January 18, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
on the airoff the press
Showtime and MTV are planning a gay cable channel
by John Graves
MTV Networks and Showtime, two cable divisions of media giant Viacom, are developing a plan to create the first cable channel aimed directly at gay and lesbian viewers.
The still unnamed channel would be offered to cable system operators as a pay channel like HBO or Showtime, only much less costly ($5 or $6 a month) because it would also include advertising.
Viacom has concluded that there is, as one Showtime executive told New York Times correspondent Bill Carter, "near unanimous enthusiasm from gay viewers" for a gayoriented channel.
"We see this as the next step in what a television network is supposed to be," he told Carter.
Betsy Frank, executive vice president for research for MTV Networks, feels the gay channel had the potential to make the same "groundbreaking impact" as the Fox network, the WB network and the Black Entertainment Network.
Frank told Carter that surveys had shown that gay viewers would be willing to pay a fee for "programming they're not getting but would like to have."
Executives from the two Viacom divisions said their research showed that gay viewers occupied about 6.5 percent of television households.
Advertising and public relations firms that target the gay and lesbian audience are enthusiastic about the channel. "Everyone who wants a new market will jump on the bandwagon," Jeff Garber, president of OpusComm Group Inc., told Variety's Bill Berkrot.
When the new network debuts, it will join Canada's Pride Vision TV, the world's first 24-hour gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender television network, which was launched September 7.
Pride Vision director of sales Jason Hughes told Berkrot that most sponsors his network approaches are receptive. Diet Pepsi, Microsoft, Warner Music, Polar Ice Vodka and Rogers AT&T Canada are already running their existing advertising on the groundbreaking station. Two other companies are producing commercials designed specifically for the gay audience, a trend Hughes expects to increase.
"When they see two men holding hands or two women kissing in a commercial, the community is going to respond to that," Hughes said, "The community knows who supports them."
Cathy Renna, news media director for GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, agrees. "We support corporations that support the community. It's the right thing to do, and it's a really smart business decision."
Will the cable operators go for it? "I guess we'll find out," Garber said.
Carter says executives involved in the planning of the gay channel tell him the programming would include “acquired films, original series, imported series, news and information programs, talk shows, comedy shows and travel shows."
Although a schedule for the gay channel's debut has not been set, Gene Falk, senior vice president for the MTV digital media group, told Carter, "If things go right, we could be on within a year."
Lesbian dating game
Meanwhile, MTV already has a lesbigayinclusive dating game show. In DisMissed, two contestants take turns vying for the affections of a third. On the first show I saw, the three contestants were lesbian women.
A de-gayed mind
The recently-released movie A Beautiful Mind has been criticized for removing all references to its subject's bisexuality.
In the film, nominated for six Golden Globes, Russell Crowe portrays the brilliant mathematician John Forbes Nash, his de scent into schizophrenia and his recovery.
Nash won the 1994 Nobel Prize for his development of game theory.
Sylvia Nasar's Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography, on which the movie is based, is frank about his bisexuality. “Nash was always forming intense friendships with men that had a romantic quality," Nasar writes. She later explores his relationship with an MIT colleague. An entire chapter is given to a 1954 incident when the mathematician was arrested for "indecent exposure” and “making a come-on to another man" in a public bathroom.
All of this was omitted from the film. Director Ron Howard said the gay scenes were left out to build "a stronger cinematic experience" between Crowe and co-star Jennifer Connelly, who plays the physics student who married Nash.
Online gossip columnist Matt Drudge says a member of Howard's staff was more blunt with him.
"American audiences don't care to see Russell Crowe getting it on with a man," said the unnamed source. "It would just kill us at the box office."
But Gladiator star Crowe has played a gay role before, in the 1994 Australian film The Sum of Us.
enjoys taking showers with the other cast members; and Chris, a shy, 23-year-old gay man who still harbors concerns about how others will react to his sexuality.
There's also Theo, Aneesa's roommate, a preacher's son who fancies himself as a ladies man who has eyes on Aneesa despite his open expressions of homophobia.
Theo takes the stereotypical straight man's attitude, according to Planet Out's Christine Champagne:
"I ain't gonna lie," he tells Aneesa in the first episode. “I don't mind lesbians. That's sexy. But dudes, dudes is disgusting."
Champagne notes that Chris doesn't want to be known just for being gay and says Aneesa is the only cast member he comes out to in the opening episode.
Other cast members, who will all work as lifeguards on the show, include Kyle, a 22year-old all-American Princeton grad who finds himself attracted to Keri, a 21-year-old blonde from New Orleans; Tonya, a 21-yearold nursing student from Washington state who confesses to being "afraid of black people” after meeting Theo; and 21-year-old Cara, a woman Aneesa has her eye on who recently broke up with her boyfriend.
Andrew Sullivan, the gay former editor of 'Wanda Jean' premieres in March
the New Republic, pointed out that the “degaying" of A Beautiful Mind was done by Dreamworks studio, founded by openly gay media giant David Geffen.
Every man on the set showed
up
Look for the romance to heat up between Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) and her new girlfriend, firefighter Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal) on the NBC medical drama ER this month.
Actress Lisa Vidal talked to TV Guide columnist Mark Schwed in the January 5 issue about her first screen kiss with Innes in an upcoming episode.
"That was a whole new experience for me," Vidal said. "Every man on the set showed up to watch that kiss. Men are so funny!"
"Laura and I lost count how many takes it took," Vidal added, "She's a great kisser."
Vidal told Schwed that her family, husband Jay Cohen and sons 8-year-old Scott and 3-year-old Max, have mixed feelings
about her dual roles in ER and the cable cop show The Division. "I'm gone in the morning and back late. My kids don't love it. But my husband isn't complaining. He sees those checks rolling in."
A cheerleader and ROTC member
A gay Filipino is both a cheerleader and a member of his high school ROTC in Senior Year, a 13-part documentary which began airing on PBS last week. The series follows 15 students at Los Angeles' Fairfax High School.
Other students in Senior Year include a mixed Latino-Anglo couple and a KoreanAmerican girl whose modern teenage ways conflict with her mother's conservative upbringing.
The cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of the students chosen for the show are what separates it from last year's American High, according to filmmaker David Zeiger, who said "everyone there looked like me" when he attended Fairfax High School himself 30 years ago.
"This is the generation that's grown up in a dramatically changing demographic in the world and in this country, and in Los Angeles in particular," Zeiger told USA Today's Bill Keveney in the January 11 issue, "And I wanted to capture that."
Two on 'Real World' this time
Bored with last season's very straight Real World in New York? Take heart, there's not one, but two lesbigay cast members on The Real World: Chicago which debuted on MTV last week
The 11th season's cast features Aneesa, a 19-year-old African-American lesbian who enjoys walking around the house nude and
The Execution of Wanda Jean, will make its television debut on HBO's America Undercover on March 17. The documentary by Liz Garbus is about the last days of Wanda Jean Allen, an African-American lesbian who
was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for shooting her lover outside an Oklahoma City police station in 1989. 'Queer as Folk' now on video
The 20-episode second season of Showtime's Queer as Folk got underway with Justin being released from the hospital after his gay-bashing and Michael returning from Oregon.
In case you missed the 22-episode first season of Queer as Folk, it's now available on DVD and videocassette.
One of the themes the show will examine this season is Justin's recovery and the psychological aftermath of the brutal attack. Look for more of the lesbian couple played by Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill, whom Showtime thought were underused last season.
Folk creators Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman had expected a lot of mail about the edgy series with its explicit depiction of gay sex, but were pleasantly surprised when most that mail was overwhelmingly in favor of the show. According to Showtime, about 100,000 letters last year were from fans, while only 100 of the letters received were from detractors
John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay 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 contributed to this column.
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