Know your lgbt history - Gays in Primetime Soaps

I found this very interesting video on youtube which looks at a few of the gay characters in primetime soap operas and miniseries.

They include (commentary provided by the video's creator):

* CELEBRITY (February 1984 NBC miniseries based upon Tommy Thompson's novel - Joseph Bottoms plays a married and closeted Hollywood star whose son (played by a young River Phoenix) accidentally witnesses his love-making session with a male lover)


* DYNASTY (ABC's #1 program in America in the 1984/85 season - Jack Coleman reluctantly took over the role of the luxe soap's resident gay character Steven Carrington who got to profess his love for a young PR assistant played by William Campbell in January 1985)

* I'LL TAKE MANHATTAN (CBS' March 1987 miniseries based upon Judith Krantz's novel - Adam Storke is powerful Amberville family's youngest child who ends up being manipulated by a male model hired by his evil uncle to set up drugs in his studio - the awkward hug the scene ends with reflects how gay intimacy was shown at the time)

* MELROSE PLACE (Aaron Spelling's outrageously shameless soap opera - unlike his fellow bedhopping heterosexual Melrose complex tenants, the show's resident gay character played by Doug Savant finally got to kiss a man only in May 1994, more than 60 episodes into the show's run. Unfortunately, fearful of advertiser and affiliate backlash FOX censored the scene)

* DAWSON'S CREEK (The WB's teen drama finally broke new ground in 2000 when Kerr Smith who played the show's gay character Jack McPhee shared a kiss with a boy which ended up being the very first prime-time gay male kiss in the history of American television) NOTE: This clip is taken from the episode "Promicide" which aired in 2001 and features a later kiss, not the first gay male kiss which aired in 2000 (and can not be seen in this video).

* DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (In a post-Will & Grace TV world ABC's immensely popular dramedy continued to show gay characters in lighter tone, sending its troublemaking teen Andrew Van De Kamp proudly out of the closet)

* BROTHERS & SISTERS (ABC's critically-acclaimed star-studded family drama broke new ground in its 2nd season finale aired in May 2008 when its popular gay couple Kevin and Scotty tied the knot in a touching commitment ceremony).

Past Know Your LGBT History posts:
 
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

Catholic church covered up child sexual abuse and other Friday midday news briefs

Experts: Catholic church covered up child abuse - Hypocrisy alert! Marriage equality? A big no-no. The sexual abuse of children? Something that should be covered up.

Liberty Counsel: Releasing the 2009 “Naughty and Nice” list - Apparently the true meaning of Christmas is punishing retailers who don't specify the holiday as Christian to the Liberty Counsel's exact interpretations.

Christian Leaders Scapegoat Gays on Marriage - No #!@&

Changes ahead for sperm donors? - Potential problem for lgbts and I just know the religious right can't wait to get their hooks into this one.

Phony moralists show true colors with anti-Adam Lambert group

This Adam Lambert controversy is ridiculous - that's my take on it.

But some other folks are taking it very seriously. For example, there is a new facebook group called 1,000,000 to File an FCC Obscenity Complaint Against Adam Lambert!

Now these folks are shocked! Simply shocked about Adam Lamber's behavior at the American Music Awards. And they are so shocked that apparently they seem to want to be more shocking. Or at least more obscene than they think Lambert was. That is the gist one gets based on their comments, some which are below along with a little commentary by my humble self:

YAY! Good Morning America just CANCELLED Adam Lamberts scheduled performance due to the OUTRAGE from REAL families who make up the MAJORITY of their viewers! So SCREW YOU LAMBERT LOVIN HOMO'S! (I know. The "REAL families" comment unnerved me too. But not more than this person's ignorance. She failed to mention that CBS quickly snatched Lambert up, allowed him to perform, AND gave him a platform to comment about the controversy)

I just emailed ABC to let them know I filed an Obscenity complaint with the FCC and that my family and I will no longer buy their advertisers products or services and we will not watch ABC ever again if they continue this pro-homosexual agenda in their programming! (Well damn. She is on to us.)

 Hollywood is pretty much all a bunch of homo's spreading their gay ideaology while hatin on Christians! (It's awful to be insulted by someone who can neither spell nor is aware of the basics of good punctuation) 

I just got 12 more people to file an online complaint with the FCC against Adam Lambert for his obscene performance. I hope ABC get fined $50,000,000 for trying to shove the homosexual lifestyle onto our kids! These sick bastards! (That's right. Every child whose parents allow them to stay up late enough to watch television shows should be protected . . . but from whom)

And here is a favorite of mine. It is an answer back to a comment from someone calling the group out:

you have a real deep seated hatred towards Christians, where you raped by a priest? Is that why you hate Christians so much?

And why pick on just Adam Lambert:  

Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite (a chick with a DICK)! EWWWW! I will NOT be buying any of her albums or going to any of shim's concerts either! The same goes for that nasty fag Adam Lambert! 

So some people think that the appropriate way to hinder supposed obscenity is to engage in some of it themselves.  After this group is finished attacking Lambert for his actions, someone needs to call them out on theirs.

(Editor's note - Those comments were from the other day . Anyone venturing over to the site now would find a hilarious tug-of-war battle of comments between those who agree with the purpose of the group and those who think that the group is just plain silly.)

Now some may accuse me of unfairly publicizing this group but I don't see it that way. It's my belief that any chance we get to shine a light on how ignorant folks are regarding lgbts is a chance we should take full advantage of.

I don't know if this group will be successful. Maybe religious right groups will hook up with them, maybe the organizers will get a prime spot on Hannity or O'Reilly. Who knows and who cares.

But I say when those who claim to oppose you make themselves look ignorant, don't be so quick to break up the performance.