The Coming Out Of Television: Does Visibility Equate To Acceptance?

In this paper, I am going to review some of the literature written on the media’s affect on attitudes towards homosexuality and also take you on a brief historical review of the milestones made for gays and lesbians on prime time television over the past several decades.

Can the media play a part in changing attitudes towards gays and lesbians? If so, what kinds of images are being put out to the American people? Many studies conducted on this topic would suggest that the media does have a strong influence in changing attitudes. Television, consumes so much of America’s time and by looking at the trends on the TV, one can easily see what is going on in society. That’s why the recent explosion of gay and lesbian visibility on television has become such a popular topic

The 70’s was also a time when Gay TV was created as a reaction to the general lack of gay-oriented programming on network television. Except for occasional made for television movies, and the occasional character in a sitcom or dramatic series, gay men and lesbians were still rarely seen on television. But, as cable companies spread across the country, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that a number of channels be reserved for public access, therefore giving gays and lesbians a vehicle for more visibility. (Closs p 467)

December 2002, the soap opera, All My Children was the first to include a major, continuing homosexual role, in which Bianca Montgomery, played by Eden Riegel, begins to realize she is a lesbian and struggles with coming out. The television program, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, broke new ground when they portrayed a gradually developing relationship between two leading characters. This is believed to be the first instance on television where a developing same-sex relationship has been accurately portrayed by two main continuing characters in a series. On February 14th, 2002, Rosie O’Donnel’s sexual orientation is revealed on the women’s program, The View. (ibid)

The following year, marks another step forward when ABC’s made for television movie, That Certain Summer, actually showed two gay men touching each other on the shoulder, and none of the gay characters had to die at the end of the story in some tragic way. The popular sitcom Soap, also had a gay character played by the comic actor, Billy Crystal. But there again, this show portrayed the gay character as comic relief and wasn’t taken seriously. But still television was taking several steps forward.

Homosexuality was not going away, and just a few years following Stonewall, network television’s first sympathetic portrait of a gay man appeared in 1971, when the controversial sitcom, All in the Family, dealt with the issue in one of its episodes in which, the lead character, Archie Bunker discovers that a football player pal is gay. This, in my opinion, was a pretty bold move forward, especially for closed-minded character of Archie Bunker.

AIDS. Both films portrayed the leading men as heroes and reveal the law as a homo-social institution, which has only recently emerged in the media.

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