May 7, 2004

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

on the airoff the press

The cancellation axe has gotten several shows

by John Graves

Sadly, a number of TV shows with strong lesbigay content, Oliver Beene, Playing it Straight, Wonderfalls and It's All Relative, have been dropped from the schedule.

Playing it Straight, a new dating show that

debuted March 12 on Fox, featured a woman choosing from a group of potential suitors with the twist that some of the male suitors were gay. It was pulled with four unaired episodes. Fox says the show may re-air as a summer replace-

ment.

Fox also cancelled Wonderfalls, a quirky but critically-acclaimed series about a selfcentered young woman who gets messages to help others from inanimate objects. The show was notable for the young woman's closeted lesbian sister, who was just developing into a major role when Fox pulled the plug.

Sad losses are the cancellations of the pioneering sitcoms Oliver Beene and It's All Relative. Oliver Beene was the first and only show ever to have a recurring gay child—not just someone who would "turn out to be gay" as the character of Michael was first described, but a child who was, and always had been, definitely gay. Sadder still was the loss of It's All Relative, the first show to portray gay people as parents in leading roles. Ironically, ABC earlier said it had picked up the show for another season.

Kerry Weaver's wife is killed

Just a few months after they were blessed with the birth of a son in the December 28 episode, tragedy came to TV's longest-running lesbian couple.

ER's Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) lost her wife of three years, firefighter Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal), who was caught in a collapsing building while fighting a fire.

Weaver referred to Sandy as her wife and the two were treated by the rest of the staff as a married couple. But she was suddenly made aware of the lack of legal protections for lesbian and gay families when she went to pick up her child from Sandy's parents who had been babysitting.

Sandy's parents and family, who seemed to be supportive of the lesbian couple, refused to let Kerry have her child and told her they were the child's blood relatives and that they were planning to take the child away from her.

Kerry's struggle to regain custody of her child began a long story arc that may continue into next season. The story of Kerry's struggle also dramatizes the need for our community to both honor and respect our existing marriages even though they may not be recognized by law and to educate the public about why we need to fight for that legal recognition.

Very, um, inspiring

Indie filmmaker Bret Carr has won a distribution deal for Lou, a low-budget film he wrote, directed and stars in, "about a violent, homophobic, stuttering boxer-turned-inspirational speaker."

Entertainment Weekly also reports a Santa

Monica court awarded lesbian singer Sophie B. Hawkins $324 April 13 in her suit against a man she says was selling pirated copies of her new CD Wilderness on the Internet before it was actually released to the public.

'Folk' moves toward relationships

There will be much less anonymous and promiscuous sex on Showtime's Queer as Folk, which began its fourth season on April 18. Coexecutive producer Ron Cowen said the show has matured.

"From the first day, this show has been about boys becoming men," Cowen told Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnist Gail Shister. "The characters have gotten older. They have to grow up and move up. They're more monogamous or relationship-centered."

Cowen noted that the self-absorbed, oversexed Brian would be spending most of his energy starting his own ad agency and coping with the death of a major character who will be killed off this season. Cowen said the death would be "a profound death, not something like a car accident."

Cowen also said Queer as Folk will also explore the topics of gay vigilantism. and marriage.

"How far do you go to stand up against gay bashing?" he asked. "Are we victimized because we allow ourselves to be victims?"

Despite the show's popularity and long run, Cowen said he and his partner still have a bit of a hard time casting new characters for the show.

"I guess it's the stigma attached to doing a gay show in which the characters are sexualized. A thousand people might say no, but ultimately, we always manage to find that one person who says yes."

Gaydar is now a game

show

The cable music channel VH1 has ordered a pilot for Gaydar, an unscripted project in which celebrity guests try and guess whether or not contestants are lesbian or gay.

The prize for each correct guess is a donation to a charity.

The Hollywood Reporter says filming has begun on the half-hour pilot episode in Los Angeles with Michael Davies (producer of the ABC Super Millionaire game show) as executive producer.

Former American Idol co-host Brian Dunkleman will host the pilot, which features a three-person panel of celebrity guests and a permanent cast member who tries to figure out who is lesbian or gay among three contestants.

The panelists, who include comedian Scott Kennedy, try to determine who is gay or not by playing a series of games with the contestants to yield clues to their sexual orientation.

Another 'Queer Eye' is watching

Bravo has given the go-ahead for 13 episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, a spinoff of the popular Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in which a new team of gay male lifestyle coaches will come to the aid of straight women in desperate need of a makeover. Casting is

I plan to spend more time with my friends.

under way for a debut next year.

"It's something our female fans have been requesting since Queer Eye became a hit," Bravo president Jeff Gaspin told Daily Variety's Denise Martin.

Gaspin said he didn't think the cable channel would be dominated by the Queer Eye franchise, explaining, "Straight Girl goes on the air a year and a half after the original launched, so I think enough time will have passed."

Creator-executive producer David Collins said the new show would not duplicate the Fab Five formula. Rather than five hosts, Collins believes they will likely use just three hosts and will cover different territory than Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

"Guys need the basics, the 101 information, whereas women are much more discriminating," he explained, "They know the basics, they want options, ways to amp up a little. However, the Queer Eye make-better philosophy will still be intact."

Details is sorry for gay Asian spoof

Details has issued an apology for a male fashion spoof by Whitney McNally that exploited gay and Asian stereotypes in the magazine's April issue.

Gay.com/PlanetOut's Tom Musbach says the offending article, which drew angry responses from the Anti-Defamation League, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Asian Media Watchdog and other Asian-American groups, depicts an Asian male model under a headline that asks, "Gay or Asian?" with remarks at the side of the page that said, for example, "A bonsai ass requires delicate tending."

Thanks to Lisa T.

nicke

"Even the name of the article is offensive," said GLAAD's Clay Ming Kwong Dollarhide. "It seems as if a person can be only one or the other and not a member of both the LGBT and Asian-Pacific Islander communities."

Details' editors issued a statement of regret which was printed in the May issue and plan to meet with some of the groups who protested the feature.

Four close friends on DVD

Punks writer, director and producer PatrikIan Polk has begun production on Noah's Arc, a new dramatic series on DVD.

Described as "Sex and the City meets Queer as Folk and together crashing into Soul Food,” the show stars Darryl Stephens, Jensen Atwood, Rodney Chester, Doug Spearman and Christian Vincent. It is intended to be a cool, hip, fresh and fun peek into the lives of a quartet of closely knit gay friends living in Los Angeles.

"After the recent boom in gay television with Queer Eye, Boy Meets Boy, Will and Grace and Queer as Folk, I really noticed the complete unwillingness of producers to feature positive black gay and lesbian characters in television and film," said Polk. “So, rather than sitting around feeling bitter and neglected, I decided to create a platform for these stories to be told."

The first season of Noah's Arc will be available on DVD beginning Tuesday, June 22. For more information see www.noahsarc.net.

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 1:30 pm, and at www.wruw.org.

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