Jab Stockger, Toward a Gay Cricism, College English, Vol. 36, No. 3, The Homosexual Imagatn (Nov., 1974), pp. 303-311
Contents:
The crease the number of visible gay and trans people is sometim treated as a cursy or a e for ncern by crics, but ’s not a surprise. It’s normal. * in living color gay critics *
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.