September, 1991
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
Page 9
He probably doesn't eat cookies made by little elves, either. Bad boy, Alex! No Tchaikovsky for you this holiday season. LB thinks instead that you should go straight to the May Co. for a beauty makeover that's sorely needed! Get some of that homo-contempo aggression massaged from your pores.
Hit the road, Jack. When asked why a street crew was resurfacing a perfectly presentable Euclid Ave. last month, one of the workers reportedly replied, "We're trying to get rid of the pink line the fags left."
LB's sources emphasized that the work on the downtown street, where the city painted a lavender stripe for the Pride parade in June, had been previously scheduled by the planning department. The totally out-of-whack remark by Mr. Beefcake, however, was not scheduled. Expressions of homophobia are often spontaneous, dears. (East 9th Street, not being resurfaced, still sports a worn lavender line, however.)
Two snaps up! Sometimes, just when LB is about to slide into a stupor from reading area newspaper accounts of corn festivals and drive-by shootings, we stumble across a queer-positive gem like Bob Dyer's coverage in the Akron Beacon Journal of PBS's airing of Tongues Untied. In his "Broadcast News" column on July 28, Mr. Dyer addressed the "courageous: decision by local PBS affiliates to air the documentary about gay black men. Both WNEO/WEAD (Channels 45 & 49) and WVIZ (Channel 25) aired the show on July 16 (WVIZ delayed its broadcast ninety
minutes). According to Mr. Dyer, they were part of a group of only 60 percent of PBS stations nationwide who carried the program at all.
Mr. Dyer examined the reasons why a station that depends upon viewer support would "risk alienating loyal financial contributors with a single show." He went on to say the answer was simple: "PBS devotes hours and hours telling stories about crustaceans on the ocean floor... PBS airs documentaries about life in Cajun country. Why not a look through the eyes of gay black men?"
(In fact, LB recalls watching a crusta-
cean documentary on PBS, entitled Scum
at the Bottom of Lake Erie-Part II, about
arthropods that evolve into conservative
newspaper publishers; of was that just something she dreamt after having the Coquilles Saint-Jacques at Sammy's?)
LB was impressed with Mr. Dyer's eloquence and sensitivity: "At the risk of sounding homophobic (not to mention politically incorrect), theirs is not a lifestyle this particular viewer would care to inhabit. But, shouldn't these people, too, have an occasional forum?”
Yes, they should, and LB found Mr. Dyer's P.O.V. neither politically incorrect or homophobic. It was honest, mature, and rare for a mainstream journalist. He went on to report that audience reaction to Tongues Untied was generally negative in Northern Ohio.
Is everyone wondering the same thing as LB? That if all those people in Barberton tuned in to PBS that night expecting to watch Motorweek and got snap queens instead, why, if the subject bothered them, as Mr. Dyer asked, didn't they just change
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the channel? Why? Because they were fascinated, nay, mesmerized, as LB was, with the depiction of the culture, the plight, and the pain of living in a society where one is relegated to a level of invisibility surpassing that of Claude Rains. They just didn't want to admit it.
Learning to Cope. Mr. Dyer asked Bill Glaeser, general manager of WNEO/ WEAO, and Betty Cope, GM of WVIZ, if
"We're trying to get rid of the pink line the fags left."
they would run the documentary again. Glaeser was hesitant, but Cope jumped right in, saying she'd air it again, because not to do so would mean "people would say you're denying gay access to the airwaves."
Cope explained that Tongues Untied belongs to a particular genre of documentaries by independent producers who re-
ing quality programming and quality journalism to this drought-stricken area.
The number in Rome is... As we go to press, LB has learned that another POV show dealing with lesbians and gays has been cancelled by PBS. The 23-minute segment, "Stop the Church," about the ACT-UP protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral, featured in an episode of POV entitled Short Notices, caused the show to be pulled from the lineup. It was originally scheduled to air on August 27, but was cancelled, because PBS executives felt the film
"crossed the line into ridicule" towards the Catholic church.
LB has a suggestion, dears. Why don't we just cancel the Catholic church?
Try to remember to get “out” a bit this fall to enjoy the colorful autumn foliage. Sometimes nature puts on a show almost as dazzling as Yofreakka & Co. LB always seeks her spiritual solace at the Moonfest in Athens, but for now, she's off to her Women's Studies class at CSU, still humming a tune she heard in Michigan not long ago... Ta!▼
ceived government funding without Hate Crimes
guidelines for content. She admitted to having a problem with airing such programs where, "we knew the result was going to have to be single-issue people, folks with axes to grind."
Folks with axes to grind! Hmmmmm, as Chronicle reporter Maria Walsh likes to say!
Nevertheless, LB applauds Dyer, Glaeser, and Cope, for their courage in bring-
Continued from page 3
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