TV The Final Frontier For Homosexuals
Tom Hanks won an Academy Award for playing a gay man. Playwright Harvey Fierstein thanked his boyfriend when his gay-themed “Torch Song Trilogy” won a Tony Award. Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang found many music fans merely shrugged at the news they were lesbians.
But television, beamed directly into the homes of millions, is a different form of entertainment entirely.
It’s something of a final frontier for prominent homosexual themes and stars, as proven by the media circus surrounding the muchanticipated coming-out this week of “Ellen’s” namesake character.
Gay and lesbian characters have appeared on television - in fact, there’s a boomlet of them now - but Ellen Morgan will be the first openly gay lead in a regular network series.
That’s why ABC executives agonized before agreeing to go ahead with the story line, and why dozens of “come out with Ellen” parties are planned in the gay community when the hourlong episode of the sitcom airs at 9 p.m. Wednesday night.
“There is a lot that is conservative and cautious in television,” says Meg Moritz, a University of Colorado at Boulder professor who wrote a dissertation on the portrayal of gays on television. “The fact that this took nine months to happen is a fair indication that it is not wide-open.”
A poll conducted for The Associated Press buttresses the fact that the public has by no means reached a consensus on gays in television.
The random sample of 1,005 adult Americans taken earlier this month found them nearly evenly split on whether they approved of ABC’s decision to allow actress Ellen DeGeneres’ character to come out as a lesbian.
A majority of young people, but only one in four older adults, said they approve of an openly gay lead character on a prime-time TV show. Viewers of “Ellen” approved by a 2-to-1 margin, the poll found.
About half of those polled said they would buy products advertised on a program with a gay lead character. More importantly to ABC, those numbers swelled when “Ellen” viewers and wealthier people were asked.
But a majority of respondents said they would not allow their children to watch a program in which the central character is gay. Even 45 percent of “Ellen” viewers said they would not let their children tune in to a program with a gay character.