December 20, 1996 GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE 19

ON THE AIR OFF THE PRESS

Movie of Dorothy Allison's Bastard runs on cable

by John Graves

The made-for-cable film version of lesbian author Dorothy Allison's semi-autobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina is now playing on Showtime.

The film has followed a tortuous road to production, having been started by Showtime, sold to and then dropped by Ted Turner's TNT network, then finally returning to Showtime to be completed. Turner dropped the project because of the explicit scenes of the physical and sexual abuse of a 12-yearold girl, the same abuse Allison herself experienced as a child. Along the way, the lesbian sexual orientation of one of the lead characters was also dropped.

Kris Berggren wrote a beautiful and moving account of a wedding she attended for the Openers column in the November 22 edition of the National Catholic Reporter. The article talked about the preparations, the families, the church, the spirituality and, last, about the fact that it was a gay wedding.

The author concludes that, following the homilist's advice, "I decided to start telling the Resurrection stories I witness right here and now, and this is one of them. There we were gay and straight, ranging in age from infants in arms to grandparents, Republicans and Democrats, men and women-believing with all our hearts that this celebration of love represented what God meant for us to do and be. We were an average group of people who had somewhere along the line let our fear and homophobia-die. I believe we were celebrating more that night than the union of two people who will love and care for each other for the rest of their lives. We were celebrating the Resurrection."

The December 6 edition of the National Catholic Reporter features an extensive story on the national convention of Call to Action, a controversial lesbian and gay supportive Catholic organization pushing for reforms within the Church.

Keynote speakers at the convention included French bishop Jaques Gaillot who was removed from his diocese by the Vatican for his public support of full acceptance for lesbians and gays, the ordination of women and the rights of priests to marry. The Reporter also says that Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's most popular Catholic magazine, has rejected a request to form a board to review and, if necessary, censor articles dealing with

doctrinal or moral issues before publication. The Vatican is concerned about articles on sexual morality that have been quoted in the secular press.

A number of the controversial, articles were written by Famiglia Cristiana's director, Pauline Fr. Leonardo Zega. Father Zega's articles offered pastoral responses to reader's questions dealing with sexual and moral issues. In one article, Father Zega urged the parents of a young gay man to "try and understand him in his diversity" and to continue offering him love and support.

Well, Roseanne has done it again! Roseanne's mother Bev, played by Estelle Parsons, inadvertantly came out as lesbian in the midst of a diatribe against gay parents during the family's Thanksgiving dinner. Later, Bev talked to her mother about her past, her closeted life and her disastrous decision to marry a man. Follow the developments on Roseanne every Tuesday at 8 pm on ABC.

"Faces of AIDS", Entertainment Weekly's annual tribute to those in the arts and entertainment industry lost to the disease, appeared in the November 29 edition of the magazine. There are 72 names on the list this year, down from the 120 names on last year's list.

The December 2 edition of Time magazine featured "The End of AIDS?" a special, multipage report on the radical new treatments and the possibility of ending the AIDS epidemic.

Gaywaves correspondents Jim and Dave tell me that Andrew Sullivan; the gay, Catholic and HIV-positive former editor of the New Republic; wrote an article, "When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of an Epidemic," reflecting on his own feelings on the new treatments, for the November 11 edition of the New York Times Magazine.

African-American opera star Jessye Norman spoke of the need to overcome prejudice against lesbians, gays and drug users at her benefit concert for Balm of Gilead, an organization working to mobilize for African-American churches in the fight against AIDS.

"We haven't addressed it properly, we've managed to make it a disease that you shouldn't talk about," Norman said. "It's so self-defeating. It's hardly bearable to say. Black churches are traditionally a place where people can address social and political issues. It's the community center. The churches have to assume this responsibility again as we did in the 1960s with the civil rights movement. We don't have time for prejudices."

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Look for Lisa Edelstein as Rhonda, the lovelorn lesbian on ABC's new sitcom Relativity Saturdays at 10 pm. Edelstein, who used to be known as "Lisa E, Queen of the Night" in New York's club scene, is profiled in the December 13 edition of Entertainment Weekly. In the article Edelstein talks about her role as a lesbian and her commitment to fighting AIDS. On the disease which claimed many of her nightclub friends, Edelstein said, "A whole community died. There was so much fear and lack of education. Something needed to be done."

Her response was Positive Me, a one-act

musical she wrote and performed at New York's La Mama theater in 1989. Of her role as a lesbian on Relativity Edelstein said, "It's really important that gay and lesbian characters are portrayed in television and film as just like everybody else. Rhonda is not comic relief, she's not a joke. She's a full, rounded human being."

TV Guide reports that the producers and writers of Relativity got way more flak from ABC over a scene where the show's two main characters decide to marry while having sex than they did over a lesbian kiss between Rhonda and her lover.

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