RERUN: Say Gay! Exploring LGBTQ Representation in 70s, 80s, and 90s TV | Matt Baume - 80s TV Ladies

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week, we're going back and taking another look at
Say Gay Seventies, Eighties and nineties Queer TV with Matt Baum,
originally launched June seventh, twenty twenty three.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I wanted to rerun this episode back in June for
Pride Month, but we had so many episodes to get
through for season three and we were already overscheduled. So
I figure every month Cannon should be Pride Month. Sharon
couldn't agree more. I'm so glad Matt said yes to
coming on our show. We're big fans and he's such
an amazing creator, so smart, knowledgeable, and fun. Please enjoy

(00:36):
the summer rerun of Say Gay Seventies and Eighties and
nineties Queer TV with Matt Baum.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way
Media Network Eighties.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Day, So Pretty Eighties Day through the City.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hey, I'm your producer Melissa Roth, and here are your hosts,
Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert HadAM Welcome to.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Eighties TV Ladies, where we love to celebrate female driven
television of the nineteen eighties and beyond.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I'm Sharon Johnson and I'm Susan Lambert.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
HadAM.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
We are so excited to look at an important part
of retro pop culture, the representation of the LGBTQ community
in television history.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
We were sparked to this discussion when we visited with
the Rainbow Remix podcast and started talking about these issues
and episodes with JD. Danner and Denise Warner.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
And in researching for these episodes, I came across our
next guest who is an expert on queer representation in
pop culture and a fantastic storyteller. Our guest today is
Matt Baum, a Seattle based writer, podcaster, and video map
whose work focuses on queer culture, geeks, and all things
strange and wonderful. He is the creator of the queer

(02:07):
podcast The Sewers of Paris and the Glad Award nominee
journalist and writer. His first book, Defining Marriage, tells personal
stories of the people who fought for decades for marriage equality,
and his latest book, Hi Honey, I'm Homo explains how
subversive queer comedy and TV creators transformed the American sitcom

(02:27):
Welcome Matt down to eighties TV ladies.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
We're very happy to have you on the show. You're
kind of a renaissance man, podcaster, writer, video maker, journalist.
What's your story. How did you get started?

Speaker 5 (02:43):
Well, yeah, it's true. I do a little bit of everything,
but basically I make content for the Internet. I make podcasts,
make videos. I write often about pop culture from a
queer perspective, but you know, I tell stories about the
making of iconic TV and film and about the incredible

(03:03):
people behind some of the most interesting stories and interesting
pieces of entertainment out there. And I guess, you know,
I guess I got started. You know, my origin story
twenty years ago. So I as a film student and
went to Emerson College in Boston. Studied film, a little
bit of television in there, and these are these are

(03:24):
the olden days when we were actually like cutting pieces
of celluloid on a bench. And so after that, you know,
my interest was really in you know, every aspect of
movies and TV. And you know, from that, from we
got a great foundation of history stuff. And then I
went into the you know, moved to Los Angeles, was
working in the industry, worked for Jim Henson Productions. I

(03:46):
worked for Lucasfilm up in San Francisco. So it's really
embedded in all that, and somewhere in there I really
started to get interested in, as a total side thing,
some of the political stuff that was going on around
gay marriage or marriage equality, because there was a lot
of you know, litigation and legal stuff happening, and I

(04:08):
was like, well, how can I use what I know
how to do in my interests in you know, media
production to try to advance equality in some way. And
this was just around the time that YouTube was taking off.
So my partner and I started making videos about the
you know, we interviewed same sex couples about why they
wanted to get married, started making videos about the importance

(04:28):
of civil rights. And what that kind of turned into
was a realization that one of the ways that culture
moves and one of the ways that people connect with
each other is through entertainment and stories and often through comedy.
And that really became a focus for me, especially you know,
I'm jumping ahead, way ahead a couple of years now,
but in the last few years I've really been focusing

(04:50):
on movies and TV and making YouTube videos, writing making podcasts.
How that stuff connects us as people, how we come
to understand what's going on around us and with each other,
and so that's what kind of got me to the
point of that I'm at now where I make YouTube
videos about some of the most you know, groundbreaking episodes

(05:10):
of television films, actors, people behind the scenes. And now
I've got a book coming out about the history of
queer characters on sitcoms. So it really it's become an
obsession for me. And I guess, you know, another place
that it started is just I really love this stuff.
I really love television. I really love movies. I love acting,
you know, actors and producers and writers, and I just

(05:32):
think they do amazing work. They bring us joy and happiness.
But also there's a lot of you know, important stuff
going on just under the covers, behind the scenes that
the entertainment that we love reveals about us and about
each other. So anyway, that's a very long winded explanation.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
No, but a great explanation and kind of exactly why
we're doing eighties TV ladies, Like I was curious about
looking at representation of women and how that shifted from
the eighties to now. But we kind of cover, you know,
we go into the seventies, we you know, just television
history in general is really interesting because and you know,

(06:11):
it feels like you might be a little bit younger
than I. But I also went to film school when
there was still film cutting and the very beginning of
video editing on from VHS to VHS that's what.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
We had, Yeah, I remember, Oh, yeah, that was fun. Yep.
Those decks you put one tape in, you put the
other tape in. Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
But the representation matters, as we've learned so many times
over and over again. But I'm fascinated, you know, by
gender and our explorations of gender now, but also looking
back at the time of the eighties, which was my
childhood and young adulthood and kind of wondering how we

(06:53):
got here from there, but also recognizing how much television
taught us, Like we forget that pre internet, television was
definitely a form of information, even in a sitcom.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
Right, yeah, very much. You know, that was kind of
a window to the world, right Like, you know, for me,
I think I might be just behind you because eighties
was was my childhood and going into the nineties. I
was a teenager in the nineties. But you know, I
do remember, like you know, learning stuff from for better
or for worse from sitcoms about other cultures and other people.

(07:27):
And you know, I grew up in a suburb in Connecticut,
and so there was not a lot of exposure to
the great, big world out there, and so you know,
sometimes it might be something as simple as like, oh,
that's what life is like in a big city, you know,
when I'm watching Seinfeld, or it's something you know, more
important where you know, I vividly remember Linda Ellerbee had

(07:47):
a special on Nickelodeon about HIV, and I'm pretty sure
that was the first time I'd ever heard that topic
discussed on television. That's where we learned that stuff, you know,
so I'm always so curious to hear like what it
was for other people like that. You know, I can
pinpoint some of the shows that kind of shape me
as a person, and I think everybody has those stories, like, oh,
that was the show that really taught me something valuable.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
What was your TV diet like as you were growing
up and you know, through adulthood, what were some of
the things you remember watching.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
You know, I was in an interesting position because I
think my household, my parents really respected the power of
television to shape a person and so there was a
lot of deliberate care put into what appeared on the screen.
So there was there were some guardrails. There was a
limit on what hours we could watch. Television did not

(08:39):
come on until six pm, and then there was a
lot of parental monitoring of stuff, which you know, looking
back on, it was very frustrating for me at the
time because I'm like, I want to watch after school cartoons,
and this could be why I became so obsessed with
this medium later on as an adult. But you know,
as a kid, BBS, Sesame Street, Mister Rudgers, Neighborhood Square One,

(09:04):
a little bit later, The Muppet Show, for sure. Fraggle Rock.
I really cite Fragle Rock is a show that really
imbued a lot of the are you know, imparted the
values that I just kind of internalized as a kid,
you know, getting along multiculturalism and pluralism, being kind to others,
understanding that there are other, you know, other entities and
cultures out there, curiosity and exploration. Star Trek was also

(09:27):
a huge part of my childhood, which again, you know,
it's maybe a little weird to compare these two things,
but I think Star Trek and Fraggle Rock actually have
a lot in common in their ethos.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, they really do. Yeah, I'm a big Star Trek fan.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
So the prime directive, if you will, that Jean Roddenberry
went into as this was going to be a world
where a lot of the things that we're still fighting
over today have been resolved and it is a kinder,
gentler world that people live in. At least that's what
they're striving towards as part of the Federation. That's what
they're expected to do as part the Federation. So I

(10:01):
totally understand that. Do you have a favorite Star Trek
series or I love this question?

Speaker 5 (10:08):
You know, it's very hard. I feel like a parent.
I can't pick a favorite, But I can't pick a favorite.
But Next Generation just came along at the right time,
in the right place. We watched that as a family,
We talked about it as a family, We look forward
to it as a fan. You know that cliffhanger where
Picard's been captured by the Borg was, you know, defined

(10:30):
that summer from from Part one to Part two and
the other on the other end of it. So I
think Star Trek the Next Generation was the one that
really hit for me. But you know, but if you
asked me in public, I'd say I love all my
star treks equally. We won't tell, we won't tell. Well,
what was it for you? I'm so curious, like what

(10:50):
we're what is your star trek and who are your captains?

Speaker 1 (10:53):
My favorite star trek is Deep Space nine. I watched
all the syndicated I have not watched all the animated,
and I'm still catching up on some more streaming episodes.
But Deep Space nine was and still is definitely my favorite.
I have no problem saying. I mean, I like them all,
but if I had to pick one, deep Space nine
is the one is my favorite.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
I'm kind of an original like because those I rewatched.
I know those better than almost any of the other
ones because just because they were in reruns. Right, But
I'm a captain Janeaway. You know eightyes TV ladies, I
mean or ninety TV ladies whatever.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Deep Space nine had a lot of strong women on
that show.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I mean, yeah, that is true. We got to interview
Nana visitor from Pep Space one, and she was fantastic
and it was really quite spectacular.

Speaker 5 (11:47):
And that's so we're going to do a whole series.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
On the Ladies' Eighties TV Ladies of Star Trek, which
will go from the sixties to whenever.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Now someday we're not sure exactly when that's going to happen,
but it is going to happen.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
We're going to make it happen.

Speaker 5 (12:01):
That gives me chills. What a great idea. I love
everything about it because there's so many oh my goodness,
so many fantastic actresses and writers and like people behind
the scenes. You know, Gates McFadden has a podcast that
I just I just adore. She's so interesting to listen to.
And yeah, and the non visitor just an incredible woman
in Kate Mulber, Like, oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, anyway, yeah, wonderful.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Lots of good stuff there. Well, we could just kind
going down this path I want to talk about. So
we were invited onto a podcast, the Rainbow Remix Podcast,
and that got me thinking down this path of representation
and queer representation and or the lack thereof, and then
you start diving in and I felt it was an

(12:43):
important aspect of eighties TV ladies to look at the
sort of how that representation evolved. And so that's how
we found you and wanted to sort of talk to
you about, So I guess we can leave Star Trek
even though Star Trek has some good queer representation. It does, Yeah,
particularly in the later evolutions. If we can certainly talk

(13:06):
about DS nine and the intriguing lesbian kiss episode, the
uh John Zia's whole approach to sexuality. So I'm fully
prepared to discuss that topic.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
But also, you know, if we're if we're sticking to
the eighties, yeah, there's there's a lot going on there too.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Gosh, well, I want to kind of start from beginning
if we can like just a little bit of a
like a you know one oh one on early gay
representation on television.

Speaker 5 (13:33):
You know, the one on one on early gay representation
on television is really that it's that animated gift, that
meme of John Travolta in pulp fiction looking around and
like where is everybody? It's because there's not a lot
of it. Television is about one hundred years old, you know,
depending on where you start counting, and basically for that

(13:54):
first half of the century, there was not a lot
going on because television was governed by a code that
was adapted from the you know what the movies were
using that referred to had a pretty firm prohibition on
what we're called sex abnormalities. Not a great not a
great label, but if you wanted to find anything queer,

(14:16):
either on radio or television, you really had to go
searching and basically look for either subtext or occasionally, if
you're really lucky, if you tune into the right time,
you might see something pretty derogatory without you know, without
the people getting to without characters getting too explicit because

(14:36):
they couldn't. You know, Bob Hope might tell a joke
about Christine Jorgenson or something like that, and if you
know what he's talking about, you'd get it, but it
would go over everybody else's head. And so when you
would really start to see what I think of as
the beginning the Inklings is probably around the nineteen sixties,
around more activity around civil rights. Civil rights movement in

(14:57):
real life is when you might see tele and pushing
the boundary just a little bit, just a tiny bit,
and not really talking about anything gay too much, too explicitly.
Mostly you might see some subtext, which is why I
start my book with Bewitched, a show that never had
any openly gay characters on it certainly never talked about
that kind of thing, but had a pretty queer cast,

(15:20):
a pretty socially progressive cast, and also a lot of
subtext that I think is not difficult to connect to
either a queer liberation or to civil rights in general,
to other marginalized groups, to religious minorities, to ethnic minorities,
to people with disabilities. I think Bewitch is a show
that is, you know, it's just a thing of beauty
for people who might feel like outsiders. And when you

(15:42):
go back and watch through that lens, you know, it's
already a very funny show, but it really becomes something
beautiful when you consider that. And this was their intention.
They knew what they were doing, you know, behind the scenes.
When you think of it as a show that is
giving comfort to people who feel like, you know, they
don't have a place in the world, gosh, it's such
a beautiful show. Wow.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, you know, I haven't rewatched it, but I have,
you know, heard that aspect of it and want to.
So it's on the list. Yeah, it would be a
big long list. But that's really interesting. Is there anything significant,
like is there an episode or is it just the
whole tenor of the show and some of the characters.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
There are some very significant episodes. One of the very first,
I think it's episode five or six or seven in
season one, is called The Witches Are Out, which is
so close to an allegory for homosexuality. So it begins
with Samantha, and if you're not familiar with the premise
of the show, it's about a witch, a woman who's

(16:40):
secretly a witch who marries a mortal and this couple,
this sort of you might think of them as interfaith couple,
is how they were often thought of. They attempt to
move to the suburbs and blend in and live a
quote unquote normal life, which means that the witch Samantha
is often called upon to hide who she is.

Speaker 6 (17:00):
Well.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
At the start of this episode The Witches Are Out
early in the series run, she's hanging out with some
other witches and they are lamenting how unpleasant Halloween is
for them because there are all these stereotypes about them,
all these misunderstandings about their community. One of the witches
says something like, I don't see why we don't just
come out and show people who we are, and then
they can see what lovely people witches can be. And

(17:22):
it's such a mirror of the conversation that was happening
in you know, the proto queer liberation groups, that Matachine Society,
Daughters of Beliitis, groups like that in real life. In fact,
the episode has a scene where Samantha confronts her husband Darren.
Darren is an ad executive and he's running an ad
campaign that features witches stereotypical, you know, ugly looking warts,

(17:47):
green skin, the hair, and Samantha directly confronts him. She says,
when people like us see images like that, don't you
understand how it hurts? Wow, what an incredible conversation to
be having in nineteen sixty someeve they've probably nineteen sixty
six or so, nineteen sixty six or seven. And then
at the end of the episode, the witches stage a protest.

(18:08):
They have big signs. They pick it and because they're
witches and because they can't reveal themselves for their own safety,
they do it in the dreams of a executive. They
invade his dreams holding these signs. Explained him the harm
of stereotypes and that you know this, these myths about
them aren't true, And he comes around and he decides

(18:31):
not to use those stereotypes anymore, holding these signs. And
what's incredible about this episode is that it aired just
a few weeks after what is generally recognized as the
first in real life public protest by queer people. It
happened in New York. It happened outside an army recruiting station.
And we're talking like sixish people, not a huge crowd,

(18:52):
but they're holding signs that says, you know, messages about
we demand sexual freedom and homosexuals died for the US
two Because they're protesting army recruitment. It just it looks
like the signs are from the same event. Now, obviously
Bewitched was not pulling from that, but they're both affected
by what was going on in the in the air
and the zeitgeist at the time, which is minority groups

(19:14):
getting a little tired and feeling like, hey, maybe we
can actually come out those of us who have the
ability to come out safely. Let's let's see what happens
if we ask for more. And so yeah, So I
think I often cite that episode of The Witch. There
are others, but I think that is that one is
just remarkable.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Wow, that Okay, we're adding Bewitched to our eightiesevy ladies,
We'll just do a sidebar.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
Yeah, well, Elizabeth Montgomery was still working in the a.
I mean, I know that's true. She's right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
It is interesting how in the writing in the sixties,
and certainly I think more so in the seventies and eighties,
there was almost this subliminal effort, whether it be for
gay rights or for civil rights or others, to try
to get that message through. For a lot of people,
it just went right over their heads, I'm sure, but

(20:06):
it did manage I'm sure to get through to some.

Speaker 5 (20:08):
Yeah. Yeah, just imagine like how comforting it would have
been as a queer person or any marginalized person to
see like people talking about that. Just you know, if
you need to hear that message, there it is.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
You know, television is so great with the metaphor, you know,
like it really is, like you know, from Buffy. I
think about Buffy a lotah and how much the metaphor
of that show was resonant to so many people. Wow,
all right, So some of the stuff that I saw
in my little research was really like one off, like
it would be episode episode things like that. What were

(20:43):
some significant moments that were like, Okay, here's a huge
you know, this is this goes on the timeline.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
Yeah, in terms of you know, yeah, well the big
some of the big milestones. Obviously All in the Family,
you know, Norman Lear did a ton for representation. I
would say it's nineteen seventy two. I believe All the
Family premiers also the last year of Bewitch, So it's
just incredible to think, like those two shows overlapping a
very different approach, very different vibe. Anyway, so All the

(21:11):
Family in their first season, they had an episode called
Judging Books by Covers, which featured a queer person. They
never say the word gay. The gay character himself does
sort of evasively talk around who he is around coming out,
but he is also presented as a big, bold, macho guys.
He's not the stereotype that people might think of. Part
of the point of the episode is that you cannot

(21:32):
judge people based on appearances. And then a little bit
later in the run, I think one of the most
memorable characters that All in the Family did was a
character named Beverly LaSalle. She was a character who the
show presents her variously as a drag queen. She also
uses the word to transvestite. You know, the terminology was
really not solid at that time, but I was fortunate

(21:54):
enough to ask Norman Lear. I interviewed Norman Lear for
my book and asked him, how should we think of
Beverly LaSalle And I'll describe the character in a moment,
and he said, essentially, the performer that they hired, they
got out of that person's way and let them just
do their thing, and they're basically playing themselves. And so
Beverly LaSalle as she appears on screen on All in

(22:14):
the Family, is a drag queen who comes to the
bunker house because Archie, the patriarch, who is rather conservative
and set in his ways and very you know, right leaning,
he has saved the life of what he believes is
a big, tall, classy broad. As he calls her, she
fainted and he gave her mouth to mouth, and she

(22:35):
now comes to the house to thank him, and in
so doing reveals that she is actually a female impersonator
is the one of the words that terms that she uses,
and there's a great moment with theirs. Archie continues to
misunderstand what this means. He says to her, well, let
me just say thank you, miss, unless you use ladies
likes to be called mis and you know, he thinks

(22:58):
he's being so like ry, like oh miss haha, and
Beverly says, why don't you call me mister and pulls
off the wig, and you know, the episode is hysterical
and wonderful and presents Beverly as a real hero. Beverly
comes back a season later. She comes back a season
after that. She becomes a recurring character. The family's relationship

(23:19):
with her deepens. She really becomes a part of the family,
which I think is significant. Our show called All in
the Family, like that family refers to and includes Beverly Edith.
At one point, Edith is Archie's wife, says to Beverly,
to me, you're like a sister, well brother, well both
rolled into one, and it's just it's very sweet. There's
another episode where they discover that they have a lesbian

(23:40):
cousin named Liz, who they only learn this after Liz
passes away and they meet her partner, and there's a
lot of drama around whether to recognize this partner as
a member of the family. And that episode's very significant
because the partner. The lesbian partner is a teacher, and
part of her alarm about people learning that she's a

(24:02):
lesbian is that she could lose her job if the
wrong person finds out. And this episode happened to be
rebroadcast one night before of a real life vote in
California on whether queer people should be you know, barred
from holding jobs in schools. It you know, went down
in a landslide. And I really think that this episode

(24:23):
of All in the Family was a contributor to that,
not certainly not the only factor, but putting a sympathetic,
lovely character on the screen that shows the consequences of bigotry,
I think I think that went a long way towards
changing people's minds. So I would put All in the
Family like Up on the Board is one of the
most important shows.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
I love all that And you know, for listeners, you've
got to go check out Matt's videos on All in
the Family because he really breaks down the episodes quite beautifully.
All in the Family so groundbreaking, so important, not a
lady's show, and a show that I appreciated, Like I
was like, this is better than other shows. I could

(25:01):
appreciate that, and yet because the two female characters were
not women, I aspired to hold positions like at the time,
there wasn't really a way in you know, for me
as a young viewer, And yet I also recognize it
now as just brilliant friggin writing.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Man, did you have access to Maud? Was that on
when you were watching?

Speaker 2 (25:25):
So?

Speaker 5 (25:25):
That was on? Again?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
I was much younger, right, so I was not really
like my mom also kind of watched what I watched,
and like, in some ways Maud felt too sophisticated for
us to watch.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
Mad's a tough one.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
I think for kids, Mad and Three's Company were kind
of forbidden from us. Now again, you know, Maud was
talking about sophisticated stuff, you know for sitcoms for a
young person.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
Oh for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
But the All in the Family it's always been a
struggle for me because it's like, okay, but the center
always comes it's Archie Bunkers, right, Yeah, it always comes
back to Archie Bunker and he is. So it's a
very conflicting show for me because I understand its groundbreaking,
but I also find at its core it's so misogynist

(26:13):
that it's really as many times as they made Archie
have to face his prejudice, and he's sort of shifted
by listening to Edith. He's sort of also never really changed.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
No, No, I you know, I think that that's that
character's role, and I think that's something that went over
a lot of viewers' heads too, is that he's Archie's
not the hero, or at least he's not intended to be.
But I think the show is also kind of a
Rorshack test in that if you want him to be,
or if you're afraid that he is, it's very easy
to see him that way, to sympathize with the quote

(26:49):
unquote wrong. But you know, the character is not intended
to be the hero, just to be like, yeah, sure
I'm taking this. I'm taking him at face value. Archie, Yeah,
he's the good guy here, not how the show meant,
but I do think that's how a lot of people
received it.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Yeah, I sen you recall reading well after the fact
that it was one of those shows and Archie is
one of those characters where people who tend to lean
towards his way of thinking think he's a great guy.
People who don't think he's an idiot and of affoon
and everybody is watching the same show. Yeah, and yet
they're taking out of it something completely different. Yeah, and

(27:26):
in a lot of ways, that's the brilliance of the
show for me, I think.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
A little bit. Yeah, I agree. I think that really
indicates like how good the writing is that you can
take so much away from it. And I do think
that there is absolutely there's just some misogyny baked in,
in part because of the time. There's a story about
Norman Lear when he met Susan Harris, who wrote for
Maud and then went on to, among other things, Great

(27:49):
The Golden Girls. When Norman Lear met Susan Harris, reportedly
he said to her, no one can look like you
and also write, and she says to him, well, that's
an appropriate remark for a man who's making a show
about a bigot. So I love that she put him
in his place in that way. But also it sure
was different times.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's great, so that we can segue into
Golden Girls.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
Yes please.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, incredibly groundbreaking show we haven't yet covered, and immensely
it sort of always comes up, but we were holding it.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
It may end up being.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
My last, you know, our last series, just because it's
it's got so much, you know, like it almost feels like, well,
that's just the low hanging fruit.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
We got to wait do that show. Yeah, I agree.
I think the Golden Girls and Designing Women are the two.
Like what I think of is the iconic women led
ensembles of the eighties on television. Nurses is in there,
and you know, there's other shows, but yeah, gosh, Golden
Girls is. How could I not write about that and
how could I not like extensively cover it my videos.

(28:55):
One of the most important TV shows ever made.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
I think, So I was curious about sort of the
video that you made that was about the gay fandom
and the gay fandom around Golden Girls and how it
became such an important part of that community.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
I mean, can you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
you know, I first discovered that in college. Golden Girls
I just kind of missed for my whole childhood, my
whole teenagerhood. But when I was in college, I lived
with a guy who was the head of the musical
theater society, a gay man if you can believe that,
who was pretty obsessive about catching episodes of Golden Girls.
I think when they aired on Lifetime and it became

(29:33):
you know, in our little social group, it was really mimetic.
You know, we would quote lines from the show. You know,
never somebody said something foolish, it was no rose. So
we really, you know, made that part of our lifestyle
as gay college students. And I found it amazing that
as I discovered a gay community as an adult, that

(29:56):
it was a real Rosetta stone, Like it was a
real point of connection. You know, if you meet another
queer person you don't really know how to connect, you
can at least talk about the Golden Girls. And that
was kind of a mystery to me for a while, like,
how how is this the thing that we've all come to.
I think there are a lot of factors there. I
think one of them is that behind the scenes, off screen,

(30:16):
all of the actresses and a lot of the people
involved in that show were involved in gay projects. So
you would see them in other things, and so you know,
you knew that they were an ally. B Arthur in
multiple episodes of Maud, you know, the tackle gay issues.
Rue McClanahan was in a TV movie about Leonard Mattlovich,
who is a you know, real queer pioneer in real life,

(30:38):
they're just stell Getty of course in Torch Song trilogy.
So these are folks who had a lot of you know,
they had a lavender pedigree, I would say, coming into
The Golden Girls, and then the show itself. Of course,
they had a gay character in the pilot. They had
gay characters frequently on the show, some of them were
even recurring, still pretty rare in those days. So that
was it was not something that we were you know,

(30:59):
shy away from. I know, they had a lot of
gay people working, you know, queer people behind the scenes
working on the show, and it made like a lot
of waves like this was a show that talks about
marriage equality, it talks about gay members of the family,
talks about HIV, just you know, unflinching at a time
when it was pretty tough for shows, to especially comedies,
to talk about anything gay because in part, you know,

(31:21):
HIV epidemic made it something that was deeply stigmatized as
a topic. But they were not scared of it. So yes,
I think that's a real part of the queer appeal
of The Golden Girls.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Were that any episodes I'm curious because again we haven't
I haven't looked at all the episodes I know there
were a lot of gay male characters on the show.
Were there gay women on the show?

Speaker 5 (31:41):
Yeah? Actually, there's an episode where one of Dorothy's college
friends comes to visit, a woman named Jean and so
she's played by Lois Nettleton, a fantastic actress who appeared
just millions of things. She had actually even played a lesbian,
I think on Medical Center or another show prior to this. Anyway,
So Dorothy's friend Gene is coming. Dorothy and Sophie know
that Gene is a lesbian, and they are kind of

(32:04):
iffy on whether the other women should know about it,
and so, you know, it's it's sort of a do
we out her to them? Do we let her make
that decision? And you really see the thought process and
then beautifully Sophia, you know, Dorothy's kind of dancing around it,
and Sofia just goes up to her and she's like
the lesbian thing, do you keep it under your hat
or what? The episode progresses with the girls gradually coming

(32:29):
to an understanding about lesbianism. Rose, you know, towards the
end of the episode, is annoyed that she wasn't told,
and Dorothy's like, I wasn't even sure if you'd know
what it is, and Rose says, I could have looked
it up. Uh, And anyway, it's just a it's a
wonderfully beautifully written show. It was actually it was written
by Jeff Dutilh who's a gay writer. He sent it

(32:51):
in as a spec script because he had to know
one of the producers, Winfred Hervey, and she loved it.
They wanted to do a gay episode. They bought the
script from him, put it into production and yeah, that
that really that helped establish Jeff Dutiel as you know,
really helped establish his writing career because he was just
doing a lot of work for higher up to that point. Wow.
So yeah, he's just a great a great story about

(33:12):
getting that on the air. That's why I wanted to
focus on sitcoms because there's a quality to them where
you know, you can an audience I think is more
likely to warm to a topic if they're laughing along
with you know, the method by which it is delivered.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's the great thing you point out about All in
the Family, as how carefully crafted the jokes and the
revelations are about these characters, and so that both the
studio audience, right, which is an important part of what
the reaction is going to be, and the home audience
is brought along, you know, and that that typically Archie

(33:48):
is always the last to know, yes, always, always, so
that the audience can fully enjoy his reactions. Yeah, And
in rewatching All in the Family, I was noticing because
with our kid, we're rewatching the office pretty much constantly.
But how much Michael Scott and Archie Bunker are a

(34:09):
little match set in many ways, it's really interesting. It
was like, oh my gosh, I bet you he watched
Archie Bunker like at some point.

Speaker 5 (34:19):
That's such an interesting observation.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, Carol O'Connor is so specific in so many of
his moments of revelation and understanding when you you was
just it's so enjoyable to watch him get it and
react and then react and then react.

Speaker 5 (34:40):
That the cousin Liz episode of All in the Family
is wonderful because there's this tension and it's something that
you see across decades that I refer to in my
book as and in my videos as I can't believe
it's not heterosexual when there's this assumption that a character
that all characters must be straight, and the audience gets
sit a little bit before the characters, and part of

(35:02):
the pleasure is watching for that moment when they figure
it out. And in that All the Family episode with
cousin Liz, Edith gets it in like in a moment she,
you know, Veronica is kind of talking around the topic
and there comes a moment when Edith stops midward and
her face completely transforms. And then later in the episode

(35:23):
she has to explain it to Archie and Archie doesn't
get it, and then he does and his face completely transforms.
And you see that happen from show to show to show,
episode to episode, decade to decade. It happens on The
Golden Girls when Gene Lows Nolton's character says in that
episode she's explaining herself to Rose, and you see Rose's
face just transform when she gets to that moment. And

(35:44):
then in the nineties on The Simpsons, on the John
Waters episode when Marge is talking around it, you know,
he prefers the company of men, and Homer says, who doesn't.
She's struggling to get him to understand, and then and
finally he gets there and he screen. There's just such
a great magical tension. There's an episode of The Designing

(36:04):
Women where the same thing happens. Susan goes looking for
lesbian is the episode she has a friend who's going
to a meeting of an organization called Daughters of Sappho
and one of them says to her, what did you
think Daughters of Sappho it meant? And she said, I
don't know. I thought it was a laundry detergent anyway. Yeah,

(36:25):
I just I love those moments, those discovery moments.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
And I love that it's got a theme like it's
the what do you call it?

Speaker 5 (36:31):
The I can't believe it's not heterosexual.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
I can't believe it's not heterosexual. That's perfect because that
is the norm, right, the you know American norm. Yeah,
white male heterosexual. H how very interesting that that's where
we all and we all spin off of.

Speaker 5 (36:47):
It, right Yeah. And I you know, I think I
actually will cite Glee as a show that found a
new twist on it. There's a gay reveal on an
episode that I think is genuinely shocking, and I think
there's a lot that can be critiqued about the show
and about that scene and about storyline. But I think
Glee still found a new way to approach a surprise,
and yet it fascinates me how those sort of little

(37:10):
coming out moments have evolved from decade to decade to decade.
It actually shares a bit with the early seasons of
Ellen in that there is something that seems so obvious,
something that we ought to be talking about, something that
is so clear to everyone. You know. There's an episode
of Ellen where Janine Garofolo is on and sparks really fly.
So it's a great episode, and boy boy, it just

(37:31):
seems clear, get these ladies together. But they also have
to be really careful and downplay that stuff at the
time because they were so scared of what would happen
if they actually used the one thing that could really
set the show apart. You know. Instead, we're gonna pretend
it doesn't exist. Well, I don't know how many people
are fooled here, So it just feels weird.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
And I'm curious if, in your research and looking at
these shows, if there was backlash to any of these
particular episodes. Were the networks right to be afraid?

Speaker 5 (38:03):
Yes and no. So there are some episodes that they
you know, they really took a gamble on you know,
I'm thinking in particular of soap. ABC was terrified of
what was gonna happen when they put soap on the air,
but the reaction was generally pretty positive. Critics were like,
you know, there was this huge controversial build up to
it over months before that episode aired, because it was

(38:24):
going to have a gay character and a priest who
has sex in a church, and a nympho maniac character,
and you know, oh my god, there's everybody's sleeping with
everybody else, and so ABC was just terrified. They put
a warning message before the episode. When it aired, they
put these ads on the air that showed people coming
out of test screening saying like, yeah, it was actually
pretty good, Like they're just trying so hard to reassure

(38:45):
the audience. And then it airs and critics are like, oh, yeah,
that was okay, that was fine. Same thing happened, you know,
even decades not decades, but years earlier in nineteen seventy two,
when they aired that certain summer on ABC, pretty groundbreaking
made for TV movie that featured a same sex couple.
You know, the ABC's poised for the you know, switchboards

(39:06):
are like ready for the angry calls to flood in. Well,
calls were actually pretty positive with The Golden Girls when
they had a episode about I believe it's the episode
where Blanche's brother plans to marry, or it might be
one of the others with a queer theme. Anyway, the
bulk of the feedback was actually about be Arthur's hair,

(39:27):
so people who wanted to weigh in on that topic.
So generally speaking, the public backlash from most viewers pretty limited.
That having been said, there is an awfully loud, small
but very vocal backlash from groups like you know, when
Ellen was coming out, the Southern Baptists organized, you know,
these colossal boycotts, and so there would be you know,

(39:49):
essentially interest groups on both sides who would make as
much noise as they possibly could, and they didn't represent
by and large, the millions of people who are watching.
You know, the Traditional Values co Delish, you know, had
a small but very loud membership. On the other side,
Glad had you know, I would say, not a huge membership,

(40:09):
but they were pretty savvy about making their voices heard.
So you know, you got a couple of people with megaphones.
But generally speaking, the viewing public was mostly just interested
to see what the fuss was about and couldn't be
bothered to write angry letters until there was something truly egregious,
which was pretty rare. You know. I'm thinking of made
for TV movie called gosh, what was the name of it,

(40:32):
Born Innocent with Linda Blair in the mid seventies, that
really does I think it was seventy four or seventy five,
just completely crosses a line. It's about a fourteen year
old girl who is in a detention facility. She's sexually assaulted.
There is, you know, some pretty derogatory depictions of lesbianism
and broadcast in primetime, you know, at the same time

(40:54):
as Happy Days, and it just it went beyond the pale,
and people were I think justifiably outraged by that. Generally speaking, though,
you know, people are just like, Okay, that's on television. Sure,
I'll watch that. It made me laugh twice, you know,
I'm good. Yeah, exactly, And so let's talk.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
About lesbians on television because you know what I'm going through,
and we're looking for these episodes of queer representation. It's
even slimmer if you're looking for women representation.

Speaker 5 (41:24):
Yeah, yeah, it's a real shame. I think part of
that is because, generally speaking in terms of like what
you might see in newspaper headlines, a lot of the
activists and public figures were men. Obviously not all of them,
and that doesn't actually represent what was happening on the ground.
But I think a lot of the attention was paid

(41:45):
in real life to male activists and you know, spokespeople.
And also, you know, I think that's just the misogyny
of the television industry, that they are more interested often
in male characters than women. That haven't been said. I
think there's a phenomenon where shows saw lesbian characters sometimes

(42:05):
as safer than gay characters, and so you'd see this phenomenon,
especially in the nineties, of the lesbian kiss episode for
Sweeps Week, and I think that that felt perhaps less threatening,
you know than a gay kiss episode, because you know,
on La Law, on Roseanne, on Deep Space nine, I
think they were quicker to show women kissing, but also

(42:29):
then to sort of erase the lesbianism by saying, oh,
it was just experiment, Oh it was just a one
time thing. Oh that characters is getting written off the show.
You know, we just did it for sweeps a week
and now they're gone. So it was La Law the
first lesbian kiss. Do we know that. I'm pretty sure
it was. There may have been, Yeah, Picket Fences was
in there somewhere, but I'm pretty sure La Law was
the first one.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
And then it was literally a scene. Yeah yeah, and
then nothing happened.

Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yeah there's there's a kiss, and then it's like, well
that was weird any way, moving on, Yeah, yep, very much.
I think Deep Space nine was a little better about it.
Picket Fences I think was pretty disastrous. They actually shot
a lesbian kiss seen and then the network made them
reshoot it in the dark with the lights turned off
so that you couldn't see what was happening. I think

(43:16):
it actually makes the scene infinitely seedier to have like
to this darkness. But yeah, that's exactly it will be
portrayed as like just a little fling that's this isn't real,
is it?

Speaker 6 (43:28):
Like?

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Okay, it's just best for those guys that like to say,
too women kissing.

Speaker 5 (43:33):
I think that's part of it too. Yeah, that it's
you know, considered utilating and exciting perhaps to a male audience,
where as you know, we get one of the male
characters on screen to have a kiss. It's something far
more I don't know, dramatic or threatening. You know, there
was an episode of I think thirty something that had
two male characters just sit next to each other in bed,
not even touching, and you know that it's a catastrophe.

(43:55):
Oh there's an episode of not Sex in the City,
but Tales of the City. Oh yeah, and again on TVs.
That was I don't know if there's a specific episode
or it's just like overall people were upset about it.
But there's there's a kiss, there's a there's a bathhouse scene.
There's clearly gay lovers in that show. And again that
was pretty early on I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(44:16):
that was I want to say, like early ninety two
or ninety four or so. But men, men in love,
that that results in congressional hearings. Women in love woo
the audience. The audience gasps and wants to see more.
And yet and yet it's just a tease. It always
has to be a tease with a little fake out
of like we didn't really mean it, just kidding. Yeah,

(44:37):
it was just that that character's gay, not the main character.
That other yeah, but you know that they've moved on.
But I do want to give credit to the show Roseanne,
because that one actually did feature a recurring character. I
think her name was Nancy, played by Sandra Bernhard, who
had partners. She was persistently queer. You know, it wasn't
like it's a phase. That was a show that I

(44:57):
think was a lot bolder about featuring queer character. Also
Martin Maule's character, you know, the recurring, recurring gay character.
So you know, there were those shows and you know,
for better for worse Friends with you know, the Carol character.
You know, they to their credit, showed a lesbian couple
getting married on prime time. Not bad, not bad. Yeah,

(45:19):
so we're going to take a break. We'll be back
in a moment. Welcome back. So anyway, I wanted.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
To talk about the Designing Women episodes, particularly Killing All
the Right People. Yeah, because it was such an important episode.
Can you tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
Yeah, it's an astonishing episode. So a young man comes
to the Women and says that he wants to hire
them to design his funeral, that he knows that he
is going to die. He has HIV and you know,
this is like the mid eighties, treatment was pretty rudimentary
at that point. It was generally considered a death sentence.
And so the women have this incredible scene where they

(46:01):
talk about the reality of living with HIV at that time,
which is very different from you know, how how we
understand it today. And there's also a scene that really
confronts the stigma where a character says about AIDS. You know,
one thing that it has going for it is it's
killing all the right people. An incredibly chilling thing that

(46:22):
you know, when I hear that, I think, how could
a person say that? And yet that line was pulled
directly from real life. It was something that that Linda
Linda Bloodworth Thomas, is that her name, Lenda Bloodworth Thomas. Yeah,
blood with thomasin something that you heard in real life
in a hospital while she was there, her mother was
ill and I feel like it just it makes your

(46:44):
blood ron cold. So and her mother was dying of AIDS.
Oh yeah, from a transfusion. She has, Yes, what's crazy?
It had just happened.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Yeah, Like it was like less than a year before
that her mother had passed away, having gotten HIV through
blood infusion.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
That she wrote this episode, Yeah, and just amazing, just amazing.
And I can't imagine, you know, I'm putting myself in
her position, the incandescent rage I would feel at somebody
expressing a sentiment like that and channeling it into art.
In a way, that episode is educational. It informs the
audience in a way that does not sound like you know,
a very special episode PSA. You actually do learn something.

(47:23):
It humanizes an issue. There's also there's a bat plot
with anti pots about condoms, about educating you know, people
about condom usage. So and this is a time when
the government was not doing a whole heck of a
lot when it came to educating the public. And so
here you go, here's television. I mean, talk about the
life changing power of television. Here's a television show that's

(47:45):
stepping in to be like, people need to know about this.
Government's not doing it. We're going to do it.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
I'm noticing that so much, particularly for like seventies and
eighties television, how much television was teaching us how to
do things. Yeah, and imparting in for and usually in
a very clever way. Right, Sometimes it felt like, you know,
PSA kind of thing, But talking about designing women talking
about breast cancer, Cagney lay also looking at breast cancer,

(48:12):
talking about abortion, talking about rape and date rape, you know,
and obviously they're able to take a more serious tag.
But it's really pretty amazing how much information you know,
pre Internet that was like oh, yep, this is what
HIV you know, and tying the HIV to high schoolers

(48:34):
being able to access condoms or hearing about sex education
basically huge, right, like.

Speaker 5 (48:41):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, if you know, for an
audience that's living in a major city, this stuff is
not going to be breaking news probably, But the thing
that's amazing about television is, you know, it breaches everywhere.
You know, almost one hundred percent of households have a
television set. And even then, and you know, if you're
you don't have billboards about you know, the local clinic

(49:03):
or something in your town because you happen to live
in a small farming community or whatever, you can still
just turn on the TV and get exactly the same
information that someone in New York City is getting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, So I'm also curious about trans representation.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Yeah, and I don't know if you've looked at that,
it's you know, this is this is an area where
television is uh still has some ways to go, and
you know, it's it's been, it's been slow. You can
really see the evolving understanding public understanding of trans issues,
you know, over the decades, and you know, this is
this is something that I'm not speaking about from a

(49:39):
position of you know, personal knowledge, so it's not quite
my story to tell. But what I can see is
that you have this problem, particularly in the sixties on
new shows. It would be news shows that were discussing
you know what. At the time, there was really no
concrete language around, so it might be you know, transsexualism

(49:59):
or something like that. Then into seventies there's a real
misunderstanding of gender identity and sexual orientation where it's just
assumed that, you know, gay men, you know, if you
let them go far enough, all gay men just want
to be women. That's not exactly how it works, but
that's kind of the understanding. And then eventually you get
into a somewhat better understanding into the eighties and I

(50:20):
actually think, you know, you start to see a few
characters like I can't remember the name of the show,
but it was actually it was Annie Pots and Alfred
Woodard were.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
On a show one fine day.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
Yes, there's an episode in which RuPaul plays a transgender woman,
and you know, again they didn't hire a transactress. But
also your choices were pretty limited back then, so gradually
into the nineties you might see there's as public understanding
was sort of coalescing. Gradually television got there, but it

(50:53):
was it was slow. You know, I'm thinking of Friends.
Friends had a I would say, pretty faulty depiction of
the character as the chandler's parent. And it's really difficult
to know how to refer to this character played by
Kathleen Turner, alternately referred to as a drag queen. Sometimes
it's character is a drag queen, sometimes it's a trans woman.

(51:14):
Sometimes it's a topic that people just don't know how
to talk about it all. And Marta Coffin, one of
the co creators of the show, said that they just
didn't understand the issue at the time. Looking back, they
would have done it differently. Kathleen Turner said that in retrospect,
she wouldn't have taken that role. She would have given
it to, you know, allowed it to be cast with
a actual trans person. So, you know, I think progress

(51:38):
has been made since then. But boy, boy, sometimes you
really have to drag television kicking and screaming too to
do the right thing well.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
And to reflect people right, Like yeah, Like, that's the
interesting thing is it feels like, you know, the loud
megaphone voices notwithstanding these were not by the time it's
on television. The question is is television leading culture? Is
culture leading television?

Speaker 5 (52:00):
I think on that issue absolutely, television was lagging way behind,
you know, even you know, if we go back to
the you know, early days of this being a public
conversation in nineteen fifties, when it was you know, just
a wacky news item at best. You know, of course,
there were people who this was their lived experience. They
understood it better than anybody else because it was their life,

(52:21):
and those voices were just not allowed to speak up.
They were not given you know, a microphone. So yeah, gosh,
it's just it's it's sometimes very frustrating to watch the
show and be like all you had to do was ask,
All you had to do was ask somebody, you know,
are we doing a good job, what's your experience? What
are we getting wrong? You see shows do that now,

(52:42):
and I think that's great. Generally, so, you know, it
is it is a shame to see that there was
an opportunity here. Television had an opportunity, you know, mass
media in general, film like at all, it could have
been doing so much more, and and yet we held back.
And for what why? Why? What was the point?

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Well? I mean, I think it almost inevitably comes down
to the gatekeepers, and particularly at that time, there were
very few, right, it was a very you know, there
wasn't seventy eight streaming channels and YouTube, and so the
assumption would be that no one would be interested in

(53:22):
that because they weren't interested in that that was not
their lived experience. I think that's so much. You realize
that so much of television, when you hear about people's
behind the scene experience, you realize like it just wasn't
interesting to whoever had the power to say yes or no.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
I think that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Could it also, though, have been a certain amount of
lack of understanding. It feels to me like in the
last maybe ten years or so, when it's come to
things related to the trans community, that there's just been
so much more information that we've all been provided at
least that I feel like I've been provided. I did

(53:59):
not talk about it really before then I didn't know
and I don't even I don't even think now I
know somebody who's trans. But at least I feel like
I have a better understanding of how I would approach
that if I had to talk about it, discuss it,
right about it, and either there wasn't the information, or
there wasn't a curiosity, or there just wasn't enough visibility

(54:21):
that forced people to confront it and try to make
an effort to understand it. And at the end of
the day, TV is about making money, and if the
powers would be as Susan said, didn't understand it and
thought it affected their ability to keep sponsors or get sponsors, and.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Boy, they were going to run in the opposite direction
from that as well.

Speaker 5 (54:39):
Yeah, why risk it?

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Right, Like, I think that there's a lot of risk
adverse behavior at that level. But I am also very
curious in watching these seventies and eighty shows to watch languageable. Yeah,
both the langue. I mean, like all in the family
you're like, well, please, don't you know, Like, oh my goodness,
he said, continuing to say it right, like, oh yeah,

(55:02):
there's a lot of words that you're like, oh, that
wouldn't be on television right now.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
Even shockingly, and season one of Will and Grace there's
an episode that makes pretty liberal use of the f slur,
and I think intelligently, I think they do a really
good job of it. It's a real critique of internalized homophobia,
and yet it is shocking when you hear it. This
is like ninety eight or ninety nine when it airs,
long past when you would expect to hear that on television.

(55:30):
They lost advertisers, you know, sponsors dropped out, so it
was a real risk to talk about that. Also, you
know that I haven't said that was the same year.
It was nineteen ninety nine that one of the major thesauruses,
I think it's Merriam Webster, it's one of the big ones,
dropped that word as a synonym for homosexual. It was
until then that it was still in there. So yeah,

(55:52):
I think and that's the that the same year that
Will and Grace episode airs. So I think that's a
really good example of the evolution of language, you know,
happening in a lot of different media and sometimes being
a lot slower than you might expect it to have
been Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Then you know, it's like we have trans, we have
non binary, we have you know, so many different words
that I think are still evolving. Right So I'm curious
what you think is coming next.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
That's a great question, you know. I think we're in
a really good place where we've reached some sort of
I want to say, equilibrium maybe about certain terminology. You know,
transgender is certainly understood you know more or less what
that means, I think by most people in an audience
in a way that you know, twenty thirty years ago
there was a lot of like flipping and flapping around.

(56:43):
But do you know transgender, transactual female impersonator? You know,
what do these things all mean? And so I wonder
if you know, it feels like that's actually one area
where you could kind of kind of make a check
mark and say like, Okay, we got it, we we
understand the terminology now. And I think linguistically, I think
right now we're actually in a pretty good place. However,

(57:04):
I think there is also an opportunity for new harmful
terminology to come along along. I'm thinking specifically of the
word groomer and the way that that has been weaponized
to mean something other than you know, there's a there's
a real clinical meaning for that word, and there's an
actual meaning that it has, and then there is the
meaning that conservatives might want it to have and might

(57:25):
use it in a way that that's not intense, you know,
in the same way that the word woke has been
mutated by you know, a bigoted right wing. I think
we've got to watch out for language being turned around
to you know, words that are either innocuous or meant
something else being turned against us. And you know, I
don't really know what to do about that, other than

(57:48):
to you know, I think the language is less important
than the depiction. I think what's important is the representation.
Both are important, but what is really important is the
representation of real lived experiences, and that happens through people
in real life living their lives. And if they're in
you know, if they're privileged enough to be able to
do this safely, to be a role model and an example.

(58:10):
Not everybody can do that. Not everybody should have to
do that. But if you're in a position where you can,
great I think another aspect is being really annoying, and again,
not everybody should have to do this. Not everybody should,
But I think progress happens when activists are noisy, demanding, insistent, persistent.
You know, I'm thinking of the protesters in the nineteen

(58:31):
seventies who when something aired that they didn't like, they
would invade television offices and refuse to leave until they
were listened to. Sometimes you gotta be real annoying. And
also what that requires is some bravery on the part
of people who are inside the belly of the beast,
and you know, whether they're at the top of the
pecking order of the bottom, using their position within the
industry to advocate for change to the extent that they
are able to. And sometimes I take some courage. Sometimes

(58:53):
it means taking a risk, and sometimes it means taking
a calculated step back so that you can live to
fight another day. But it you know, basically, this is
a very long way of saying that progress requires people
operating at all different levels, with all different strategies, all
pushing in the same direction. I believe that we're all

(59:14):
working in the moving in the same direction, which is liberation.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Very well put, I mean, and I think it also
has to do as you sort of reference in some
of your videos, and I'm sure in your books that
it's also people have to be represented that are developing
these stories, that are putting these stories out, and having
different voices in the room for that means that those
conversations will just come out differently, right.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
Like they'll be better, They'll be better. Absolutely, Yeah, you
know I'm thinking of in the book. I spoke to
writer and producer Richard Day, who worked on a ton
of shows Ellen, Drew Carey, Garry Shandley, Show, Arrest Development,
and he shared a story of being in a writer's room.
This is in the nineteen eighties, I believe, or maybe
early nineties, and one of the writers there's tosses off

(01:00:01):
a comment about how they could never have a gay
person in the writer's room because they wouldn't be able
to tell gay jokes anymore, and he said Richard said
that what he took away from that was like, Wow,
they are willing to exclude an entire group of people
from their profession just for the sake of being able
to tell their terrible jokes. And so yeah, like what

(01:00:21):
can you do about that? All you can do is
make noise, be out, let them know that they're wrong.
Something that Cleve Jones once said to me. I worked
with him on some marriage equality stuff about ten years ago.
He said, if you don't demand everything immediately, then you'll
never get anything eventually. And I have really made that.

(01:00:46):
I put that into practice. I demand everything immediately, expecting
to get something eventually.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Oh my god, that's my One of my best friends
from high school, who was a lesbian in the South, said,
ask for one hundred percent of what you want percent
of the time, because you're only ever, at the most
get fifty percent of what you want fifty percent of
the time.

Speaker 5 (01:01:06):
So it's true. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad
to hear lesbian wisdom behind that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Lesbian wisdom is behind that. Thank you, Laurie. Two more things. One,
we should find out where people can find you and
your stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:01:20):
Yeah. So I've got my book about the history of
queer characters on American sitcoms. It's called high Honey. I'm Homo.
Orders now open at Gaysitcoms dot com. I'm also going
to be doing some live events around that in New
York and Chicago, Seattle, Portland and some other cities. So
those events are on the website Gaysitcoms dot com. And
then I continue to produce a lot of YouTube videos

(01:01:42):
about those milestones of television. So my next video is
about George d. Kay his incredible life. I think a
lot of folks might be aware that he was incarcerated
one of the you know, a concentration camp with his
family during World War Two in the US, and then
after that, really pigeonholed is some terrible roles, you know,
a lot of minority actors were continue to be and

(01:02:04):
how he basically, you know, I've done all this research
into his life and his career, was able to use
the lessons that he learned from his father, in particular,
to overcome all this injustice, to fight against it, to
win reparations for other Japanese people who are incarcerated in
those camps, to advocate on behalf of civil rights, and
for queer people after coming out. Just what an incredible

(01:02:26):
life he's had and how inspiring he's been. So yeah,
I've been doing a lot of research into George's life
and career, and it is a real joy to research
someone who is just an unqualified, lovely human being. It
is just a real pleasure to talk about George's from
every angle. It's just like he's a lot of fun.
He's very kind, he's so gracious, and he's incredibly wise

(01:02:48):
for you know, all the stuff that he has experienced
in his life. So yeah, anyway, those are on my
YouTube channel. You can find those at Matt bound dot
com if you just search my name. And I've got
a podcast called The Sewers of Paris where I chat
with folks were folks about the entertainment that has changed
their lives, and you can find that at Sewersofparis dot com.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
I'm so curious about your process and because you produce
a lot of content across a lot of thanks.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
I yeah, I'm very fortunate. My partner James is a
huge help. So we're kind of a pop and pop
production company, Okay, churning out, churning out the content.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
It's very impressive because it's all very very excellent.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Absolutely pleasure.
Really enjoy talking about this time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Say really appreciate your time today. Take care bye, it's
time for audioography. You can find all things Matt at
Mattbaum dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:03:40):
That's m A T T B A U M E
dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
His podcast is the Sewers of Paris, and the new
book is entitled Hi Honey, I'm Homo. Sitcom Specials and
the Queering of American Culture.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Thank you so much for listening to Abies TV Ladies.

Speaker 6 (01:03:59):
If you're liking our show, please rate and review us
on Apple, podcast, Spotify, good Pods, or wherever you listen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
And if you're really liking the show, consider supporting us
on Patreon. You can help us make more episodes and
you get videos, perks, and ad free episodes. Go to
patreon dot com slash EIGHTIESCV Ladies.

Speaker 6 (01:04:19):
There's a seven day free trial going on, so try
us out for free. Be sure to tune in for
our next episode. We're going to continue our dive into
queer representation on seventies, eighties, and nineties television with the
ladies from the Rainbow Remix podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
We Hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter
and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch,
all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing
ladies of the twenty first century.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
So pretty to the City, had board, money, bamber anything, Laters,

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RERUN: Say Gay! Exploring LGBTQ Representation in 70s, 80s, and 90s TV | Matt Baume

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