Longtime TV cric Dan Avery charts the history of gay, queer, and transgenr reprentatn popular Amerin seri om 1971 to today, om Ellen to Pose.
Contents:
- LBGTQ TV: A HISTORY OF GAY CHARACTERS, OM STONEWALL TO ‘BATWOMAN’
- 14 TV SHOWS THAT BROKE GROUND WH GAY AND TRANSGENR CHARACTERS
- TV'S GAY CHARACTERS, BEFORE AND AFTER ELLEN
- 10 MILTONE MOMENTS GAY TV HISTORY
- GAYT EPISO EVER: HOW ‘ALL THE FAY’ GAVE US OUR FIRST GAY S CHARACTER
- BILLY CRYSTAL PORTRAYED FIRST OPENLY GAY MA CHARACTER ON TV — SI THE 'SOAP' STORY
LBGTQ TV: A HISTORY OF GAY CHARACTERS, OM STONEWALL TO ‘BATWOMAN’
Gay characters the post-Stonewall era go a lot wir and eper than ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘Ellen.’ * first gay sitcom character *
As a Vulture say about a groundbreakg “All the Fay” episo noted, “In a moment where crics pot to ss as a medium that helped change public opns about gay rights, we should remember that the procs didn’t beg wh ‘Will & Grace’ or ‘Glee. Long before that, though, there were signature, cludg the 1971 episo of “All the Fay” which the bigoted, homophobic Archie Bunker was stunned to disver that an old buddy was gay. In 1972, Hal Holbrook played a divorced dad hidg the fact he was gay om his son “That Certa Summer, ” nsired one of the first sympathetic pictns of gay characters on televisn.
The 1980s brought AIDS to the nversatn, wh movi such as “An Early Frost, ” an NBC movie about a gay lawyer who mt break the news about his AIDS diagnosis to his parents. The same thg happened when ABC’s “thirtysomethg” beme the first seri to pict two gay men bed together 30 years ago, a dynamic that ed work officials to thk twice about approvg such storyl. 1/48CBS1971: All the FayAll the Fay ma LGBT history when troduced the first gay character primetime 1971, revealg that Archie Bunker's bar buddy Steve was gay.
14 TV SHOWS THAT BROKE GROUND WH GAY AND TRANSGENR CHARACTERS
Univisn ma history this week when aired<a href="; target="external"> a same-sex weddg</a> on the telenovela "Amor Verdaros" ("Te Lov"). It's the first weddg of s kd (the, you know, same-sex kd) to be aired on the work. * first gay sitcom character *
4/48YouTube1975: Hot l BalmoreThe Norman Lear s starrg Jam Cromwell, Charlotte Rae and Conchata Ferrell had perhaps the first pictn of a gay uple on an Amerin TV seri.
10/481992: One Life to LiveIn 1992, the world met One Life to Live's Billy Douglas, played by a young Ryan Phillippe, the first gay teen character on daytime TV.
12/48ABC1994: My So-Called LifeWhile One Life to Live had s first gay teen 1992, primetime's first openly gay teen seri regular character me to My So-Called Life's Enrique "Rickie" Vasquez, played by Wilson Cz.
TV'S GAY CHARACTERS, BEFORE AND AFTER ELLEN
The gayt s of the may not have been 'Ellen' or 'Will & Grace.' * first gay sitcom character *
15/481997: Ellen"The Puppy Episo" of Ellen featured Ellen Man (Ellen DeGener) g out as gay, the same time the star me out on the ver of Time magaze, makg Ellen the first show to feature an openly lbian actrs playg an openly lbian character. 22/48CBS2007: As the World TurnsMen were kissg primetime long before daytime fally got on board, but the soaps ught up 2007 when As the World Turns featured the first-ever gay kiss between two male characters, Le Snyr (Van Hansis) and Noah Mayer (Jake Silbermann). 16, 2017Last year was a remarkable time when me to the reprentatn of gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr or queer regular characters on televisn, acrdg to the latt Glaad report monorg diversy on the small screen.
People, or beg able to help people unrstand who we are, pecially those tim when so many people lived hidn and visible, ” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the print and chief executive of Glaad (formerly known as the Gay & Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn). 1972 — ‘THAT CERTAIN SUMMER’ A divorced father (Hal Holbrook) his his lover (Mart Sheen) om his teenage son Lamont Johnson’s movie for ABC, nsired the first sympathetic pictn of gay people on televisn.
10 MILTONE MOMENTS GAY TV HISTORY
Back 1977, actor and edian Billy Crystal stunned dienc when he portrayed the first openly ga ma character a TV seri, "Soap." and opened the way for gay ins like Ellen DeGener * first gay sitcom character *
”)1977 — ‘SOAP’ In this ABC s, Billy Crystal plays Jodie Dallas — a gay man havg an affair wh a famo quarterback and ntemplatg genr-reassignment surgery — who be one of the first gay dads on televisn. ]1985 — ‘AN EARLY FROST’ A Chigo lawyer (Aidan Qun) returns home to reveal to his parents that he’s gay and has AIDS this NBC movie by John Erman, settg the stage for feature films like Jonathan Demme’s “Philalphia. 1994 — ‘MY SO-CALLED LIFE’ In the episo “Life of Brian, ” this ABC drama about high school angst als wh young gay love when Rickie (Wilson Cz) velops a csh on his new classmate, Corey (Adam Bik).
GAYT EPISO EVER: HOW ‘ALL THE FAY’ GAVE US OUR FIRST GAY S CHARACTER
* first gay sitcom character *
2009 — ‘MODERN FAMILY’ This ABC s — featurg a gay uple, Mchell (Jse Tyler Fergon) and Cameron (Eric Stontreet), and their adopted dghter, Lily (Aubrey Anrson-Emmons), as part of a larger fay — “is geni the way tegrat edy and cln, and is able to te and open people’s hearts and mds, ” Ms. Ellen Man wasn't the first gay character on TV, but her g out on the ABC s Ellen, followg star Ellen DeGener' own claratn — "Yep, I'm gay" — on the ver of Time magaze, opened the door to portrayg them more openly and more often.
A list of some of TV's more important gay characters, before and after Ellen: Bewched: Pl Lyn plays Uncle Arthur, who wasn't gay then — but probably would be now. (1977)Love, Sidney: Tony Randall as a nfirmed bachelor who was gay the TV movie Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Bt Friend, but whose sexualy beme ambiguo the follow-up TV seri.
(1989)20-year flashback: Ellen DeGener me out, and paved the way for more gay TV rolMelrose Place: Matt Fieldg (Doug Savant), who's gay, is the only person on this sexy soap opera who never seemed to have sex. (1999)Queer as Folk: Gale Harold's Brian and Randy Harrison's Jt are among the more proment characters this Showtime seri about gay men Ptsburgh, adapted om a (much better) Brish seri. (2009)Morn Fay: Wh Mch and Cam (Jse Tyler Fergon and Eric Stontreet), no show has ever done more to fully rporate a gay uple to a fay story and normalize their relatnship and, later, marriage.
BILLY CRYSTAL PORTRAYED FIRST OPENLY GAY MA CHARACTER ON TV — SI THE 'SOAP' STORY
He was one of the first gay men livg wh AIDS to be featured on televisn, and what’s more, his mment ceremony to boyiend Sean Sasser was the first same-sex unn broadst on televisn.
More notably, though, was the first hour-long Amerin show to foc solely on the liv of LGBTQ+ people, makg one of the most groundbreakg gay TV shows on this & Grace (1998–2006, 2017–2020)AF archive / Alamy Stock PhotoWill & Grace don’t have any firsts, really. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2001)©20thCentFox/Courty Everett CollectnEven though dulg the Bury Your Gays trope, Willow and Tara will forever be a major tone reprentg young lbian upl. To be hont, ’s still rehg 2022—a time when gay TV seri still, for the most part, center characters who are whe, cisgenr, and the World Turns (1956–2010)When Le (Van Hansis) and Noah (Jake Silbermann) smooched a 2007 episo of this long-nng soap opera, ma history as daytime TV’s first gay kiss.