky and bad, so I won't be watching anyway. The trailer starts off by showing a shot of some blonde babe and saying that she's an alien sex slave out to seduce the crew because she's evil. (Joss would be proud.) Then, we see scenes of her cosying up to several crew members, including Hoshi and T'Pol. The trailer implies that everyone will be unable to resist her charms.

I've seen the Boomtown trailer twice. The ep guest starts Rebecca DeMornay as an evil cop-killing thief. Kelly Hu (X2) is also guest starring. There's only one shot of the two guest stars together - they're just sitting together and laughing - but the second time I picked up on something that I didn't notice first time around, namely a brief shot of a surveillance photo showing DeMornay and Hu's characters kissing. I'm really disappointed that Boomtown has decided to start off their second series by airing a hoary old cliche again, especially as last season they were one of the most innovative and interesting shows on the air. I will be watching this episode (it airs on Friday, but I'm away this weekend so I won't see it till Tuesday at least), and I'll give a blow-by-blow account of the cliche stuff afterwards.] spoilers

Edited by: Warduke at: 9/25/03 1:37 pm

Tyche: Sadly so long as the gay press refuses to criticize, I see more of this cliched crap coming our way. The lesbian press is particularily useless. I've read more criticism of Queer Eye in the last month than I read criticism of cliched "sex for the boys" lesbian of last season: Smallville's evil "dyke", Fastlanes hot tub girls and the unspeakable BTVS crap. Happily all the info is on the web so I don't give any money to the gay rags. Can you imagine anything like the excellent Miami Herald article on the gay mistrel shows being written about lesbians? Me neither.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Cute siggy "I see dead lesbian cliche's"



So close to the truth. As for the comment I read about waiting until the 22nd century for lesbians/gays to be protrayed in film/TV in real life, I doubt it very much. It will happen in this lifetime.



I look back in time and see the progress (yes progress) that has occured. I'm not that old, but I can see within my lifetime all the changes that have happened since the 80's and can compare them to the 60's. I did not live the 60's, but I am unafraid of asking people how things were back then. Getting history from the perspectives of people who used to see, did live, and still do in many cases; the definition, protrayal and acts of homosexuality as the devils work and so forth, is definately interesting. I've opened up a few eyes in my quest. Acceptance, I have given up on understanding - acceptance is enough.



Think about it. So very much has happened in those 40 years and most of it in the 20+ I have lived.



Umm, I believe that would be my $0.02

Dyna

----------

Tara: You think you know. What's to come. What you are. You haven't even begun."

- Restless



Amber Benson Accolade

More bad news for this movie - from Freeserve.com:

Quote:

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Gigli set to be dropped



Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's new movie Gigli is likely to be dropped by every cinema in Britain.



Gigli is destined to end its run in cinema chains nationwide after only a week, reports Sky. Critics savaged the movie as one of the worst films of all time.



Jonathan Ross said: "Nothing can prepare you for quite how bad Gigli is."



When it opened on Friday, more than 70 UK cinemas opted to screen the film. But now none are planning to keep the film showing for a second week.



So few moviegoers went to see Gigli that it failed to make the box office top 15 compiled by Screen International.



Many films have their biggest share of takings during their first week of release. But Gigli was beaten by kids cartoon Rugrats Go Wild which has already been out for eight weeks.

---

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"I want to be Byron... because I want to date young boys." Amber Benson

Ah wunderbar , that is even better than not showing it at all, at least they can't complain the movie was not given a chance.

-----------------------------



She's so anally retentive she wouldn't sit down for fear of sucking up the furniture.

--Patsy Stone

dynarb: Thanks. You are absolutely right about the progress that gays and lesbians have made in the last 40 years. I simply wish to see it reflected on TV and the rest of the media.



It's really not progress for me when 90% of portrayals of women in love end in tragedy or death. Can you imagine the outcry if 90% of straight relationships in the media were to end that way? I see the same negative images as we saw the 60's with lesbians dying after sex (The Fox) in the new millenium (Tara on Buffy). However, the rationale behind it has changed. In the bad old days, women were punished for loving other women because it was "evil and sinful". Nowadays women are punished for loving other women because "they are being treated like everyone else". The final result is still an image of a dead woman on the screen who happened to love another women. In Witches and Vixens, there is a thread about how people complained to the BBC when it aired the Willow/Tara love scenes in "Seeing Red" but no complaints about Tara's violent end. Seems like Tara dying was much less objectionable than her loving Willow. Not really seeing the progress here.



I really hope you are right about "As for the comment I read about waiting until the 22nd century for lesbians/gays to be protrayed in film/TV in real life, I doubt it very much. It will happen in this lifetime." Perhaps in you lifetime but as I remember the 60's, I have my doubts that it will happen in my lifetime. Still I hope so. I grew up seeing few images of myself on TV and feeling at times lacking during my teen years. I hope that there will come a day when GLBT youth will be able to see themselves on TV portrayed positively (or at least not dying most of the time). When two women in love does not end in tragedy or death even 50% of the time, then I will see progress. I'm not saying that nothing bad can ever happen to lesbians but really how many straight relationships on TV end in rape or death, for example? When the proportion is 90% without tragedy or death as it is for straight relationships, then there will be no lesbian cliche. Sadly that day seems far off.



ETA: dynarb: I hope so too. But I don't think that people will see gay couples as they do straight couples until the media portrays them the same with the same amount of happy and sad events. Remember many folks have never met a gay person and thus can be influenced by media portrayal.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 10/10/03 10:20 am

Yes, but here is where the cliche' is protrayed in the media. There are many, many deaths, rapes and atrocities made in straight relationships, even more so that gay couples, and this is not neccessarity because there are more of them, although there are. Why do we 'not' hear about it? Because it is COMMON. So common in fact, that the media simply does not make a big dea of it. However, you get a gay couple having problems and the media is going to eat it up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Why, because it is UNCOMMON.



Why write news about stuff people see every single day about their neighbors, their friends, heck their own families? But lesbians and gays? That's not everyday stuff. So, it must be news.



I hope that one day, people will see gay couples as they do straight couples, but in return, do not turn their backs on their suffering. Bad relationships happen, regardless of the sex of the couples, it's when it escalates into something obscene is when it becomes available in every household.



Dyna

----------

Tara: You think you know. What's to come. What you are. You haven't even begun."

- Restless



Amber Benson Accolade

Well, I tuned into the 2 eps of 'Boomtown' (which sadly has just been cancelled by NBC) which guest starred Rebecca DeMornay and Kelly Hu, expecting to see a full-blown cliche fest. (Especially after I saw an interview with DeMornay in 'Out' where she said that she was definitely playing a lesbian and she was going to have a full-on steamy shower scene with Kelly Hu. Now, I'd be happy to see a full-on steamy shower scene between those two if they were playing non-evil lesbians, but that's beside the point...)

Instead, I discovered that they'd entirely cut out the lesbian aspect of the relationship between Sabrina (DeMornay) and Rachel (Hu), so the relationship was purely professional. (Which was just as well, considering that Sabrina shot Rachel dead during their escape from a robber.)

Furthermore, there was absolutely no mention of Sabrina being a lesbian (not even by the cops investigating her), and if I hadn't read the article in 'Out' (sigh, the gay press lauding any gay character on TV again, no matter how cliched), I wouldn't have known that she was originally supposed to be a lesbian! So Sabrina came across as an evil straight cop-killing bitch, instead of an evil lesbian cop-killing bitch. The only clue that the character was originally supposed to be a lesbian came when Sabrina was having a committal hearing and her lawyer produced a photo (taken by Rachel) of Sabrina kissing the female detective (played by Vanessa Williams) who was investigating her. The detective then testified that Sabrina approached her in the park, grabbed her and kissed her to set up the 'incriminating' photo. The detective wasn't asked if she was a lesbian or bisexual, and neither was Sabrina. I'm not sure how others would see this, but in the context of all the other lesbian material being cut out of the episode and of Sabrina being an evil manipulative person, I just felt that she would have tried to set up the detective who was investigating her in some way, regardless of whether that detective was male or female. (In other words, if a male detective had been investigating her, she would have staged a kiss too.) However, it is a hoary old stereotype that women in male-dominated professions are often depicted as being either 'un-feminine' or lesbians, so the fact that Sabrina chose to set up the cop by kissing her was cliched. But at least it's better than having her being an evil lesbian and shooting her lover dead, as originally scripted.

I have absolutely no idea why they cut out all the lesbian stuff: maybe they wanted to avoid controversy, or maybe they realised that it was unoriginal and a cliche, and they wanted to hold onto their reputation for subversive, challenging writing. Whatever, it's a pity that this show got cancelled, and I'm glad they didn't go down the full-blown cliche route.

Hey everyone,



I still think lesbian representation in TV and movies basically sucks!!!



Just look at "Lost and Delirious." God I HATED that movie. If I see one more lesbian die on screen I think I'm gonna puke!!



Just look at Xena and Gabrielle. They fu#%ing teased us for 6 years. I finally gave up after season 4. I did rent the series finale on DVD a few months ago. I loved (HEAVY sarcasm here) how the only way for them to be together was for Xena to be dead/a ghost. No danger of intimacy there!!



And then Willow and Tara, arguibly the most beloved lesbian couple in televison/movie history, get violently destroyed!!!



I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sick of it!!!



I just hope the new Show Time lesbian series, "The 'L' Word," offers us a whole new world. I guess we'll know soon enough.



Thank goodness for fan fic!!



Just a little bitter,



Wendy

Edited by: sfgo2003 at: 10/27/03 7:46 pm

sfgo2003: Agreed. I'm ready to puke as well.



In fact, when I taped "Tipping The Velvet" on BBC America, I watched the last 10 minutes first to see how it ends. I have no interest in seeing another lesbian die on screen no matter how poetic, relevant, realistic or just being treated like everyone else it is. This is the reason I have't watch many movies with tragic gay characters like "Mullholland Drive". Geez been there done that.

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Sam7777 Wrote:

Quote:

---

I see dead lesbian cliches

---

Amen sister!!!! Been there...done that...been back there.. done that again...and again!!!!



Wendy

GLAAD apparently stands for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. One of the biggest form of defamation is cliched and demeaning portrayals. Unhappily many people have never met a gay or lesbian person. For them, what they see in TV and movies has no real life examples to contradict. And what does TV and movies show us?: that gay and lesbians lead "sad and pathetic" existences to quote one right winger on a talk show.



More often than not we see gay men dying of AIDs (Philadelphia, Long Time Companion) or portrayed as sexless clowns (Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy). Lesbians are treated as sex objects screwing for the boys (The Real Cancun, Fastlane, Buffy and others too numerous to mention), pathetic suicidal wretches (The Children's Hour, Lost and Delirious, Buffy and a host of others) or evil b^tches (Fatal Instinct, Buffy, Smallville etc etc etc).



People may say that there are more important positions for GLAAD to take a stand on like gay marriage, gay adoption and domestic partner laws. I say, however, that PR is all important in getting these important issues passed. Laws are passed by the majority and the majority are straight and many in their subconscious see gay and lesbians as evil, suicidal, sex crazy (or worse sexual predators) or pathetic thanks to TV and movies.



During the priest pedophile scandal, many conservatives in the Catholic church said the solution was no gay priests as if being gay automatically makes you a pedophile. The boy scouts ban gays from being scout leaders for much the same reason. Teachers have to stay in the closet because parents fear they will try to seduce and corrupt youth. Keeping in mind that many of these people have never met a gay or lesbian person, where are they getting these ideas? From TV and movies IMHO.



Compare GLAAD to other organizations that look out for the interests of a monority group. The NAACP has been pushing for better portrayals in TV and movies for African Americans. Recently they issued a report finding TV wanting:

NAACP claims networks doing better, but not enough, for blacks

Quote:

---

The four major television networks have made progress in increasing roles for blacks but have fallen short in honoring their pledge to hire and promote black writers, producers, directors and executives, NAACP President and Chief Executive Kweisi Mfume said Tuesday.



"In the past year, there have been modest gains in the on-screen employment of African-Americans and others," Mfume said at a Washington, D.C., news conference during which he released the civil-rights organization's 2003 TV Diversity report on the television and movie industries. "But with some notable exceptions, these gains have been offset by behind-the-scenes losses that remain virtually frozen demographically."



The report summarizes the past three years of diversity efforts at ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, which all signed an agreement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other advocacy groups in 1999 to boost minority representation in front of and behind the camera. The study comes two weeks after a coalition of the other advocacy organizations released their own evaluations of the progress the networks are making.



Those "report cards" were more critical of the networks than the NAACP study, much to the surprise of some industry insiders. The Multi-Ethnic Coalition in its study applauded the increasing visibility of blacks and Hispanics in front of and behind TV cameras, but it lamented the continuing invisibility of Asians and American Indians.



Executives from CBS, ABC and Fox said they were pleased by the NAACP report, adding that they are committed to improving their efforts. NBC executives said they were also moving forward aggressively with increasing diversity.



The NAACP report, titled "Out of Focus, Out of Sync, Take 3," heavily criticized TV and cable news operations, saying that they have done poorly in terms of diversity. "Show anchors, guests, reporters and so-called `experts on the subject' continue to be overwhelmingly white," the report said.

---

Where is GLAAD's report card? Why isn't GLAAD pusing for better representation in front of and behind the camera? NOW has done more to raise awareness on the portrayal of lesbian characters than GLAAD has done in recent memory:

2002 Feminist Primetime Report

Quote:

---

#7 A Straight Society. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are virtually non-existent in the U.S. FALSE. Last season, only 17 LGBT characters appeared in regular roles, representing 2.5% of the total primetime characters—a paltry number compared with the estimated 10% in real life. The visible lesbian/bisexual women on TV last season were: Tara (killed off) and Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Original Cindy on Dark Angel (canceled), Ellen on The Ellen Show (canceled), Kerry on ER, Jessie and Katie on Once and Again

(canceled), Sophia on That 80s Show (canceled) and Amy on Titus. Only three of these characters are returning to TV this season and there are no signs of "out" characters among the new fall programs.

...

All six broadcast networks can do better—much better—in the areas of gender composition and diversity, violence, sexual exploitation and social responsibility. We must hold them accountable to all the viewers who ultimately make them rich.

---

Why doesn't GLAAD hold them accountable for the dearth of decent lesbian characters? The season after this report, Smallville showed an evil lesbian as a villian in one of the few lesbian characters on primetime TV. Gigli was shown in theatres. This is progress?



The Anti-Defamation League has 90 years of fighting anti-semitism. Recently, they have been active in their criticism of Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ", a film that was also criticized by a Catholic organization for it's negative portayals of Jews: ADL and Mel Gibson's "The Passion". ADL works with media like the organizers of the Oberammagau passion plays and with CBS (the Hitler mini-series) to promote better portrayals. Why isn't GLAAD doing this?



GLAAD needs to do more than toss off an occasional letter about "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" They need to do what the NAACP, ADL, NOW and the Multi-Ethnic Coalition are doing: publish regular and critical reports on what the media is doing. They need to do what the NAACP or ADL ar doing: work with media outlets to promote better portrayals. They need to do what the NAACP is doing: pushing for more diversity behind the screen and in the board rooms to improve the portrayals on the screen. That would go a long way towards their goal of "promoting and ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation".

_____________________

I see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 10/31/03 3:02 pm

Maudmac,



Thanks for the welcome and for your thoughtful post. I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I do think you're right that writers should be made aware of stereotypes and cliches (a la the black mammy or the sassy overweight person), but I also think you need to look at context.





Second - BTVS was the first network show to air (a) a lesbian kiss, (b) an out lesbian relationship, and (c) a fairly explicit lesbian sex scene. That's a lot of groundbreaking stuff for one show. To me, that says I should cut Joss and crew a little more slack, not less, which seems to be the flavor of the postings I've seen here.



Third - most of the straight characters on Buffy are far from balanced, happy, or healthy. The one character on the show that was probably the most balanced, the healthiest of mind, and the nicest was Tara. Moreover, it was W&T's relationship that was exemplified on BTVS as the healthy, loving relationship to emulate (via Dawn's point of view). That's huge - huger than showing lesbian sex on screen, to say that the best relationship a young teen can look up to is a lesbian one, well, I'm sure the Christian Right wasn't too happy about that.



I guess my ultimate point is that BTVS did A LOT for the portrayal of gay characters on television - if nothing else, it proved that you could have a successful TV show where one main character and one major supporting character were lesbian. It also proved to actors that taking on gay roles is not the kiss of death it was once thought to be (Alyson is certaintly having no problem, and I wish her all the best). Joss deserves at least some credit for that. Has he stuck his foot in his mouth since? Sure - he sounds like a total pain in the ass, both in interviews and in his commentary, but I guess I like that about him. I'm just saying, that we should give the man his due (and the rest of the BTVS writers) for what they have done. Just trying to interject a little balance into the mix.



amazonchyck

Edited by: xita  at: 11/17/03 8:24 pm

Originally posted by amazonchyck

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Okay. I'm new here and I'm probably going to get flamed for saying the following, but hey, every side needs a champion, right?



I loved the W/T dynamic - it was, in short, the best portrayal of a gay relationship I have seen on network TV. (You want to see a show that had a shot at having a great same-sex relationship, but screwed it up beyond recognition - go watch Xena - that just got ugly after a while). The show definitely lost something in Season 7 when that relationship went away. The power of this relationship was due in no small part to the chemistry between the actresses - that's what sold it. But the writing staff of BTVS (including Joss) also should get a large share of the credit - without writers, nothing gets said.



As for the whole dead lesbian cliche. I'm quite well aware of the dead lesbian cliche, its origins, and its pervasiveness in early cinema, and just like the Holocaust or the treatment of slaves in the USA, it should not be forgotten. However, we also shouldn't browbeat creativer writers into holding their pens because of it.



From my point of view, the gay movement is all about equality - going out in life every day and being no different, no worse, no better than anyone else - that's the ultimate goal. Now, if you tell Joss, "well, you can kill any character you like, except for the lesbian because well, there's this whole lesbian cliche," what are you telling him? That gays and lesbians deserve special treatment because they've suffered discrimination in the past - that is not equality people. BTVS never really shied away from killing its characters, regardless of sexuality. Heck - most of the ones Joss killed were straight! You can't on the one hand ask for equality in television programming and then on the other ask the TV writers to treat gay characters differently - it's not theoretically sane.



I'm happy that people were so pissed off about Tara dying. I'm happy that I have straight men in the military emailing me about my W/T fan fiction because it means that the W/T relationship really was a powerful TV relationship - one that transcended the boundaries of gender and sexuality and just showed how beautiful love can be. That's equality and that's what I'm most proud of the show for.



(Note...the whole portrayal of sex was admittedly NOT equal on the show - but that involves a large discussion having to do with studio censorship that is WAY beyond this dicussion. Just disclaiming here



Getting into her flame-retardant pajamas,

amazonchyck

Originally posted by thetabbycat1123

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This is a reply to a post that said that when we say Tara should not have died we are setting ourselves as better than heterosexuals because Heteros die all the time.



Tara dying upset me.What pissed me off is her death was meaningless and condescending.



If Tara had died saving Willow from a demon,a heroic death,I would have been upset,but also proud.She gave her life to save the women she loves.That would have been beautiful.



Xander could have helped her with her grief.Her life could have been celebrated.Maybe they could even have had an episode where they did flashbacks.I would have loved to see a pleasant scene with Tara and her mother.It is obvious where Tara gets her great character from.



A heroic death would have been upsetting but acceptable.



Instead Tara was killed next to the bed that they made love in and her blood was splattered all over her lover.I have seen boards that allowed homophobes to write nasty posts how the lesbos got what they deserved.The only people who benefited from Tara's death were the bigots.I got booted for saying their statements were homophobic.



It was a condescending message about the dangers of lesbian sex.You ever notice that over half the gay characters in Buffy died a violent death(Larry the gay football player,Vamp Willow and Tara).It may be subconscious on Joss's part but it is still there.



This is hard for me to say but Joss is no better than porn producers who do girl on girl stuff to get the money but oppose gay rights and look down on those who are lesbian in real life.He got an interesting story line that got him the ratings and the 2.1 million and episode from UPN.That was fine.But just because he profited from lesbians don't expect him to give a damn about real life lesbians.

That's the great thing about life, I don't have to give him credit for anything.



I don't have to thank him for something he didn't set out to do (w/t and their impact) and then deliberately set out to destroy. And I won't. I thanked him once, even shook his hand and told him to his face, that's just going to have to last him a life time. Thanks were given (look at what he did with it), now he can take the criticism.

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"Hard work often pays off after time but laziness always pays off now!"