December 5, 2003 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
11
on the airoff the press
Eleven major TV characters this season are gay
by John Graves
Eleven of the 674 leading or supporting characters on prime-time broadcast sitcoms and dramas this season are gay, according to statistics released by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
GLAAD entertainment media director Scott Seomin finds the portrayals are "overwhelmingly good because they're popular," even though the majority of shows on broadcast television featuring a gay character are sitcoms and often offer "stereotypical" portrayals.
"There are millions of people in this country that do not know" an openly gay person, Seomin said told Washington Post staff writer Tracy L. Scott. "Once a week they let Will Truman and Jack McFarland into their homes, and they become the gays or lesbians that they know."
"There has been an evolution," Seomin added. "The gay characters have gone from being laughed at to doing all the laughing."
On reality shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Amazing Race, the stars are not acting but are gay men in real life. Speaking of Queer Eye, Seomin noted, “Carson is a real guy. This is who he is. He is not acting for the cameras. I wouldn't want him to be anything but Carson, which happens to be fabulously flamboyant. Stereotypes are based in truth and humor."
Seomin also notes that there are more white, male gay characters on TV than any other gay demographic because there are more white, male writers.
"Lesbians are hitting the glass ceiling, just like their straight counterparts," he said. "When a lesbian is included, particularly in sitcom format, it's written by a straight white male. We don't have more lesbian characters because we don't have more lesbian writers and creators knowing how to make them real. One notable exception is comic Ellen DeGeneres, who took herself and her Ellen show character out of the closet in 1998."
Seomin noted that the majority of gay roles are portrayed by heterosexual or closeted actors and told Scott, "It's about acting. Gay roles don't have to go to gay actors. If we were saying that, it would say that [gay actors] can't play straight roles."
Columnist hates rape storyline
Soap Opera Weekly columnist Mimi Torchin was critical of the way All My Children's new head writer Megan McTavish has handled the rape of Bianca and the show's ongoing lesbian storyline.
"Except for the many outstanding performances especially by the extraordinary Eden Riegel-I hate everything about Bianca's rape," Torchin wrote, "including the resulting pregnancy and decision to have Michael's baby. I think Bianca would have had an abortion were she not a character on a soap, where even saying the word is verboten. To justify the rape by saying it's ‘a love story between the three Kane women,' as McTavish has, is perverse. It was instead a subtle, if extreme, ploy to desexualize the show's lesbian character and to provide an excuse to obliterate her popular love affair with Lena. The rape made it possible to avoid further intimacy after their shamelessly hyped girl-on-girl kiss that was nothing but a publicity stunt."
Nevertheless, BAM, the Bianca and Maggie fan group, seems to be impressed with the way All My Children handled
Bianca's rape and recovery. Both Elizabeth Hendrickson (Maggie) and Eden Riegel (Bianca) attended an October 18 ceremony in which representatives of BAM presented a check for $25,000 to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. BAM raised the funds through a series of on-line auctions and community projects.
Lee to film Brokeback Mountain
Director Ang Lee, who has done a gay love story (The Wedding Banquet) and a cowboy film (Ride With the Devil), is now considering a film about both by adapting Brokeback Mountain by Shipping News author Annie Proulx for the big screen.
Entertainment Weekly also reports British gay pop star George Michael has signed a new worldwide record contract with Sony Music UK. Michael, who waged a legal battle to get out of the contract he had with Sony several years ago, is producing a new album with Sony UK, Patience, due to be released sometime in 2004.
Queer Eye soundtrack coming
The producers of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy have produced an album of the show's soundtrack. Included in the CD, due out in February: the theme song "All Things (Just Keep getting Better)" by Wildlife with Simone Denny, an exclusive remix of the Kylie Minogue single "Slow," and new songs from Elton John and the Basement Jaxx.
USA Today also reports that, starting sometime this month, Queer Eye fashion expert Carson Kressley will write a column on fash. ion advice that will appear twice a month in Us Weekly.
That magazine reports the Fab Five will look back at some of last season's makeovers on an update special set to air December 16. "We ambushed them unannounced," food expert Ted Allen said.
Connick leaves Will & Grace
Us Weekly also says it looks like the marriage between Grace and Leo on Will & Grace is over.
Harry Connick Jr., who plays Leo, said, "I'm going back to my day job, so they have
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to get rid of me. I'm either going to die or split up."
Connick added, "It will be a complete surprise."
Gay dad is outed on Fox drama The list of gay parents on TV continues to grow. Over on Fox's up and coming drama The O.C., the father of a soccer star is having an extramarital affair with another man.
The man is outed when his son Luke and his friend Ryan discover him kissing another man in his car dealership.
The affair quickly becomes a hot topic on the gossip network in the upscale community. Luke and Ryan soon find themselves he butt of homophobic taunts and are attacked in a gay-bashing by the members of a rival
soccer team.
After the attack, Ryan, whose own father had abandoned the family, convinced an angry Luke that he at least had a father to love him. In the end, when the father begins to head off alone, Luke realized his father really did love him and goes off with him to begin the process of reconciliation. Beckham lost a lesbian subplot
The hit film Bend It Like Beckham was originally planned as a lesbian love story. According to filmmaker Nisha Ganatra the film, which showed a girl's soccer team succeeding against the odds, was set to show the characters played by Parminder K. Nagra and Keira Knightley falling in love and beginning a passionate affair.
However, Ganatra, speaking at the Bombay Academy of the Moving Images, said executives pulled out of the subplot at the last minute, fearing the lesbian content
would offend Asian viewers. Ganatra said director Gurinder Chadha was a keen supporter of the lesbian love interest but "chickened out" at the last minute, according to a report on Gay.com.
Angels to air in several formats
Coming up this Sunday, December 7, HBO will air part one of the cable movie adaptation of Angels in America, Tony Kushner's epic play about the history of America in the age of AIDS.
HBO will premiere the film in two threehour parts at 8 pm on December 7 and 14. Repeat airings in the next few weeks will include all six hours on the same evening and a six-part showing in one-hour segments. (See page 9 for a preview.)
Catholic journal head joins Dignity
Finally, kudos to Tom Fox, publisher of the gay-supportive newspaper National Catholic Reporter, who has announced that he and his wife have joined the Catholic LGBT rights group Dignity USA to show their support for lesbian and gay Catholics.
In a column published in the November 17 issue of the paper, Fox wrote, "As a journalist, I avoid joining organizations. However, I recently felt I had to make an exception. My wife and I earlier this month became members of Dignity USA. We felt a need to do something more visible in our support for gay and lesbian Catholics."
John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Saturdays at 9 am, and at www.wruw.org.
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