Matt Baume is a writer, podcaster, and video-maker whose work focuses on pop culture and queer history. In this book, Baume traces the increasing presence of LGBTQ+ characters in American sitcoms.
Author Matt Baume
There was a time when queer characters on television were almost always depicted in a negative light. Baume writes, in the 1970s, "Television programs of the time frequently resorted to disparaging tropes: pansy perverts, insane transvestites, criminal dykes." Baume goes on to say, "Whether Americans tuned in to watch sitcoms, dramas, or the nightly news, TV reflected the prevailing belief that queer people were, at best, mincing freaks and, at worst, a public menace."
To change this, community organizers - emboldened by the 1970s queer liberation movement - began to pressure the major networks to stop airing misleading stereotypes. The push began to work, but it was slow going. Baume observes, "Queer visibility faced formidable opposition from powerful conservative forces that were equally determined to stake a claim on the airwaves", and there was an "ongoing tug-of-war for control of the dial."
Queer Liberation Movement
Sitcoms were among the first programs to regularly show gay characters in a more favorable manner, which - over time - helped shift American attitudes to LBGTQ+ people. Baume shows how this happened, and I'll give a a few examples, to provide a feel for the book.
📺 Bewitched (1964 -1972)
The premise of 'Bewitched' is as follows: a witch named Samantha marries a mortal named Darrin, and Samantha agrees not to use her witchcraft so they can blend in as a suburban couple. Of course something happens each episode that causes Samantha to exercise her powers.....and it's all very funny.
Baume notes that "Samantha's marriage to Darrin could be read as a metaphor for mixed-faith marriages, for people with disabilities, for sexual minorities, or for any number of groups that experience tension between being outcasts and joining the mainstream." At the time, queer people HAD to blend in, because homosexuals had been ostracized - imprisoned, beaten, cast out, killed - since America's colonization.
Baume suggests that the witches in 'Bewitched' are metaphors for LBGTQ+ individuals, and cites the following conversation as an example:
"Samantha: I guess they just don't realize we're like anybody else.....almost."
"Mary: I don't know why we don't simply tell everyone we're witches. And then they'll see what wonderful, nice people we really are."
In later years, the show's star Elizabeth Montgomery (who played Samantha) acknowledged that 'Bewitched' was "about people not being allowed to be what they really are....about repression in general and all the frustration and trouble it can cause." The series slowly chipped away at prejudice, and later episodes "showed liberation gaining a firm upper hand."
Baume includes much more in the chapter, writing about: historical and ongoing persecution of gay people in America; early protests and demonstrations for queer equality; homosexual people in the 'Bewitched' cast (and elsewhere in Hollywood); 'Bewitched' as a harbinger of shifting American culture; and more
📺 All in the Family (1971 - 1979)
'All in the Family', about a blue collar family, took topics from newspaper headlines and tackled the country's cultural upheaval head-on. The core characters in the show are: father Archie, mother Edith, daughter Gloria, and Gloria's husband Mike.
Baume observes that 'All in the Family' was the earliest American television program to feature queer characters with any measure of respect, and in a 1971 episode, "put forth the radical idea that queer people might not be a monolithic bunch of perverts."
The 1971 episode "begins with Archie meeting a friend of Gloria and Mike's, a fussy young man named Roger whose mannerisms are affectedly precise and whose ascot is assertively purple." Out of earshot of Roger, Archie calls the young man a "strange little birdie" and "queer."
Mike challenges Archie in the following conversation:
"Mike: You know something Archie, just because a guy is sensitive and he's an intellectual and he wears glasses, you make him out a queer."
"Archie: I never said a guy who wears glasses is a queer. A guy who wears glasses is a four-eyes. A guy who is a fag is a queer."
Afterwards, Mike learns that Archie's friend Steve - a muscular, deep-voice, football player - is homosexual. Mike inadvertently reveals this to Archie, who doesn't believe it. When Archie next sees Steve, the following talk ensues:
"Archie: I don't know where [Mike] gets these brainstorms, but he thinks that you're a.....jeez, I can't even say it to you Steve."
"Steve: He's right, Arch."
"Archie: Hah?"
Archie then goes through a series of emotions: confusion, horror, amused dismissal of what he thinks is a practical joke, dismay that it might be true, and finally resolving that it's impossible. Regardless of Archie's reaction, Baume writes, "That this struggling show was willing to tackle homosexuality so early in its run - the fifth episode - is nothing short of amazing."
In another story arc on 'All in the Family', Archie performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a 'big, tall, beautiful-looking, classy dame' who's actually a drag queen named Beverly LaSalle.
Later, when Beverly rewards Archie with a fifty-dollar bill, this conversation occurs:
"Archie:....I'll just say 'Thank you, Miss. Unless youse girls like to be called Ms?"
"Beverly: Why don't you call me......mister." (And he yanks off his wig.)
Archie is stupefied!.....but later in the series Archie and Beverly become something like friends.
In this chapter Baume also writes about: the challenges facing show creators who wanted to include homosexual characters; 'zaps' - bold, disruptive confrontations organized by the newly formed Gay Activists Alliance in New York; the drag scene in America, including movies and television; a 1977 ballot issue in California that would have barred homosexuals from working as teachers, counselors, and school administrators; the murder of San Francisco city commissioner Harvey Milk (who was gay)....and the riots that followed; and more.
In the rest of the book, Baume writes about gay representation in the following sitcoms:
Alice (1976 - 1985)
Barney Miller (1975 - 1982)
Soap (1977 -1981)
Cheers (1982 - 1993)
The Golden Girls (1985 -1992)
Dinosaurs (1991 - 1994)
Friends (1994 - 2004)
Ellen (1994 - 1998)
Will & Grace (1998 - 2006)
Modern Family (2009 - 2020)
In each section, Baume also includes anecdotes about gay issues of the time, such as the 'Family Viewing Hour', which was an attempt to clean up television and protect impressionable youth. The backlash against 'questionable content' on television resulted in a 1975 initiative called 'The Family Viewing Hour', where TV stations pledged that all broadcasts from 8 to 9 PM would be free of controversial content: no sex, no violence, no homosexuality. As it turned out, this was a disaster that drove viewers away by the millions....and it only lasted for one year.
Unfortunately, the lesson learned seems to have faded from memory. In the book's conclusion, Baume writes, "Looking back over the last twenty years of television, it might seem as though the tug-of-war might've finally ended, that conservative activists were sufficiently exhausted by their failures....and that television was finally, safely, gay for good."
Sadly not.
Baume goes on to observe, "As I write these words at the end of 2022, there are signs of a long-delayed backlash coming that could dwarf those of the previous century. In schools across the country, we're seeing queer-inclusive books banned. Teachers and librarians fired. Curricula scrubbed of affirming role models. A moral panic that began by scapegoating trans students is now expanding to brand all queer people as a threat to kids......the current moral backlash to inclusive material in schools could easily expand into campaigns to wipe queer characters from media intended for all audiences." So, if you favor inclusive media, Baume suggests tactics to counteract this right-wing movement.
This is an important book for current times. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley, Matt Baume, and BenBella Books for a copy of the manuscript.
Rating: 4 stars
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