'As a Black, Gay Physician, I've Survived In Ameri By Embracg My Anger'

Contents:

• GAYS THE MILARY
• 'AS A BLACK, GAY PHYSICIAN, I'VE SURVIVED IN AMERI BY EMBRACG MY ANGER'
• GAYS THE MILARY

GAYS THE MILARY

Michael Jackson performed durg termissn of the next year’s Super Bowl, and high-profile mil acts have headled halftime shows of the big game ever Wayans and Grier implied that Richard Gere and Carl Lewis were gay, both men got upset. Wayans and Grier’s portrayal of two flamboyant gay men criqug var subjects was a lgh rt and a staple of the show.

How uld there be, wh a rtrant lled Chez Whey, a physilly challenged superhero, Handiman, and two gay reviewers, Blane Edwards (Damon Wayans) and Anton Merriwether (David Alan Grier) who vered film, TV, and vatns where they kept returng to Greece. It was one of In Livg Color’s most monly occurrg sks, but s pictn of homosexuals ntaed a ep unrcurrent of homophobia to them. The humor found this sk is fely left to a bygone time, and n be embarrassg to see evoked today; take Marlon Wayans’ pictn of a gay Mart Luther Kg Jr.

You and Damon Wayans played two flamboyantly gay men. At the time, as far as I know, there were no out gay or trans/genrfluid st members.

'AS A BLACK, GAY PHYSICIAN, I'VE SURVIVED IN AMERI BY EMBRACG MY ANGER'

There was nothg that edy which I felt was homophobic gay hatred. If Livg Color were on now, I would hope that there would be more than one gay st members the show, and then they uld tackle this humor g their voice. Is there a lor that reprents gay people?

That clus the famo “Men on…” seri of sketch which two gay cultural crics played by Grier and Damon Wayans criqued film and televisn, among other thgs. “My personal polics, my personal knowledge of trans, gay, LGBTQ culture — I say that bee I’m tryg to get all the letters out — is different. But back then, I would say there was never any malice our portrayal of the gay men, at least om my perspective at that time.

GAYS THE MILARY

“The younger gay muny endorsed , and the olr, more nservative muny was like, ‘You don’t talk about that. “I thk that we have more rmatn about gay culture, so maybe we uld make even funnier…but like David said, the whole tent of the show was to clu everybody.

Tradnally, most LGBTQ characters on televisn were Whe, and the few Black gay characters were distorted stereotyp — feme, stuck tradnally female jobs, the source of humor about genr and genr rol or sequtered otherwise Whe televisual worlds. When lbian and gay characters were clud (there was virtually no discsn of bisexualy or trans people), they were stereotyped ritur: Gay men were “feme” and often had “women’s” reers such as hairdrser and terr signer, and lbians were “butch” bee they, prumably, wanted to be “men. ” One goal of the portrayals was to make lbian and gay inty visible to viewers, siar ways that race n often be read onto the the 1970s, the growg sophistitn of televisn ratgs systems dramatilly changed TV programmg.

And unlike earlier lbian and gay portrayals, the characters the shows were often dissociated om historil stereotyp, part reflectg a change public nscns after the 1969 Stonewall uprisg.

For example, a 1977 episo of the “Sanford and Son” spoff “Sanford Arms” featured Travis, a Black gay civil rights attorney who was a iend of one of the seri’ characters. In the episo “Phil’s Assertn School, ” Travis monstrated that (Black) gay men weren’t all effemate and, wh his job as an attorney (who ultimately end up helpg a seri star get out of a legal bd), that gay men uld have reers outsi the nf of “feme”, as nservative wds swept through the untry the 1980s and as AIDS (ially lled GRID: gay related immune ficiency) began to cimate gay muni, this progrs erod. Black gay characters, when they appeared on televisn at all, returned to beg more effemate.