Channel 4 announc 50 Shas of Gay season markg the 50th anniversary of the partial-crimalisatn of homosexualy England and Wal
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CHANNEL 4 LED THE GAY REVOLUTN TV
Owen Jon’s celebratn markg 20 years sce the excellent seri Queer as Folk was first televised (Journal, 28 Febary) suggts that was this groundbreakg programme that transformed gay reprentatn on Brish fact, the radil change happened the 1980s on Channel 4. And this year is the 30th anniversary of C4’s Out on Tuday (later OUT), the world’s first worked televisn seri aimed at a lbian and gay dience.
It ran between 1989 and 1994 and was the culmatn of work done by a lot of lbians and gay men – mpaigners, journalists, dividuals and a very small number of workg televisn – for more posive and more regular reprentatn of on journey towards airg the programm was a bumpy ri – volvg qutns parliament, a mpaign by anti-permissive-society activist Mary Whehoe and tabloid newspaper hysteria – and all unfold as part of the rponse of the gay and lbian muny to the Aids crisis and the dranian sectn 28 anti-gay groundbreakg productns that changed broadstg culture happened across more than a om C4’s ceptn 1982. From One Five 1983 through My Betiful Lndrette, In the Pk and Out on Tuday to Dyke TV 1994, our screens were opened up to gay stori. The rpons of the lns of lbians and gay men who watched the programm were much like Owen’s “joyful revelatn” impact broadstg was felt at the BBC, which started to missn s own gay and lbian seri, and the groundwork was laid for all the wonrful dramas and documentari that followed later years, cludg Queer as Folk.
None of the would have happened whout the 1980s gay revolutn TV. And yet, for s, lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer people rarely ever saw displays of affectn. It may appear quat now, when we have TV seri like Hulu’s Love, Victor (about a Latx teen explorg sexual fluidy) or Netflix’s Bondg (about sex work and alternative sexualy), but the great gay panic set off by Ellen DeGener g out on her s 1997 was a bombshell that didn’t necsarily nvce the works that they’d open the gat to LGBTQ experienc.
C4 ANNOUNC NEW SEASON, 50 SHAS OF GAY
Luckily Will & Grace buted 1998 and the groundbreakg NBC seri nvced many that gay people might not be so toxic (and wouldn’t sre off advertisers) — so much so that Vice Print Joe Bin later creded wh changg his md about same-sex marriage. Dpe the fact that lns of Amerins wnsed two men raise a happy and healthy dghter om the fort of their livg room sofas, took a fan mpaign to lobby Disney-owned ABC to fally allow Mchell (gay actor Jse Tyler Fergon) and Cameron (straight actor Eric Stontreet) to kiss ( fally happened 2010).
For years, ranged, perverse, and spible homosexuals were on full display — pecially om Ryan Murphy, who remas our most proment culture czar when to queer characters on TV. But he’s also supplied at least one murro (ghostly) gay man on Amerin Horror Story and too many crazi on Nip/Tuck to unt. From the Roy Cohn-flected Army-McCarthy heargs — which was the first time many people heard the word “homosexual” uttered on TV — through the “don’t ask, don’t tell” Neti, that clud The Goln Girls and Digng Women, to our current glter-and-glam era of RuPl’s Drag Race and almost-anythg-go pansexualy.
When her straight male roommate’s twentysomethg girliend, Francis, qutns why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she has sex wh both men and women, Leila tells her ’s plited bee ’s “a gay thg.” Francis rponds: “So? Adapted om gay director Jt Simien’s breakout film of the same name, about black llege stunts g to terms wh a “post-racial Ameri,” the seri explor them of race, genr, and sexualy by skewerg jt about everyone for hypocrisy and double standards.