It seemed like a good ia at the time. But the plan to put a posive gay character global TV h Dynasty soon fell short of s origal good tentns. Al Corley, who origally played the Carrgton dynasty’s homosexual son, left the show at the end of the send season. He plaed about “the
Contents:
- DYNASTY’S JOURNEY OM GAY PANIC TO GAY PRI
- TELEVISN: DYNASTY’S DISMAL GAY CHARACTER
- 'DYNASTY' STAR GORDON THOMSON COM OUT AS GAY
DYNASTY’S JOURNEY OM GAY PANIC TO GAY PRI
The TV show Dynasty featured a gay in (and her son).
But for years, spe the show’s anythg-go nature, there was one thg that Dynasty uldn’t get away wh: showg a happy homosexual. Puttg a gay man on one of the most inic and popular shows of the was a long, multi-year fight — both on-screen and behd-the-scen — but was nothg pared to the battle took to keep him there. The story of Dynasty’s ntroversial gay son starts back 1979 wh, of all thgs, the oil crisis.
And the son, Steven, who’s hidg his homosexualy om his nservative dad. ” There had seldom been any recurrg gay characters on primetime TV — there was Jody on Soap, a fotten barfly on The Corner Bar, and gut-player Lori Shannon as Beverly LaSalle on All the Fay.
TELEVISN: DYNASTY’S DISMAL GAY CHARACTER
Dynasty’s pilot posns Steven ont and center, wh a climactic scene which Blake nonts his son about beg gay. He mands that Steven “straighten yourself out, ” hurls slurs at him, and sists that Steven never brg homosexualy to the hoe.
There was so much stigma around homosexualy then that for many queer people, was simply easier to acquice and pretend they’d gone straight — pecially around fay. Over the 1970s, there had been a steady rise gay characters, acpanyg the growg queer liberatn movement. ) But the rise gay visibily on televisn ran to a brick wall late 1980s wh the electn of Ronald Reagan.
There were over a dozen gay characters on TV 1979, but by 1981 there were almost none. He’d appeared on a gay-ish episo of The Love Boat a year earlier, and had lots of ias for where he uld take one of TV’s only gay characters.
'DYNASTY' STAR GORDON THOMSON COM OUT AS GAY
And then there was Newt Dieter, a gay muny lear who was often sought out by TV producers to vet their scripts. His job was to make sure Dynasty didn’t ploy any offensive trop; for example, he advoted for a rctn the number of f-slurs, as well as removal of the somewhat ls egreg phrase “gay schmay. So when this pilot fally aired, was wh a lot of liberate work on the part of creators, the producer, the actor, and even a gay muny lear to make sure they got the Steven character right.
And bee of the sudn reluctance to put gay characters on TV the wake of Reagan’s electn, Dynasty wound up beg one of the only shows of s time to even attempt a storyle like this. Dynasty eely showed Steven gettg gay bashed, he jt uldn’t have have a gay kiss.