Posts like this are the reason why I do this Know Your LGBT History. Once upon a time, it wasn't all Glee and Gaga on television for the lgbtq community.
I was just informed by a favorite site of mine, Box Turtle Bulletin, that this week marked the 37th anniversary of "Flowers of Evil," a controversial episode of the 1970s hit show Police Woman. I had already done a segment on this particular episode, but it warrants a repeat. From Box Turtle Bulletin:
When NBC’s hour-long action drama Police Woman starring Angie Dickinson began airing in 1974, was so popular that even its reruns in the spring and summer of 1975 ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings, making it the first successful police drama to feature a woman in the starring role. Dickinson’s unabashed sex appeal, undoubtedly, played a far greater role in its success than the plot lines themselves. One particularly odious episode, “Flowers of Evil,” had Dickinson’s character, Sgt. Pepper Anderson, investigating a trio of lesbians who run a retirement home where they murdered and robbed their elderly residents. Positive portrayals — indeed, any portrayal — of gays and lesbians were extraordinarily rare, which made this episode particularly egregious. To add insult to injury, the Police Woman aired one month to the day after a similarly negative plot line appeared on ABC’s Marcus Welby, M.D., in which a child molester was portrayed as gay. Police Woman’s “Flowers of Evil” was originally scheduled to air on October 25, but after the National Gay Rights Task Force organized national protests which led some advertisers to pull their commercials, NBC pulled the episode for re-editing. But with the filming wrapped up, the edits were mostly cosmetic. After the episode aired on November 8, TV Guide called it “the single most homophobic show to date.” A week later, a group known as Lesbian Feminist Liberation occupied NBC’s Standards and Practices office overnight, unfurled a banner from an office window reading “Lesbians Protest NBC.” Advocates continued to negotiate with NBC for several more months, and NBC finally agreed in 1975 to not rebroadcast the episode and withhold it from syndication. The “Flowers of Evil” episode re-appeared again, but this time in the Season 1 DVD box setafter more than thirty years had passed, where in today’s context it can be safely viewed as a historic and cultural artifact.
I just happen to have a copy of that DVD box. However, for your edification, you can view the minisode of the episode above. And yes, it's ain't pretty.
Past Know Your LGBT Posts: .
Know Your LGBT History - The Best Way To Walk
Know Your LGBT History - The Jackal
Know Your LGBT History - A Cage Without A Key
Know Your LGBT History - In & Out
Know Your LGBT History - 'The Fabulous Gays' of Steambath
Know Your LGBT History - Bound
Know Your LGBT History - Gay characters from children's television show and movies
Know Your LGBT History - Gay documentaries, past and present
Know Your LGBT History - The Hotel New Hampshire
Know Your LGBT History - The Crying Game
Know Your LGBT History - Set It Off
Know Your LGBT History - The Wedding Banquet
Know Your LGBT History - Bachelor Party
Know Your LGBT History - Starsky and Hutch
Know Your LGBT History - The Naked Civil Servant
Know your LGBT History - Partners
Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family: Cousin Liz
Know Your LGBT History - Rebecca
Know Your LGBT History - urban African-American movies
Know Your LGBT History - Charles Pierce
Know Your LGBT History - Torch Song Trilogy
The Best of Know Your LGBT History
Know Your LGBT History - Masters of Horror - Sick Girl
Know Your LGBT History - MadTV
Know Your LGBT History - Gimme A Break
Know Your LGBT History - Not Another Gay Movie
Know Your LGBT History - My Beautiful Laundrette
Know Your LGBT History - The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Know Your LGBT History - I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Know Your LGBT History - The Gay Deceivers
Know Your LGBT History - Reflections in a Golden Eye
Know Your LGBT History - Dynasty
Know Your LGBT History - Milk
Know Your LGBT History - Black Shampoo
Know Your LGBT History - Never Too Young To Die
Know Your LGBT History - All About Eve
Know Your LGBT History - Hotel
Know Your LGBT History - The Streets of San Francisco
Know Your LGBT History - Two looks at transgender characters in films
Know Your LGBT History - Flawless
Know Your LGBT History - Mahogany
Know Your LGBT History - Beverly Hills Cop
Know Your LGBT History - Some Like It Hot
Know Your LGBT History - Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia
Know Your LGBT History - Dirty Laundry
Know Your LGBT History - The Willie Witch Project
Know Your LGBT History - Spartacus
Know Your LGBT History - Caged
Know Your LGBT History - The Birdcage
Know Your LGBT History - Maude
Know Your LGBT History - That Certain Summer
Know Your LGBT History - Boat Trip
Know Your LGBT History - Staircase
Know Your LGBT History - Beautiful Thing
Know Your LGBT History - Armed and Dangerous
Know Your LGBT History - The Proud Family
Know Your LGBT History - Suddenly Last Summer
Know Your LGBT History - Gay TV Now
Know Your LGBT History - Stewardess School
Know Your LGBT History - Up the Academy
Know Your LGBT History - Don't be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
Know Your LGBT History - A Different Story
Know Your LGBT History - Victim
Know Your LGBT History - The Color Purple
Know Your LGBT History - Making Love
Know Your LGBT History - A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
Know Your LGBT History - Noah's Arc
Know Your LGBT History - Ode to Billy Joe
Know Your LGBT History - Adorable Adrian Adonis
Know Your LGBT History - The Night Strangler
Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family
Know Your LGBT History - Tongues Untied
Know Your LGBT History - The Celluloid Closet
Know Your LGBT History - Querelle
Know Your LGBT History - Theatre of Blood
Know Your LGBT History - Strange Fruit
Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women
Know Your LGBT History - The Children's Hour
Know Your LGBT History - Sylvester
Know Your LGBT History - Once Bitten
Know Your LGBT History - The Boys in the Band
Know Your LGBT History - Christopher Morley, the crossdressing assassin
Know Your LGBT History - Midnight Cowboy
Know Your LGBT History - Dracula's Daughter
Know Your LGBT History - Blacula
Know Your LGBT History - 3 Strikes
Know Your LGBT History - Paris Is Burning
Know Your LGBT History - The Women
Know your LGBT History - Soul Plane
Know Your LGBT History - The Player's Club
Special Know Your LGBT History - Fame
Know Your LGBT History - Welcome Home, Bobby
Know Your LGBT History - Barney Miller
Know your lgbt history - The Jerry Springer Show
Know your lgbt history - Martin Lawrence and that 'gay guy' on his show
Know your lgbt history - The Ricki Lake Show
Know your lgbt history - Which Way Is Up
Know your lgbt history - Gays in Primetime Soaps
Know your lgbt history - Boys Beware
Know your lgbt history - The Boondocks
Know your lgbt history - Mannequin
Know your lgbt history - The Warriors
Know Your LGBT History - New York Undercover
Know Your LGBT History - Low Down Dirty Shame
Know Your LGBT History - Fortune and Men's Eyes
Know your lgbt history - California Suite
Know your lgbt history - Taxi (Elaine's Strange Triangle)
Know your lgbt history - Come Back Charleston Blue
Know your lgbt history - James Bond goes gay
Know your lgbt history - Windows
Know your lgbt history - To Wong Foo and Priscilla
Know your lgbt history - Blazing Saddles
Know your lgbt history - Sanford and Son
Know your lgbt history - In Living Color
Know your lgbt history - Cleopatra Jones and her lesbian drug lords
Know your lgbt history - Norman, Is That You?
Know your lgbt history - The 'Exotic' Adrian Street
Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys
Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy
Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George
Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda
'Know your lgbt history - Cruising
Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones
Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up
Know your lgbt history - Fright Night
Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil
The Jeffersons and the transgender community
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