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March 1998, Week 1

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From:
Jason Mittell <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 4 Mar 1998 08:21:10 -0600
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>And in the ABC sitcom The Nancy Walker Show, airing during a half season in
>1976, a regular male character was gay (see Brooks and Marsh, The Complete
>Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, Sixth Edition, p. 728).
>Can I be nominated for the obscure reference award for this one?
 
I'll offer an another option for this award.  1975's 1/2 season Norman Lear
produced ABC sitcom (preceding Nancy Walker by a year) called _Hot L
Baltimore_, based on the Lanford Wilson play.  About the denizens of a
seedy hotel (the E in the hotel's sign was burnt out, hence "Hot L"),
including a gay couple (as well as a pair of hookers and "a mean old man").
The show disappeared in June 75 and odds are that there are no copies
floating around, but it is reputed to be the first prime time show to
feature a gay character.
 
Also, people mentioned "that lawyer show" from a few years back - it was
_The Pursiut of Happiness_, featuring the actor who now plays Ray's brother
on _Everybody Loves Raymond_ as an unstereotypical gay lawyer (he's about
6' 7" with a really deep voice).
 
As for _Soap_, Jody (Billy Crystal) was certainly gay, though in the course
of the show's four seasons, he dated only one man - an NFL quarterback for
whom he was going to get a sex-change in order to be able to be open about
their relationship - who dumped him for a woman midway through season one.
Although he continued to assert that he was gay (in nicely pro-social
dialogue), he slept with a woman & they conceived a child.  She then took
off, he got to raise their daughter, though there was a prolonged custody
battle, with Jody advocating well for the rights of single/gay parents.
Then he moved in with a lesbian and they eventually fell in love.  She
left, his child's mother kidnapped their daughter, and he hired a female
P.I. to find them.  On the course of their adventure, they fell in love.
Jody went to a psychaitrist to figure out whether he was gay or not, and
ended up turning into an old Jewish man named Julius through hypnotic
regression.  That's where the series ended.  It's tempting to point out
that the show refused to give this gay character any happiness through a
committed relationship, but then we must remember that it was a soap opera,
so no characters are ever happy for long.  Jody should in retrospect go
down as TV's first bisexual character, though I'm pretty sure that the word
"bisexual" is never mentioned on the show.  (If you couldn't tell, I've
been catching Comedy Central's reruns of the show lately.)
 
Would it be possible for the original initiator of this (now lengthy)
thread (or anyone else who has contributed) to discuss the "why" question a
bit more, so we might move beyond mere list compilation and consider the
relevant issues around these programs?
 
-Jason Mittell
 
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