August 16, 2023 • 15 mins
Angela Giampolo, LGBTQ activist and founder of Philly Gay Lawyer to talk about issues impacting the LGBTQIA+ community and the rest of us. In this segment we’ll discuss the impact of the network show “Will and Grace” on marriage equality. https://www.phillygaylawyer.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Joining me as she will be doingonce a month every month once again is
the fabulous Angelo gian Polo, founderof Philly Gay Lawyer and an lgbt QIA
activist. And that's a lot ofa lot of letters. They have increased
since we first started doing all ofthis. But I thought it would be
very important and useful for all ofus to have a voice in this community.
(00:25):
We are going to talk about alot of very serious and weighty topics,
but today I thought it might befun to talk about the impact of
Will and Grace on popular culture andon lgbt QI rights and marriage equality.
Thank you for joining us once again. We were doing this on the regular
and now we're going to start doingit again. So really great to have
(00:48):
you back. So tell us whatwas when Will and Grace first came on.
What was your thoughts on the program? Well, loved it, right,
but university is part of your introlike saying that, you know,
we'll discuss weighty topics, you know, but what we'll start with this like
some would say, and I wouldsay that Will and Grace had huge impacted
(01:11):
rather the LGBTQ community over the lasttwo decades, and more so than shows
like Queer as Folk or The lWord, which were a little race here
and played late at night and onshowtime right where not everybody had those shows.
But Will and Grace was prime time. And so the impact that it
was able to have, I think, you know, it's huge. But
(01:33):
so what did I think when itcame on? I it made me happy.
It was like it was like thetrue gay version of the Golden Girls,
Like up until then, we allhad the Golden Girls, right,
you know, and it's like,oh my god, now we have Will
and Grace. Like it really hada normalizing effect on me at that age,
you know, forty two now,so it goes back like twenty twenty
(01:55):
twenty five years, so sort ofat the prime right, So it had
a internal, internalizing, normalizing impacton me personally. And then it was
also something for my friends and Ito talk about that the LGBTQ community,
for us to talk about weeks week. So I remember it vividly and only
(02:15):
smiles. So you just loved whenit came up. I think you made
a really good point because there wereshows that had lgb TQ leads on it,
but really none that had a massaudience like Will and Grace did.
And the precursor to that, andlet's talk about that a little bit was,
of course, Ellen Ellen de Genereshad a sitcom that and the initial
(02:38):
part of it really she played portrayedessentially a straight woman. But at some
point during the course of the showshe made that very momentous decision to come
out on this program, not onlyon this program, but in her life.
She made Time magazine and then rightafter that, the show's ratings really
(03:00):
hanged, and that made a lotof network executives very scared about going back
to the well and approving a showlike Will and Grace. So there was
a lot of struggle that came aroundgetting people to agree to doing it.
And there's a wonderful YouTube feature aboutthe history of Will and Grace that if
(03:21):
you google it, I'm sure youcan find it. But it was they
had some struggle, but they wereable to eventually get it on the air,
but it had a little bit ofa rocky beginning. It didn't wasn't
a ratings powerhouse initially, though eventuallyit did become one, and even in
the gay community, there were somequestions about it about so called stereotyping and
(03:44):
certain aspects of it that they feltweren't totally representational. These are issues that
were addressed, But I was wonderingwhat you thought about about the portrayals in
the show before that, like justabout Ellen and generally, like, I
still think that that paved the way. Like while it caused concern and probably
(04:08):
had execs take a step back andmaybe not want to fund certain things or
green light certain things at certain times, it's still paved the way. And
Laura Dern, right was her loveinterest on the show when she came out,
and Laura Dern's career tanked, justas the straight actor you know who
(04:28):
happened to play the part of thecharacter that Ellen had a love interest in
on that show. So I thinkthat moment in time is important. And
then Rosie o'donald came out, right, and then Rosie o'donald came out,
and then Ellen went on the RosieShow, right, And I'll never forget
because it chills as you were talking, you know, about Ellen's coming out.
(04:49):
I remember that. I remember sittingon the couch and just jaw drop
and everything, and you know,and Rosie said, between me and you
sitting here, there's no one whodoesn't know it gay person, and there's
no one who can't say that,especially with her show, the Rosie O'donna
show, that they don't that agay person doesn't come into their living room
(05:09):
every day, right, Like twentymillion people watch my show. So it
began what Harvey Milk had started backin the seventies of like, we must
come out, because if we comeout, then people can say we know
somebody, like wow, I loveI loved Rosie, like you're willing to
say you loved her before she cameout, but now you no longer,
(05:30):
right, So, and then WillingGrace comes on the scene, and I
was okay with the portrayal. Ifeel like there are some there are always
people we make up like you sortof alluded to it at the beginning.
The lgbt QI a two plus rightcommunity that is a lot of identities under
the rainbow. And so to havethe sort of effeminate gay mail, you
(05:55):
know, portrayed along with sort ofthe more straight acting gay mail, right,
and he happens to be a lawyerand the other one just you know,
it's just like the portrayals were generalizations, but the idea was to appeal
to mainstream America. That's not thetime or place to get super And this
is also we're talking twenty five yearsago, right, So for what it
(06:17):
was right now, there's the showsthat we have on TV. Now,
you're never talking about all the differentshows you know that you're you're addicted to.
You know, they would never havehappened. But for this foundation being
laid, I feel like by willinggrace and to do so, you had
to portray characters that pretty much everyoneknew a Jack or someone worked with a
(06:41):
Will, right, and we're comfortableby those portrayals. There was nothing threatening,
and so it's much more good thanbad. Not for nothing, but
generalizations exist for a reason. Typicallygeneralizations come about because they generally happened.
And I know my fair share ofJacks, Like that's a thing, like
(07:03):
why are we saying and same obviouslyas a lawyer, my fair share of
Wills, and so I don't seeanything wrong with it at all. And
then as long as there's this discourseabout everyone who is not the trade right
and sort of the white male privilege, like that's a huge part of why
Ellen was able to get canceled andtanked, and like the world wasn't ready
(07:23):
for a lesbian to carry us intomainstream, right, But attractive white CIS
men with attractive CIS women by theirside, that's something much more palatable.
So there's misogymy and privilege and allof the things like mixed into that.
But at the end of the day, it was much more good than bad.
(07:46):
Yeah, And I think the otheraspect of it is is the show
good? Is it funny? Andwhile I enjoyed Ellen, it wasn't the
most amazing funny show that I've everseen. And so I think that if
perhaps, and I could be wrong, and this is just my opinion,
perhaps if it had been a funniershow, a better written show, it
(08:07):
might have had more success. Certainly, Will and Grace is a very well
written and very well directed show.I remember as I saw that YouTube documentary
James Burrows, who's this producer anddirector of like all the mainstream shows that
you could ever like Cheers for instance, he was he was a brought on
(08:28):
to be directing the first shows.And so you get someone who's like amazing
like that, and and a showthat's so funny that makes you laugh,
then that's going to really help makea show successful and help people be more
accepting I think in the end.And I think what's what's pretty cool is
(08:52):
that President Biden who had said thathe came around to support marriage equality because
of Will and Grace. So youcan't get more impactful, yeah, impactful
than that. And in fact,around that time the tide started to change
(09:13):
where more Americans than not supported marriageequality. And that was around the time.
And certainly, you know, thereare a lot of different factors,
but I would say that Will andGrace definitely had a very important contribution to
making that change. Societal norms,right are a powerful force, and TV
(09:37):
it has been proven time and again, study after study that television shows change
how people think. That's the kindof influence that a show like Will and
Grace had on the United States ofAmerica for the good for positives right.
And Biden just happened to say itallowed right like Obama didn't specifically say what
(10:00):
made him evolve, right, justthat he evolved. And then you have
to love Joe Biden that he's willingto admit that the TV show changes.
I know, right, Well,you know, representation is so so critical.
I know that as I was growingup, anytime I saw a woman
in like some groundbreaking position of leadershipor whatever. I responded to that when
(10:24):
I saw the first time, asI was growing up being biracial, I
saw a talk show and there arebiracial kids or they were adults being interviewed,
and it's up until that point,I thought, oh my god,
I'm the only person who is mebecause I was in a largely all white
neighborhood, grew up in mostly allwhite neighborhoods for the most part, and
(10:48):
so I really didn't see myself reflected. So when I saw that for the
first time, I thought, ohmy god, there are other people like
me that exist. And certainly thatwas true for Will and Grace that people
all are the country. We're ableto see themselves somewhat reflected in some way,
and they've often The cast is oftensaid that they got tons of letters
(11:09):
from young people who said, ohmy gosh, you know, somewhere out
in you know, Uscaloosa, Montana, you know, some kid looked at
Will and Grace and said, youknow, I'm not alone. There is
someone who who I can identify with. Condolisa Rice said that about she is
passionate about mentoring because there were actuallyno women of color and positions of power
(11:35):
like she aspired to be. Therewere only black men, which very few,
you know then. But and thenas she became condolisa Rice to to
mentor other black young women to say, you two can be, you know,
secretary of State. And in similarly, Sandra oh right in playing in
(11:56):
that movie The Big Red right,a movie about coming of age, about
getting your period and with an Asianfamily, and Sandra O is just like
it. I cried, like tobe able to play this, to be
able to make this movie, andto play this role as an Asian woman
(12:18):
like I never grew up seeing myselfin the movies, let alone a movie
all about us and coming of age. And you know, so representation just
for the community being represented is huge. And then having something be mainstream like
that like a television show, andthe impact on our brains as a society,
(12:41):
and how it shapes societal norms tothe point of yeah, I mean
it allows like like Rosio Donald said, you know, people in Montana may
never have met a gay person,but they come in you know, for
years they've been allowing me into theirliving room, and now will they not
tune in at four o'clock because theynow know or will they say, Okay,
(13:01):
I like her and she's gay.Okay, interesting, right, and
so then that puts a thought processand someone who is otherwise homophobic, like
it gets them thinking, but Ireally like Rosie. But obviously with Will
and Grace it was like to yourpoint of the rough start to come full
circle. They're the rough start thatthey had, right. It took I
(13:22):
think, like you said as wellwith Burrows, and it had to be
a great show, and there wasprobably so much pressure on the set,
like the odds are stacked against us. People aren't necessarily going to want to
watch this. The show must beamazing in and of itself. And then
I think they gained converts as theywent. Yeah, well, Will and
(13:43):
Grace definitely broke some ground and hadsomething to do I think with a change
and evolving attitude of the American people. Andelie, DM polo. If people
want to know more about the workthat you do at Philly Gay Lawyer,
how did they find out more?Sure, they can go to lawyer dot
lgbt Okay, it's a very simple. Lawyer dot lgbt be can call my
(14:07):
office at two one five six fourfifteen. Fantastic. Well, we'll be
back again same time next month totalk about other issues related to the lgbt
qi A community, but in theend affect us all. But I want
to thank you. I want tothank you for giving your platform. That's
what you mentioned at the beginning,you did when we started this, you
(14:28):
know, eight or nine years ago. It's it's platforms like this that then
bring this information to mainstream America thatwouldn't otherwise hear it, that like Will
Engrace then may have an impact onshaping someone's thoughts who heard this here today.
So in you're very in your ownway, you know, being the
(14:50):
microcosm that was Will in Grace righthere. Well, thank you, Angelo
Gianpolo, Angelo Gianpolo, founder,Philly Gay lawyer, and lgbt qi A
plus activists. Thanks. I thinkWill and Grace probably did more to educate
the American public than almost anything anybody'sever done so far.
Joining me as she will be doingonce a month every month once again is
the fabulous Angelo gian Polo, founderof Philly Gay Lawyer and an lgbt QIA
activist. And that's a lot ofa lot of letters. They have increased
since we first started doing all ofthis. But I thought it would be
very important and useful for all ofus to have a voice in this community.
(00:25):
We are going to talk about alot of very serious and weighty topics,
but today I thought it might befun to talk about the impact of
Will and Grace on popular culture andon lgbt QI rights and marriage equality.
Thank you for joining us once again. We were doing this on the regular
and now we're going to start doingit again. So really great to have
(00:48):
you back. So tell us whatwas when Will and Grace first came on.
What was your thoughts on the program? Well, loved it, right,
but university is part of your introlike saying that, you know,
we'll discuss weighty topics, you know, but what we'll start with this like
some would say, and I wouldsay that Will and Grace had huge impacted
(01:11):
rather the LGBTQ community over the lasttwo decades, and more so than shows
like Queer as Folk or The lWord, which were a little race here
and played late at night and onshowtime right where not everybody had those shows.
But Will and Grace was prime time. And so the impact that it
was able to have, I think, you know, it's huge. But
(01:33):
so what did I think when itcame on? I it made me happy.
It was like it was like thetrue gay version of the Golden Girls,
Like up until then, we allhad the Golden Girls, right,
you know, and it's like,oh my god, now we have Will
and Grace. Like it really hada normalizing effect on me at that age,
you know, forty two now,so it goes back like twenty twenty
(01:55):
twenty five years, so sort ofat the prime right, So it had
a internal, internalizing, normalizing impacton me personally. And then it was
also something for my friends and Ito talk about that the LGBTQ community,
for us to talk about weeks week. So I remember it vividly and only
(02:15):
smiles. So you just loved whenit came up. I think you made
a really good point because there wereshows that had lgb TQ leads on it,
but really none that had a massaudience like Will and Grace did.
And the precursor to that, andlet's talk about that a little bit was,
of course, Ellen Ellen de Genereshad a sitcom that and the initial
(02:38):
part of it really she played portrayedessentially a straight woman. But at some
point during the course of the showshe made that very momentous decision to come
out on this program, not onlyon this program, but in her life.
She made Time magazine and then rightafter that, the show's ratings really
(03:00):
hanged, and that made a lotof network executives very scared about going back
to the well and approving a showlike Will and Grace. So there was
a lot of struggle that came aroundgetting people to agree to doing it.
And there's a wonderful YouTube feature aboutthe history of Will and Grace that if
(03:21):
you google it, I'm sure youcan find it. But it was they
had some struggle, but they wereable to eventually get it on the air,
but it had a little bit ofa rocky beginning. It didn't wasn't
a ratings powerhouse initially, though eventuallyit did become one, and even in
the gay community, there were somequestions about it about so called stereotyping and
(03:44):
certain aspects of it that they feltweren't totally representational. These are issues that
were addressed, But I was wonderingwhat you thought about about the portrayals in
the show before that, like justabout Ellen and generally, like, I
still think that that paved the way. Like while it caused concern and probably
(04:08):
had execs take a step back andmaybe not want to fund certain things or
green light certain things at certain times, it's still paved the way. And
Laura Dern, right was her loveinterest on the show when she came out,
and Laura Dern's career tanked, justas the straight actor you know who
(04:28):
happened to play the part of thecharacter that Ellen had a love interest in
on that show. So I thinkthat moment in time is important. And
then Rosie o'donald came out, right, and then Rosie o'donald came out,
and then Ellen went on the RosieShow, right, And I'll never forget
because it chills as you were talking, you know, about Ellen's coming out.
(04:49):
I remember that. I remember sittingon the couch and just jaw drop
and everything, and you know,and Rosie said, between me and you
sitting here, there's no one whodoesn't know it gay person, and there's
no one who can't say that,especially with her show, the Rosie O'donna
show, that they don't that agay person doesn't come into their living room
(05:09):
every day, right, Like twentymillion people watch my show. So it
began what Harvey Milk had started backin the seventies of like, we must
come out, because if we comeout, then people can say we know
somebody, like wow, I loveI loved Rosie, like you're willing to
say you loved her before she cameout, but now you no longer,
(05:30):
right, So, and then WillingGrace comes on the scene, and I
was okay with the portrayal. Ifeel like there are some there are always
people we make up like you sortof alluded to it at the beginning.
The lgbt QI a two plus rightcommunity that is a lot of identities under
the rainbow. And so to havethe sort of effeminate gay mail, you
(05:55):
know, portrayed along with sort ofthe more straight acting gay mail, right,
and he happens to be a lawyerand the other one just you know,
it's just like the portrayals were generalizations, but the idea was to appeal
to mainstream America. That's not thetime or place to get super And this
is also we're talking twenty five yearsago, right, So for what it
(06:17):
was right now, there's the showsthat we have on TV. Now,
you're never talking about all the differentshows you know that you're you're addicted to.
You know, they would never havehappened. But for this foundation being
laid, I feel like by willinggrace and to do so, you had
to portray characters that pretty much everyoneknew a Jack or someone worked with a
(06:41):
Will, right, and we're comfortableby those portrayals. There was nothing threatening,
and so it's much more good thanbad. Not for nothing, but
generalizations exist for a reason. Typicallygeneralizations come about because they generally happened.
And I know my fair share ofJacks, Like that's a thing, like
(07:03):
why are we saying and same obviouslyas a lawyer, my fair share of
Wills, and so I don't seeanything wrong with it at all. And
then as long as there's this discourseabout everyone who is not the trade right
and sort of the white male privilege, like that's a huge part of why
Ellen was able to get canceled andtanked, and like the world wasn't ready
(07:23):
for a lesbian to carry us intomainstream, right, But attractive white CIS
men with attractive CIS women by theirside, that's something much more palatable.
So there's misogymy and privilege and allof the things like mixed into that.
But at the end of the day, it was much more good than bad.
(07:46):
Yeah, And I think the otheraspect of it is is the show
good? Is it funny? Andwhile I enjoyed Ellen, it wasn't the
most amazing funny show that I've everseen. And so I think that if
perhaps, and I could be wrong, and this is just my opinion,
perhaps if it had been a funniershow, a better written show, it
(08:07):
might have had more success. Certainly, Will and Grace is a very well
written and very well directed show.I remember as I saw that YouTube documentary
James Burrows, who's this producer anddirector of like all the mainstream shows that
you could ever like Cheers for instance, he was he was a brought on
(08:28):
to be directing the first shows.And so you get someone who's like amazing
like that, and and a showthat's so funny that makes you laugh,
then that's going to really help makea show successful and help people be more
accepting I think in the end.And I think what's what's pretty cool is
(08:52):
that President Biden who had said thathe came around to support marriage equality because
of Will and Grace. So youcan't get more impactful, yeah, impactful
than that. And in fact,around that time the tide started to change
(09:13):
where more Americans than not supported marriageequality. And that was around the time.
And certainly, you know, thereare a lot of different factors,
but I would say that Will andGrace definitely had a very important contribution to
making that change. Societal norms,right are a powerful force, and TV
(09:37):
it has been proven time and again, study after study that television shows change
how people think. That's the kindof influence that a show like Will and
Grace had on the United States ofAmerica for the good for positives right.
And Biden just happened to say itallowed right like Obama didn't specifically say what
(10:00):
made him evolve, right, justthat he evolved. And then you have
to love Joe Biden that he's willingto admit that the TV show changes.
I know, right, Well,you know, representation is so so critical.
I know that as I was growingup, anytime I saw a woman
in like some groundbreaking position of leadershipor whatever. I responded to that when
(10:24):
I saw the first time, asI was growing up being biracial, I
saw a talk show and there arebiracial kids or they were adults being interviewed,
and it's up until that point,I thought, oh my god,
I'm the only person who is mebecause I was in a largely all white
neighborhood, grew up in mostly allwhite neighborhoods for the most part, and
(10:48):
so I really didn't see myself reflected. So when I saw that for the
first time, I thought, ohmy god, there are other people like
me that exist. And certainly thatwas true for Will and Grace that people
all are the country. We're ableto see themselves somewhat reflected in some way,
and they've often The cast is oftensaid that they got tons of letters
(11:09):
from young people who said, ohmy gosh, you know, somewhere out
in you know, Uscaloosa, Montana, you know, some kid looked at
Will and Grace and said, youknow, I'm not alone. There is
someone who who I can identify with. Condolisa Rice said that about she is
passionate about mentoring because there were actuallyno women of color and positions of power
(11:35):
like she aspired to be. Therewere only black men, which very few,
you know then. But and thenas she became condolisa Rice to to
mentor other black young women to say, you two can be, you know,
secretary of State. And in similarly, Sandra oh right in playing in
(11:56):
that movie The Big Red right,a movie about coming of age, about
getting your period and with an Asianfamily, and Sandra O is just like
it. I cried, like tobe able to play this, to be
able to make this movie, andto play this role as an Asian woman
(12:18):
like I never grew up seeing myselfin the movies, let alone a movie
all about us and coming of age. And you know, so representation just
for the community being represented is huge. And then having something be mainstream like
that like a television show, andthe impact on our brains as a society,
(12:41):
and how it shapes societal norms tothe point of yeah, I mean
it allows like like Rosio Donald said, you know, people in Montana may
never have met a gay person,but they come in you know, for
years they've been allowing me into theirliving room, and now will they not
tune in at four o'clock because theynow know or will they say, Okay,
(13:01):
I like her and she's gay.Okay, interesting, right, and
so then that puts a thought processand someone who is otherwise homophobic, like
it gets them thinking, but Ireally like Rosie. But obviously with Will
and Grace it was like to yourpoint of the rough start to come full
circle. They're the rough start thatthey had, right. It took I
(13:22):
think, like you said as wellwith Burrows, and it had to be
a great show, and there wasprobably so much pressure on the set,
like the odds are stacked against us. People aren't necessarily going to want to
watch this. The show must beamazing in and of itself. And then
I think they gained converts as theywent. Yeah, well, Will and
(13:43):
Grace definitely broke some ground and hadsomething to do I think with a change
and evolving attitude of the American people. Andelie, DM polo. If people
want to know more about the workthat you do at Philly Gay Lawyer,
how did they find out more?Sure, they can go to lawyer dot
lgbt Okay, it's a very simple. Lawyer dot lgbt be can call my
(14:07):
office at two one five six fourfifteen. Fantastic. Well, we'll be
back again same time next month totalk about other issues related to the lgbt
qi A community, but in theend affect us all. But I want
to thank you. I want tothank you for giving your platform. That's
what you mentioned at the beginning,you did when we started this, you
(14:28):
know, eight or nine years ago. It's it's platforms like this that then
bring this information to mainstream America thatwouldn't otherwise hear it, that like Will
Engrace then may have an impact onshaping someone's thoughts who heard this here today.
So in you're very in your ownway, you know, being the
(14:50):
microcosm that was Will in Grace righthere. Well, thank you, Angelo
Gianpolo, Angelo Gianpolo, founder,Philly Gay lawyer, and lgbt qi A
plus activists. Thanks. I thinkWill and Grace probably did more to educate
the American public than almost anything anybody'sever done so far.
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