Μαν 26, 2000

an the all off the press

At last: a romantic, male-male kiss on network TV

by John Graves

Dawson's Creek made television history this week when openly gay high school football star Jack McFee kissed his boyfriend Ethan in the show's season finale.

This is the first time network TV has shown a romantic kiss between two males. Men have kissed on TV before, but they have always been passionless “stunt kisses" between friends, such as the one on Will & Grace earlier this year.

99

"Jack has been developing this friendship with Ethan since the midpoint of this year,' executive producer Greg Berlanti told the New York Post before the show aired. “Ethan has sort of set up a few hurdles for Jack to jump over in terms of coming out, including [Jack's] having a better relationship with his dad. This culminates where Jack is in a place where he can kiss Ethan. He's ready to identify himself as gay and take it to the physical level."

Berlanti told the Post that the network, WB, has been extremely encouraging about the kiss.

"This is a milestone we need to get past," said Scott Seomin of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "This is the first romantic kiss between two gay men on prime-time network TV-and it looks like it took the WB, which is still new and not afraid to take chances, to make it happen."

Jolie is married, but still bi

Although Gia star Angelina Jolie stunned the entertainment world when she married Billy Bob Thornton at a small Las Vegas wedding chapel a few weeks ago, Entertainment Weekly published a selection of quotes that show the bisexual force runs strong in the outspoken actress.

"I need more sex, okay?” Jolie told the British edition of GQ magazine. “Before I die, I want to taste everyone in the world."

She quipped to Elle magazine, "I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I'm walking down the street.”

On sex, Jolie told Elle, “I need someone physically stronger than me... I am always on top. It's really unfortunate. I am begging for the man that can put me on the bottom. Or the woman. Anybody that can take me down."

On choosing her roles, Jolie told Talk magazine, “I always play women I would date."

'Queer as Folk' to be set in Pittsburgh

As I reported earlier, the Showtime cable network has picked up the controversial British sitcom Queer as Folk and plans to turn it into a 22-episode series.

Bernard Weintraub of the New York Times reports that "Executives at Showtime, who vied with HBO for the series and are plainly seeking to be more competitive with that highly successful cable network, said that Queer as Folk would be as explicit in the United States as it was in Britain."

Showtime president of programming Jerry Offsay told Weintraub, "I thought this show was unique. I had never seen characters like these on television. The characters were unapologetic, they lived their lives the way they wanted to. There were great twists and turns and reverses in the storytelling. This show will be as edgy as any television series has ever been in America. We run R-rated movies as a staple of our service, the content can be edgy. We don't develop cop shows, or lawyer shows, or doctor shows. People get them free on every network. We're always looking for something better and different than what the networks are doing."

Weintraub said Offsay believes that, because there will be many more episodes of the American series, the writers will be able to turn some of the British version's lesser characters into prominent figures, including a lesbian couple who have just had a baby.

According to Weintraub, the U.S. version of Queer as Folk, which is expected to air later this year, will try to deflect some of the controversy the show caused in mirror Britain by changing the age of Nathan, the young lover of 29-year-old the lead character Stuart, from 15 to 172.

"The boy is on cusp of being the legal age," Tony Jonas, one of the executive producers of the series told Weintraub. "The idea is, kids who are seniors in high school are being sexual. We can't deny that. It's the reality. When I first saw the material, there was a sense of shock. But once you got past the shock, this was solid, intelligent and caustically funny material."

Weinstaub said that Jonas would be joined by Rob Cowen and Daniel Lipman as executive producers of the series.

"There are a lot of gay characters in commercial television and films now, but not a show like this," Cowen told Weintraub. "There's never been anything like this. It's an odd mix of very graphic material that's also witty and charming." Cowen also told Weintraub that Showtime had placed no restraints on the writing team saying, "We will not be accused of watering down the series."

The show will be set in Pittsburgh. Lipman said the producers and Showtime wanted to avoid setting the series in a heavily gay neighborhood like New York's Chelsea, Los Angeles' West Hollywood or San Francisco's Castro district.

Russell T. Davies, the openly gay, Welshborn writer who created the series for Britain's Channel 4 told Weintraub that when the

show first aired, "It was absolutely torn apart by the right-wing press, by the left-wing press, by gay people, by straight people. There was nothing like that show on British television, now I'm eager to see what you Americans do with it."

Davies, who has spent most of his career writing dramas and soap operas for British television, told Weintraub “I didn't want to write something with a message. Because I'm gay, I was always putting in gay characters in my plays. In this case, I wanted to

Rely on Someone You Can Trust in Our Community

▼Full Time Agent Over 9 Years

▼Top 10 Office Producer

▼I have the "411" on Over 6,000 Homes

▼Many Qualified Buyers

I'm on Your Side of the Negotiation Table

Century 21.

Beyond 2000 Realty

1-800-219-9471 Office

1-216-521-6965 Voice Mail

Mark Snyder

Multi Million Dollar Producer Professional of the Year Award President's Sales Club Award

At Your Disposal “24/7”!! 216-533-6965

entertain and captivate an audience. All right, they're gay. Let's get on with the story."

Davies told Weintraub he had initially been nervous about the American version until he read a draft of the opening two-hour episode.

"I picked it up with trepidation, but I'm really pleased," he said. "They were remarkably faithful. Good stories never die, and this is a good story, so we're telling the story in different and in different settings, reinways venting the story. And that's what you should do. I can't wait to see it."

'Ex-gay' ads are back

Last week, USA Today published another full-page ad proclaiming that "Thousands of men and women have found indescribable joy in overcoming unwanted homosexuality."

Similar to ones that ran last summer, the ad is paid for by a Who's Who of the "ex-gay" movement: the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, Exodus International North America, Focus on the Family, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (P-FOX), Evergreen International, Transforming Congregations, the International Healing Foundation and JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality.

This latest ad decries the American Psychiatric Association for discrediting their "therapies," and refusing to debate the issue at its upcoming annual convention in Chicago.

A civilized discussion on Leeza

In stark contrast to the inflammatory rhetoric that usually dominates discussion of the "ex-gay" issue, Leeza Gibbons hosted a discussion between a group of lesbians, gays and present and former “ex-gays." The latter included an "ex-gay" couple who said religious therapy had allowed them to find fulfillment as a straight couple, their child, and a male "ex-ex-gay" couple and their child.

The show was remarkable for the amount of respect the participants showed each other. The "ex-gay" couple admitted up front that the path they chose was not easy, and definitely not for everyone. Likewise, the lesbigay participants respected the couple's very personal decision as to how they chose to deal with their lesbigay feelings.

Asked how they would react if their own child turned out gay, the "ex-gay" couple said they would stand by and lovingly support their child's life decisions no matter what.

Ellen's tour chronicled online

In case you missed Ellen DeGeneres' wonderful performances around the state, you can follow the famous lesbian comic on her 43-stop, 20-state "Dancing Iguana" tour through a series of short video diaries taped by her wife, Anne Heche.

Jane Miller, LISW

Updated on the Internet at least four times a week, the video diaries will feature scenes of the road show in production, person-inthe-street interviews and visits to local landmarks by the couple in the cities where they perform. The web site, www.ellen.z.com, also features a chat area, a map of the tour, interactive games and a weekly, six-minute eclectic video short by Heche.

Navratilova to cover Wimbledon

Lesbian tennis ace Martina Navratilova will cover the women's matches from Wimbledon again. This time she's on TNT and CNN/SI, which take over the famous tennis match from HBO, which also used Navratilova to cover it. Maybe this year, she can cover a new lesbian champion, Amelie Mauresmo of France.

Navratilova has finally gotten a major product endorsement—she appears with two other women athletes in a Subaru TV ad.

Her participation in the Millennium March on Washington and the many other causes she supports were the subject of a feature article by Jill Lieber in the May 8 issue of USA Today.

"I've never apologized for who I was," she told Lieber. "I could've hidden, but I didn't want to. I want to set an example of what you can do if you put your mind to something, gay or straight. I get letters all the time from gay kids who can't tell their parents because they'll be disowned, they thought about committing suicide until they saw me on TV. I was somebody they knew, and I was gay, too. My telling the truth makes a big difference between a kid pulling a trigger or not? Wow."

I wish some other lesbigay celebrities would think like that, instead of clinging to their precious closets.

No lesbian athletes would appear

HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel is running a special report on lesbian athletes, the homophobia that keeps them in the closet, and the major lesbian social events that have developed around major women's sports tournaments. The report features the events held during the Nabisco Open (formerly Dinah Shore) golf tournament.

The economic risk faced by lesbian athletes who want to come out is still great, according to the report. No lesbian athletes, even those who are out of the closet, would agree to appear on the show. A sports agent, who even kept his own identity hidden, talked of his attempts to put an out client back into the closet.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, an LGBT public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contribute to this column.

of D.L. Dunkle and Associates Offices conveniently located

in Oberlin and Cleveland.

(216) 229-2100

or Toll Free,

1-800 457-0345

12417 C

21-24

4168