Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:40:05 -0700 From: Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Subject: GLAADAlert 02.28.97 GLAADALERT February 28, 1997 The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Contents: 1. GLAADAlert Update: Fox Says Sorry For Ned Pulling Gun on Gay Man (Ned and Stacey (television sitcom), FOX (television network)) 2. Roseanne's Mom Gets A Girlfriend Next Week! (Roseanne (television sitcom), ABC (television network), Carsey-Werner Productions (production company)) 3. GLAAD Dives Into USA Network's Breaking the Surface (USA Network (cable network), Breaking the Surface (television movie)) 4. Strong Media Coverage in Bombing of Lesbian Bar (Associated Press (newswire), Reuters (newswire), United Press International (newswire)) 5. Laura Ingraham Gains Understanding Through Love (Laura Ingraham (arch-conservative pundit), The Washington Post (newspaper)) 6. Not All My Children Will Be Around For Long (All My Children (television soap opera), ABC Daytime (television network)) 7. Esquire's Edit Doesn't Make The Grade (Esquire (magazine)) 8. Doc's Look At Baby Determines Gender (Chicago Tribune (newspaper)) 9. LA Times Reveals Unexpected Victims of Megan's Law (Los Angeles Times (newspaper)) 1. GLAADAlert Update: Fox Says Sorry For Ned Pulling Gun on Gay Man Following the January 24 GLAADAlert item "Ned Pulls Gun on Gay Admirer," Fox apologized to GLAAD for a January 20 scene on Ned and Stacey in which a gay man stalks Ned and sneaks into his bedroom. Ned then pulls out a gun to confront him. "As with everything on television, what is intended by the 'makers' of programming is not always what is interpreted by the 'viewers,'" wrote Trae D. Williams of Fox Broadcast Standards. "I would like to apologize on behalf of the network if this scene was interpreted as anything other than what was intended-which was certainly not to depict any particular group of persons in an unfair light. I assure you that such an unfair portrayal would be contrary to all that we as a network strive for each and every day and would never knowingly be approved." 2. Roseanne's Mom Gets A Girlfriend Next Week! On the March 4 episode of the ABC show Roseanne, Bev (Estelle Parsons) will introduce her new girlfriend, Joyce (Ruta Lee) to gay married couple Leon (Martin Mull) and Scott (Fred Willard). Joyce is Lanford's reigning chanteuse at the local Holiday Inn. In a GLAAD exclusive, sources at Roseanne have indicated that Bev will choose not to tell her family about her new flame during the episode, nervous about their reaction. "I think we're doing something special here," said star and executive producer Roseanne. "I don't think any show has ever shown a senior gay or lesbian couple or, for that matter, done a continuing storyline of a united gay couple such as Leon and Scott." Just as in real life, while Bev shares her new girlfriend with her gay friends, she faces a dilemma in opening this newfound part of her life to her family. This Roseanne brings viewers increased awareness and visibility of not only older lesbians and gay men, but the struggles that all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face integrating their whole selves into their biological families. Tune in and take a look, then congratulate ABC and Roseanne for this sensitive, inclusive programming. Contact: Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner, Roseanne, Daniel Palladino, Executive Producers, Roseanne, c/o Carsey-Werner Productions, 4024 Radford Avenue, Building 3, Studio City, CA 91604, fax: 818.760.5882; Jamie Tarses, Entertainment President, ABC, 2040 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067, fax: 310.557.7679, e-mail: abcaudr@ccabc.com. 3. GLAAD Dives Into USA Network's Breaking the Surface GLAAD Entertainment Media Director Chastity Bono recently engaged representatives from USA Networks in a productive discussion about the biographical Greg Louganis made-for-TV movie Breaking the Surface, which airs March 19. During a press conference promoting the movie, producer Jim Green was asked why the film includes violence but not two men kissing. Green's comment, "Oh, come on, what do you think? The audience is not gonna watch that. They're gonna tune out. And if we turn off the audience, they're not gonna see the messages we want to get out," received criticism from throughout the country. Bono met USA Networks executives and discussed the inappropriateness of Green's comments and how GLAAD could be helpful in the future. "Everybody was very open and responsive to GLAAD's view of this situation," Bono said. "I suggested various scenes where physical intimacy could have taken place without being overtly sexual or offensive to some." GLAAD's meeting with USA gave the network a clearer sense of how to handle affection between gay people in their programming. A February 12 letter to GLAAD from Valentine confirmed this. "After our meeting with you I came away feeling that we could have been more adventurous [about same-sex intimacy] and next time, we will be." Valentine said, "We look forward to a continuing dialogue with GLAAD as we continue to treat gay issues and people in our USA Pictures Originals." After watching Breaking the Surface, please express your thoughts about the program to USA, and encourage them to do more inclusive and accurate programming about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the future. Contact: USA Networks International, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. 4. Strong Media Coverage in Bombing of Lesbian Bar It may have taken a bomb to do it, but the news media is doing an excellent job of covering the bombing of the Otherside Lounge, an Atlanta lesbian nightclub, last weekend. All three major newswire services, CNN and many newspapers have given front-burner priority to the attack and its investigation, including a discussion of the possibility that this is an anti-gay hate crime. As good as the coverage has been, however, only a handful of stories have noted that the bar is primarily a lesbian--and not "lesbian and gay" --nightclub. Out of 50 articles and broadcast stories monitored by GLAAD, only four correctly identified the bar as such: a short Associated Press (AP) item from February 22, a February 25 Reuters article, a United Press International (UPI) article from February 26 and a second February 27 AP article. By and large, the media's fast and thorough response to this tragic and violent act deserves praise. But for the sake of accuracy, journalists reporting on the bombing should illuminate this distinction. By not being as precise as possible, they might be missing important details and significant angles worthy of reportage. To call the Otherside Lounge a "gay nightclub," or a "lesbian and gay nightclub" fails to explore the possibility that this could be a targeted attack on women, or specifically lesbians, and not just gay people in general. Accuracy in reporting is critical to the publics understanding of this brutal bombing. Please congratulate the newswire services for their commendable reportage, and ask them to tighten their coverage to note that the Otherside Lounge was a nightclub primarily for lesbians. Contact: Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10020-1666, fax: 212.621.1500, e-mail: rgersh@ap.org; Reuters America, Inc. 199 Water Street, New York, NY 10038, fax: 212.8591717, fax: webmaster@reuters.com; UPI, 1400 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005, fax: 202.898.8057. 5. Laura Ingraham Gains Understanding Through Love In a disarmingly candid and moving essay in the February 23 Washington Post, arch-conservative pundit Laura Ingraham discusses how her openly gay brother and his partner have changed the way she views the struggle for lesbian and gay civil rights. After Rep. Barney Frank called her a bigot recently because of her homophobic and gay-baiting tactics as editor of the Dartmouth Review (see GLAADAlert 12/20/96), including calling gay men "sodomites," Ingraham describes how she tried to tell him that just two weeks earlier, she had been in San Francisco helping her gay brother cope as his partner fought bravely to stave off death from AIDS. She wrote, "In the ten years since I learned my brother Curtis was gay, my views and rhetoric about homosexual have been tempered, because I have seen him and his companion, Richard, lead their lives with dignity, fidelity and courage." "Now I see that the push for experimental drug treatments and increased funding for AIDS research is motivated by love and fear, driven by those who have watched the virus attack viciously and indiscriminately. Watching AIDS play its evil game of give and take has made me understand why lobbying for increased research funding should be an urgent priority not only for the gay community, but for us all." It also made her realize that same-sex marriage could be important not only for tax, health and pension benefits, when her brother had to claim he was Richard's "caretaker" to gain full access in the hospital, "knowing what they had been through together made it sound antiseptic, almost an insult." GLAAD supports and appreciates Ingraham's honest and compassionate essay, which gets to the heart of real family values. Time after time bigoted notions are tested by real life situations and in this case Ingraham seems a better and more caring person for it, understanding much more intimately why lesbians, gay men and people with AIDS should be afforded the same rights and privileges as every American. The essay is a strong first step towards a fuller knowledge of our community and a more sensitive handling of our concerns. It is, however, just one step. Her punditry cannot be easily dismissed as youthful indiscretion. GLAAD makes itself available to Ingraham as she continues this important journey. Please write to Ingraham and commend her openness. Also, encourage her to continue to educate herself and embrace lesbian and gay political and social concerns as her own. Contact: Laura Ingraham, c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-0002, fax: 202.334.4475, e-mail: webnews@washpost.com. 6. Not All My Children Will Be Around For Long According to the February 25 edition of Soap Opera Weekly, the only contract player portraying an openly gay character on daytime television will be leaving when his contract expires. "Though All My Children had no comment, sources say Chris Bruno will exit as Michael when his contract is up," the magazine says. "Insiders say the actor will return periodically to keep the story line alive. No information was available on how this affects Daniel McDonald, who plays Michael's significant other, Brad." McDonald has been cast on Broadway in Steel Pier, which will limit his availability. Currently, the couple appear once or twice every two weeks, and lesser roles would make them basically insignificant. Past assurances have been made to GLAAD representatives that if one of the actors playing a gay character left the show, the part would be recast. Please write to ABC Daytime and encourage them to honor their commitment to a long-term presence for gay characters and recast the Michael role on All My Children. Contact: ABC Daytime, 77 W. 66th Street, New York, NY 10023-6201, fax: 212.456.2381, e-mail: daytime@ccabc.com. 7. Esquire's Edit Doesn't Make The Grade Amid rumors of cow-towing to corporate backers and shying away from gay sexuality, Esquire recently lost its literary editor of ten years after the magazine pulled a gay-themed story from its April issue. David Leavitt's fictional story, "The Term Paper Artist," was pulled by Executive Editor Edward Kosner because, according to the New York Times, the story "was said to contain explicit homoerotic scenes and vulgar anatomical references." Kosner is quoted as saying, "All magazines have at least three constituencies: the readers, the advertisers and the staff. I just thought this story was going to offend many, many people. Advertisers were the least of it." Not so, according to Esquire's ex-literary editor Will Blythe, who resigned in protest after he said the story was pulled for fear that Chrysler, a major advertiser in Esquire, would be offended by the work. Additionally, Leavitt's literary agent, Andrew Wylie charges that Chrysler actually ordered the story pulled. Chrysler has denied any involvement, and Kosner has denied the story was killed because of complaints-real or perceived-by the auto maker. While the Chrysler element of this hatchet job may be under hot debate for weeks to come, Kosner's attempt to distance the magazine from the story's homoeroticism is disturbing enough. While "The Term Paper Artist" certainly explores sexual themes-it is ostensibly about the gay male protagonist having sex with UCLA undergraduate men in exchange for doing their term papers-it is hardly as graphic as heterosexual sex depicted in many other Esquire's stories. If Kosner is to be believed, this appears to be a clear case of anti-gay bias and a fear of male-male sexuality. While his "many, many readers" are arguably mostly straight men, this hardly precludes the value of the story's inclusion. Tell Esquire that whether it was an act of corporate cowardice or homophobia, it has some explaining to do about why it turned its back so suddenly on a solid work of gay fiction. Contact: Edward Kosner, Editor-in-Chief, Esquire, 250 W. 55th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10019, fax: 212.977.3158. 8. Doc's Look At Baby Determines Gender A fascinating article in the February 23 Chicago Tribune entitled, "Doc's Quick Look At Baby Determines Path Through Life," by Delia M. Rios, sensitively explores the issues of intersex people. According to Rios, gender is determined when a doctor looks at our genitals and declared to be either a "boy" or a "girl," "But what of the man with male chromosomes and male sex organs who is nonetheless convinced he is really a woman?" Rios writes, "Or the woman who looks and acts female but whose chromosomes say she is male? Or the infants born with ambiguous genitalia who, as adults, may experience their gender as neither entirely female or male?" The article looks at several scientific hypotheses of gender and discusses the "two spirit" tradition among some Native American tribes, people who are "thought to possess both the female and the male, so they are 'doubly blessed.'" Still, as a society, Americans "like our gender lines clearly drawn," says Rios. The ways we treat infants based on gender determination shapes their expectations of how to behave in society. According to neurobiologist Simon LeVay, our sexual orientation is also part of the gender identity "continuum," that our society fails to acknowledge. Finally, Rios discusses the debate between those who seek to work with differently gendered children to foster "normative development," and people like Cheryl Chase of the Intersex Society of North America, who "wonders why intersex people can't just be left alone. 'A different sense of gender is not an illness,' Chase says. 'It's who I am.'" In a society that still for the most part denies any borderlands between two distinct genders, male and female, the Chicago Tribune has published an article light years ahead of most media discussion on gender issues. Hopefully, the article will inspire a greater public dialogue about gender as a continuum and greater understanding and acceptance of intersex, transgender, lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Please commend the Chicago Tribune for this well researched and thought-provoking article and encourage them to continue exploring gender issues. Contact: Howard Tyner, Editor, Chicago Tribune, P.O. Box 4041, Chicago, IL 60611-4041, fax: 312.222.3143, e-mail: tribletter@aol.com. 9. LA Times Reveals Unexpected Victims of Megan's Law The recently enacted "Megan's Law," intended to be a public record of registered sex offenders such as child molesters and rapists, has also targeted a number of gay men arrested in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s under archaic anti-gay sex laws, according to an article in the February 24 Los Angeles Times. "Struggling to implement Megan's Law and similar statutes, law enforcement agencies across the state are scrambling to update long-neglected files, sending police to knock on the doors of elderly men," the article says. "A lack of focus in many versions of Megan's Law [around the country] has resulted in the registration of an array of offenders whose actions are far different from those of the violent predators the law was intended to cover." Change will be slow, according to the article. Meanwhile many older gay men will face uncomfortable and humiliating circumstances. "'Not a whole lot happens in Sacramento that doesn't have a constituency pushing for it,'" said one such man. "'You're not going to find gay men who are embarrassed about ever having been arrested banding together to get this stuff to happen.'" Please thank the Los Angeles Times for an insightful and critical article on an otherwise invisible problem. Contact: Shelby Coffey, Editor-in-Chief, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, fax: 213.237.4712, e-mail: letters@latimes.com. The GLAADAlert is the weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD is the lesbian and gay news bureau and the only national lesbian and gay multimedia watchdog organization. GLAAD promotes fair, accurate and inclusive representation as a means of challenging all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity. Contact GLAAD by e-mail at glaad@glaad.org or by phone at 213.658.6775 (Los Angeles), 212.807.1700 (New York), 202.986.1360 (Washington, DC) or 415.861.2244 (San Francisco). Report defamation in the media by calling GLAAD's Toll-Free AlertLine! 1-800-GAY-MEDIA (1-800-429-6334) Visit GLAAD's Web Site at http://www.glaad.org "GLAADAlert," "GLAAD" and "Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation" are registered trademarks of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) glaad@glaad.org TO REPORT DEFAMATION IN THE MEDIA - Call GLAAD's Alertline at 1.800.GAY.MEDIA or go to the GLAAD Web Site at www.glaad.org and report through our Alertline Online. 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