That Gay Episo: ‘Roseanne’ Lnch A Low-Key Gay Revolutn | Decir

Contents:

• SARA GILBERT REVEALS SHE FIRST REALIZED SHE WAS GAY WHILE DATG FORMER 'ROSEANNE' -STAR JOHNNY GALECKI
• ROSEANNE BARR ARGU SHE N E GAY SLURS PRIVATE AS SHE CLAIMS SHE’S ‘QUEER’
• THAT GAY EPISO: ‘ROSEANNE’ LNCH A LOW-KEY GAY REVOLUTN

SARA GILBERT REVEALS SHE FIRST REALIZED SHE WAS GAY WHILE DATG FORMER 'ROSEANNE' -STAR JOHNNY GALECKI

) Then was Ellen DeGener on her eponymo ABC show—though she would later actually e out as a lbian, breakg down barriers and makg room for everyone om the gays of Will & Grace to the ridg, wng, losg, cheat', kissg, thkg, dreamg women of The L before them, and fely before the 's-hip-to-be-queer characters of Riverdale and Runaways, LGBTQ kids didn’t have many folks on TV or movi to mol themselv after.

” The list uld go on, but the ia is the same: people who don’t often get reprented media tend to attach themselv to someone that's close his book The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lbians on TV, Stephen Tropiano lls the “gay-straight” characters, people who may seem queer but are prented as straight. “There were no gay men or lbians livg next door to the Rirdos and the Kramns or wag to be rcued on Gilligan’s Island, ” Tropiano wr.

ROSEANNE BARR ARGU SHE N E GAY SLURS PRIVATE AS SHE CLAIMS SHE’S ‘QUEER’

“Gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenr characters didn’t appear suatn edi until the early 1970s. Around the same time, ss began to vote sgle-episo story l to mature subjects and them, such as racism, alholism, abortn, anti-Semism, and homosexualy.

THAT GAY EPISO: ‘ROSEANNE’ LNCH A LOW-KEY GAY REVOLUTN

Before ss like All the Fay, Barney Miller, and M h the airwav, gay viewers had to settle for shows exhibg a certa ‘gay appeal. A show like Murphy Brown or The Dick Van Dyke Show uld have gay-but-not characters whom queer dienc uld see themselv if they squted enough, but who never actually had to be gay, let alone sayg they were. Durg s nearly -long n, the show had several queer characters, Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) herself kissed a woman on-air a 1994 episo, and had one of the first-ever gay weddgs on primetime a year later when Leon (Mart Mull) married Stt (Fred Willard).

When he rpond, “I thought you were gog to tell me you were gay, ” she simply rpond, “Let's save somethg for halftime. ” When Roseanne retorts that the fay isn’t bigoted bee they’ve “already me to terms wh the fact that you were gay” her dghter quickly rponds “I’m not gay!

"Especially when 's like one gay llg another gay guy that. "I want to talk about that word that sham gay kids.