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Contents:
- ‘ALL THE FAY’: INSI THE EARLY EPISO THAT CHALLENGED ARCHIE BUNKER’S VIEW OF GAY PEOPLE
- GAYT EPISO EVER: HOW ‘ALL THE FAY’ GAVE US OUR FIRST GAY S CHARACTER
‘ALL THE FAY’: INSI THE EARLY EPISO THAT CHALLENGED ARCHIE BUNKER’S VIEW OF GAY PEOPLE
In s earlit days, one of the ntroversial topics 'All the Fay' tackled was Archie Bunker's view of gay reprentatn. * archie bunker's place gay character *
One example is episo five, “Judgg Books by Covers, ” which prented an unexpected take on the subject of homosexualy — at a time that nobody was alg wh . The All the Fay wiki offers up this plot scriptn: “Archie thks he knows a homosexual when he se one and when Mike v his flamboyant photographer iend Roger (Anthony Geary) to the Bunker hoehold, Archie tomatilly assum that Mike’s iend is a “flamer. ” Retreatg to the safety of Kelcy’s Bar, Archie choos to spend time wh his “he-man” pals, notably his old arm-wrtlg crony Steve (Philip Carey), who, when hearg about Roger, reveals himself to be gay — which Archie never spected.
Televisn historian and thor Jim Colucci, who is currently -wrg wh Norman Lear a 50th-anniversary book voted to All the Fay, ments, “This was a brand new show g blazg out of the gate, bee if they were gog to tackle touchy issu 1971, gay reprentatn was certaly among the touchit.
Jim mentns that when he wrote his book Goln Girls Forever, he mented that the first regular gay character on televisn was the short-lived s The Corner Bar, which aired 1972. Gay liberatn and Stonewall had been 1969, so certaly was somethg the world was talkg about. And the gay muny had started to fd s very nascent voice, but wasn’t beg reprented mastream media and certaly not on televisn.
GAYT EPISO EVER: HOW ‘ALL THE FAY’ GAVE US OUR FIRST GAY S CHARACTER
* archie bunker's place gay character *
“Not only did they have gay reprentatn, but they also were breakg the harmful stereotyp that were the only thg that day and age people knew about gay people. In 1971 people probably thought all gay people were ty, feme, limp-wristed men wh lisps — jt all the stereotyp. While any stereotype has some tth, what the episo took pas to show is that never tells you whether Roger, Mike’s iend who wears the ast and is very boistero, and ee talks wh his hands, is gay or not.
But what do show is that the macho man, the nfirmed bachelor who’s an arm wrtler and big and beefy, and a former play player, whom Archie idoliz and hangs out wh the bar all the time, has been gay all the years. “So there was jt so much that the show did, ” Jim pots out, “to give reprentatn to a gay character, which would have been ground breakg enough, but also showed multi-dimensns to what beg gay meant. Not only that, gave Ameri s first gay s character — and que likely, the first LGBT character on a show of any kd that was portrayed sensively and posively.
In short, if you’re an otherwise pop culture-savvy gay guy who’s never seen an episo of All the Fay, at least know about this one. On Febary 9, 1971, jt five episos to All the Fay’s first season, “Judgg Books by Covers” turned Archie Bunker’s anger toward gay men — or as he lls them many tim throughout the episo, fags. While the episo begs wh Archie fumg that he has to teract wh his dghter’s effemate male iend, he’s shocked later on to fd out that Steve (Philip Carey), the manly ex-football player who hangs out at the lol bar, is himself gay.