What the Reactn To Billy Crystal Tells Us About Gay Tolerance | Time

Contents:

• BILLY CRYSTAL PORTRAYED FIRST OPENLY GAY MA CHARACTER ON TV — SI THE 'SOAP' STORY
• WHAT THE REACTN TO BILLY CRYSTAL TELLS US ABOUT GAY TOLERANCE
• BILLY CRYSTAL: GAY SCEN ON TV GO 'TOO FAR'
• BILLY CRYSTAL CLARIFI GAY MENTS, SAYS GRAPHIC SEX OF ANY KD ON TV TICKS HIM OFF
• BILLY CRYSTAL SAYS GAY SCEN ON TV ARE ‘PHG IT’

BILLY CRYSTAL PORTRAYED FIRST OPENLY GAY MA CHARACTER ON TV — SI THE 'SOAP' STORY

Conservativ screamed and gays held their breath when satiril soap opera Soap premiered on September 13, 1977, th troducg the natn to Jodie Dallas, a gay man played by then-unknown Billy Crystal.

While the right was worried about nebulo "erodg moraly, " gays feared a stereotypil portrayal.

In many ways, was the gay groups's propheci that me te: Jodie's ial proclivy for drsg as a woman and his suicidal tennci f a pejorative mould, and later stori volvg heterosexual love weren't necsarily the most progrsive eher. While some actors would have shied away om a gay character, Crystal went at full-throttle --on stage and July of 1978, Crystal told the newspaper The Hour, "I get teased a lot about playg Jodie, but 's ually good-natured and don't bother me a b.

WHAT THE REACTN TO BILLY CRYSTAL TELLS US ABOUT GAY TOLERANCE

He jt wanted to make sure the motive wasn't rogatory: "I jt wouldn't want Jodie to kill for the wrong reason, like a homosexual rage. He would also later bee more fortable wh gay pri and would even show a suicidal lbian the lavenr honor of Crystal's urage, and celebratn of Jodie, who, as one of the first gay characters on primetime* laid the groundwork for generatns of LGBT characters, some even more stereotypil than he, here are five clips of Crystal dog his thg Soap.

BILLY CRYSTAL: GAY SCEN ON TV GO 'TOO FAR'

(*While Jodie's the most well-known early gay character, the short-lived 1972 show The Corner Bar featured actor Vcent Schiavelli as a gay man named Peter Panama. " At a time when homosexualy wasn't discsed, Jodie Dallas me out as would be nearly 20 years until Ellen DeGener' character on her s "Ellen" me out 1994 -- as did the edienne -- but Crystal's portrayal of the assured and openly gay Jodie paved the Crystal onstage at the 'The Comedians' panel discsn durg the Televisn Crics Associatn prs tou r 2015 Pasana, California | Source: Getty ImagMEET JODIE DALLASJodie Dallas was one of the characters of the hilar ABC s "Soap, " a farse based on the plex and outrageo plotl and dramatic twists and turns of the ever-popular daily soap gay Jodie was a televisn mercial director his twenti livg wh his mother, Mary Campbell. Jodie is love wh a pro footballer who is also gay, but ep the closet, and ends up turng his back on him out of fear of was only "Will & Grace" 1996 that another ma character a prime time TV program -- Eric McCormack's WIll -- is openly Crystal wh the st of "Soap" 1977 | Source: Wikimedia Commons/ ABC Televisn, Soap full st 1977, marked as public domaOut of speratn, Jodie has a one-night-stand wh a woman, and fathers a child.

Crystal revealed that he and the productn of "Soap" worked to make Jodie more realistic, and his stggl reflected many of the homosexual muny's challeng and are still valid today, more than 40 years TODAYThanks to Jodie, characters s and drama seri slowly me out of the closet.

BILLY CRYSTAL CLARIFI GAY MENTS, SAYS GRAPHIC SEX OF ANY KD ON TV TICKS HIM OFF

In the 80s "thirtysomethg" gay uple Rsell and Peter are shown layg chastely bed together -- but never seri like "Melrose Place" and "Friends" featured mor gay characters, but was only "Will & Grace" 1996 that another ma character a prime time TV program -- Eric McCormack's WIll -- is openly COMEDYCrystal, famo for his acute w and acerbic stand-up edy act went on to build an extremely succsful reer as an actor a seri of h edi, such as "Cy Slickers" alongsi Jack Palance who won the Osr for Bt Supportg Actor for his his many hs, Crystal unts "Analyze This, " wh the legendary Robert DeNiro, "Ameri's Sweethearts, " wh Julia Roberts, John Cack, and Cathere Zeta-Jon, and MIracle Max the cult fantasy, "The Prcs Bri. "Crystal immortalized some of the most quoted l of all tim cludg "men and women n't be iends, " but even Harry Burns didn't equal the massive impact his Jodie Dallas had on attus the may jt be that funnyman Billy Crystal's most endurg legacy is the life and tim of a slightly geeky gay man livg wh his mother, tryg to live a world tolerant of his differenc, and dog wh humor. Billy Crystal and Useful HomophobiaEven an actor who helped break down barriers for gay characters on televisn n still be grossed out by McNew/RtersTo unrstand jt how much progrs there's been when to pictns of gay people popular culture, helps to read part—part—of Billy Crystal’s ments at the Televisn Crics Associatn on Sunday.

Asked about his role on the ‘70s s Soap, he talked about how “ was awkward and was tough” to be the actor playg one of the first gay characters on work TV:I did ont of a live dience, and there were tim where I would say to Bob, “I love you, ” and the dience would lgh nervoly, bee, you know, ’s a long time ago, that I’d feel this anger. ”When some of the most-watched new work dramas of the past year (How to Get Away Wh Murr, Empire) promently feature gay characters, when one of the most popular ongog ss (Morn Fay) revolv around men married to each other, when an out gay man (Neil Patrick Harris) is enlisted to host the Osrs, 's good to remember when there was a time not too long ago when pictg any sort of same-sex affectn was met wh nervo lghter on 's not why Crystal's kickg up publicy right now, though. ’” The implitn as a lot of people saw : Crystal objects to the prence of gay love scen on quickly issued a statement sayg that he had been referrg to explic sex of all kds, heterosexual and not, and that he didn’t mean to imply that gay sex particular was beg “shove[d] our face.

”If Crystal says he didn't really want to sgle out gay stori on TV for rebe, there's no reason not to believe him. At TCA, he was asked a qutn about his specific experience playg a gay character. You n’t know his thought procs for sure, but appeared, at least, like “gay” was associated wh “gross” on some level to him.

BILLY CRYSTAL SAYS GAY SCEN ON TV ARE ‘PHG IT’

This is how homophobia often works—sidly, the gut rather than the tellect. And that's precisely why so many people thk 's important that pictns of gay life bee, to Crystal's disapproval, an "everyday thg"—to fight the socially graed attu that gay life is a recent terview, the edian Kev Hart said he didn’t thk he uld ever play a gay character bee his securi about how he’d be perceived would unrcut his performance.

Comg om another self-proclaimed iend of gay people, that’s a dishearteng remark for anyone who thks secury about sexualy part of the same phenomenon that discrimatn, suici, youth homelsns, and murr.

Crystal unwtgly seems to have provid somethg siar: A sign of how far gay acceptance has e, and how far has yet to go.

By now seems fairly clear that the ic actor Billy Crystal did not tend to sgle out gay sex scen his reply to a qutn this weekend about how unfortably graphic some televisn has bee. But set asi the sane ia that Crystal — the first straight actor to play an openly gay TV role on “Soap” back when was reer-lethal and tly cuttg edge — might be some sort of sex-negative homophobe. In fact, gay activists are as rponsible as anyone for the fact that a large swath of Amerins who thought they were OK wh gays are fdg themselv surprised by their own reactns to what they’re startg to see.

This is, after all, a civil rights movement that aggrsively worked for many years to downplay the mechanics of gay sexual behavr. The gay-rights ph may have started the 1960s and 1970s wh s pursu of the fundamental liberty to have nsensual sex wh whatever other adults one pleased and to break ee of tradnal genr rol, but morphed the 1980s to one that preached, rightly, that beg gay was about much more than mere sex. When gay male terurse particular beme equated the mds of lns wh the transmissn of AIDS, the bt optn was to -emphasize and stead make the se that our relatnships are the same every meangful way as straight on.

Every time anti-gay forc tried to gross out the natn by referencg the grty tails of, say, anal sex, gay advot would reply by accg them of beg secretly tillated by and obssed wh . Whenever some csty old ary hack would groe about gays beg naked showers or barracks wh straight soldiers, gay activists did everythg they uld to sist gay people are supernaturally pable of stiflg every fleetg sexual thought even when somethg attractive is before them.