Just Folks

Originally appeared December 15, 2000, in The Weekly News (Miami).

The premiere of "Queer as Folk", the sexually frank, gay-themed miniseries on Showtime, generated a flood of media attention, from Entertainment Weekly to the New York Times. The story of a group of young gay men (and one lesbian couple) clubbing and loving in Pittsburgh (yes, Pittsburgh!) is a test of Showtime's advertising slogan, "No Limits." Actual naked bods are seen only fleetingly, but the action taking place under the covers - and elsewhere - is clear and unambiguous: these men have SEX. And the fact that one of the storylines concerns a relationship between a 29-year-old professional and a 17-year-old high school student brings a new candor to television's treatment of gay youth.

"Queer as Folk" isn't the story of all of our lives - every gay person isn't an late-night clubber and one-night stander - but it is the story of some of our lives, and that story has rarely been shown on television.

What's truly fascinating, however, is the lack of effective protest from the organized, anti-gay right. Sure, the old reliable Family Research Council has a posting on its website denouncing the show. It makes for fun reading: "As parents, would you invite gay men into your home to engage in sex acts in front of children?" asks FRC's Janet Parshall, who, by the way, hadn't actually bothered to watch the show. She nevertheless continues, "In the show's preview, men were said to have kissed, fondled, and engaged in various sex acts," oh my!

Ms. Parshall goes on to lament, "Because cable TV depends on subscribers for income, they aren't subject to the same rules as the networks. Americans who pay for extra channels are excusing them from accountability. Meanwhile, on December 3rd, when pornography knocks at the door, will your kids be home?" Ding, dong, pornography calling.

But seriously, Ms. Parshall, any kids who watch Showtime at 10 p.m. on a school night already have had a thorough sexual education, at least as far as copious female nudity is concerned.

There's also a more revealing point in the FRC diatribe. The cable revolution, the Internet, and new media in general have radically limited the power of would-be censors on both the left and the right, and that's all to the good.

Consider the fate of earlier attempts at barrier-breaking portraits of how gay people actually live. Back in 1989, ABC tried to bring a dose of honesty - and a hint of sexuality - to its drama series "thirtysomething." That show introduced a relationship between two gay characters and, while no actual displays of physical affection were shown, the couple was featured in bed together, talking.

Whoa: That was just too much for the religious right, which got wind of the storyline and targeted the show's advertisers. ABC announced that advertiser pullouts resulted in a loss of about $1.5 million in revenues when several sponsor withdrew their spots from the "controversial" episode. The gay characters disappeared and the episode was never re-run. Similar advertiser pullouts occurred when other shows and TV movies tried to deal frankly with gay lives, and a chill descended over gay representations on TV.

So much for the commercial networks, but public television didn't fare much better, and proved, if anything, more susceptible to the censors. In 1994, when PBS aired a series based on Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," the uproar was fast and furious. Although the series garnered critical praise and high ratings, the organized protests cowed ABC into dropping plans to finance and air the sequel, "More Tales of the City," which had been in development.

In a later interview with the New York Times, Maupin lamented that "by running scared, PBS not only yielded to the pressure of a relatively small number of people but also ended up proving a frequent criticism of public television: that government financing could lead to government control." But then, shouldn't that have been obvious?

It wasn't until 1998 that "More Tales" was seen - on Showtime, which had picked up the project abandoned by PBS. The new tales were even more sexually explicit than the original series had been, but because the show was on a subscription-based cable network rather than PBS, there was almost no political debate about it.

Responding to the cable challenge, and the increased acceptance of gays in society, commercial TV inched its way back to gay content, and eventually we had Ellen's famous same-sex kiss. But the broadcast networks still tend to make gays secondary characters. And even when we are the focus of attention, we're usually sexless, or ridiculous. Can you say "Will & Grace"?

Writing recently in the New York Times, critic Caryn James praises "Queer as Folk" for breaking new ground, "not in what it shows but in the point of view it adopts." She adds that this is a show that doesn't cater to straight sensibilities, or spoon-feed gay experiences through the eyes of a heterosexual (as even "Tales" and "More Tales" tended to do, via protagonist Mary Ann Singleton).

But with cable, you don't have to be all things to all people. Showtime promoted "Queer as Folk" particularly heavily in predominantly gay areas, and CNN reported that cable operators in San Francisco and Los Angeles ended up with jammed phone lines from callers who wanted Showtime so they could catch the first episode. That promotion paid off: the premiere scored Showtime's best ratings in three years.

As cable channels proliferate in the brave new world of digital and broadband, the power of the censors will continue to diminish. It won't all be high quality, and much of it may be sensational and even exploitive. But one thing is certain - the age in which self-appointed cultural commissars could censor gay characters is over. And since political change in America follows cultural change, that's good news for all us folk.

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