Gay Images: TV's Mixed Signals (original) (raw)
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- May 19, 1991
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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May 19, 1991
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Section 2, Page
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The message to the medium is blunt: "It is time for the television industry to realize that 25 million lesbians and gay men in America, along with our families and friends, make up a significant share of the viewing audience. We are tired of seeing gays represented only as buffoons or villains."
The subject is images, a crucial one in today's media-drenched world. Homosexuals are demanding fairer coverage on television. Their more vociferous opponents lobby for a blanket of invisibility. New questions are being raised: Should more of an effort be made to portray gays sympathetically, singling them out for special treatment? Or, in an argument gaining momentum these days, should gay and lesbian characters, like heterosexuals, simply be absorbed into scripts with a minimum of patronizing fuss?
Caught in the crossfire are some of the best and most ambitious of network productions: television movies like "Our Sons," on ABC at 9 tonight, and "An Inconvenient Woman," on NBC last week, as well as top series ranging from "L.A. Law," "Midnight Caller" and "Thirty something" to "Roseanne," "The Simpsons" and "Golden Girls."
The statement referred to above, published by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad), was part of a recent advertisement that also declared: "Over 7,000 hate crimes against lesbians and gay men were reported last year. We believe the time has come for television to stop promoting bigotry by marginalizing and denigrating lesbian and gay lives."
Attempting to counter what it describes as defamation from "the intolerant agenda of the radical right," Glaad keeps close tabs on television, pouncing on what it sees as negative stereotypes while encouraging moves in positive directions. What is negative? An episode of NBC's "Quantum Leap" in which a lesbian uses her stiletto heel to kill her lover, who wants to take up with a man. Positive? CBS's "Doctor, Doctor," in which the offbeat doctor hero has a warm and loving relationship with his gay brother.
Occasionally a positive can turn negative. More than a year ago, ABC's "Thirtysomething" was cited favorably for an episode in which two gay characters were actually seen in bed together, though not touching; but confronted with threats of boycott from protestors and the withdrawal of some advertisers, ABC did not repeat the episode, despite generally favorable reactions from critics and viewers. (NBC, however, did rerun the offending "Quantum Leap" show.)
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