What a way to end Pride Month and welcome Independence Day �" with another stepping-stone toward what we hope will one day be our full equality. We were lying on a hospital gurney plugged into social media when the news came in about the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality. We must have let out an involuntary cry, because the nurse rushed over and asked, "Are you having pain?" Tears streaming in what we knew was going to fast become what Oprah calls The Ugly Cry, we pointed to the live-stream video on CNN, the news crawl announcing the decision, the scenes of gay and lesbian jubilation outside the Supreme Court. It was quite a moment for us, as we used to be a reporter covering that beat, for which we were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and where we first, as a young reporter, heard Bowers v. Hardwick argued behind the dark red velvet drapes that surround the press area to the left of where the nine justices sit.
The nurse put her hand on our arm above the IV, rubbed it a little, and without skipping a beat said, "Congratulations. I know you must have been waiting for this for a very long time." Then the tears began in earnest.
We tweeted simply: "We. Have. Won. #SCOTUSMarriage." As has been the case with so many civil rights moments in the past few years, Twitter would be as much of a lifeline that morning and afternoon as the IV in our arm. The tweets would keep coming. So would the tears.
Our nurse's reaction, its immediacy and genuineness, is indicative of how much things have changed for us in just a few years. Ordinary straight Americans get it. Our nurses, our teachers, the people delivering our mail, the cable guy. They want us to be happy. They want us to have equality. They know who we are now. It would be hard to overstate the impact TV has had in propelling that perspective forward. TV has brought lesbians and gay men into the living rooms of Americans in a way that nothing else could.
When Will & Grace debuted in 1998 on NBC, it wasn't the first TV show to have gay or lesbian characters. Ellen DeGeneres' sitcom Ellen had just been cancelled the season before on ABC for becoming "too gay," after the comedian's character came out on the show in a groundbreaking episode that also starred Oprah as Ellen's therapist. And of course Billy Crystal (who recently made some unpleasantly homophobic statements) starred as the gay Jodie Dallas in ABC's Soap in 1977. But W&G was a gay show. Like I Spy 30 years before, W&G was the first to put minority (in this case, LGBT) characters front-and-center as leads. Sure, Grace and Karen were straight, but Will and Jack were gay, and Jack was a bitchy flamer of the sort that's (sadly) being bred out of both comedy and our own community, but who was just, well, Jack. It wasn't possible to watch W&G and not be touched with the gay stick.
The impact of W&G was obvious. The sitcom was nominated for 83 Primetime Emmy Awards, and won 16 of them. It was also one of only three sitcoms (the others were All in the Family and The Golden Girls) where the actors playing the main characters, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally, each won at least one acting Emmy. GLAAD gave the show several of its media awards.
Nearly 20 years later, with ABC's long-running and much-lauded Modern Family, HBO's recently cancelled Looking and Fox's recently ended Glee, NBC's incomparably homoerotic Hannibal, and Shonda Rhimes' TGIT line-up with prominently placed gay and lesbian characters, W&G may seem tame. But the criticism the show received for being so gay in 1998 was huge, so the ground it broke was as dramatic as the show was funny. In addition to being labeled the "gay Seinfeld, " W&G was called a show "just for gays" and ghettoized by critics. Variety doomed it with this caveat: "If W&G can somehow survive a brutal time period opposite football and Ally McBeal, it could grow into a reasonably entertaining little anomaly �" that is, a series about a man and a woman who have no sexual interest in one another. But don't bet on it. If it's doomed relationships viewers want, they'll probably opt for Ally ." "Entertaining little anomaly." Because LGBT people were still "anomalies" in 1998.
Variety and other critics were wrong. Throughout its eight seasons, W&G was consistently rated in the Top 20. So it couldn't have just been gays watching the show. What's more, Ally McBeal didn't survive against W&G, it ended after five seasons. (Although it did co-star Ellen's wife, Portia de Rossi.) W&G was also the highest-rated sitcom among adults 18-49, the most treasured demographic, from 2001 throughout the show's run in 2006. W&G wasn't just a ratings bonanza and the flagship show of NBC's long-time Thursday "Must See TV" comedy lineup. The sitcom also has a direct connection to the June 26 SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality: it may have been the prompt for President Obama's "evolving" on the issue.
It was only three years ago that this shift in consciousness happened at the White House, the same WH that on the night of June 26 was bathed in rainbow lights, turning The People's House gay and lesbian. Until 2012, President Obama was opposed to same-sex marriage. As events played out, however, it became clear that TV (perhaps W&G in particular) influenced the evolution inside the WH.
Vice President Biden came out for marriage equality in advance of Obama. On TV. In what many in our community, ourselves included, have previously written, Biden's comments were a prompt for the President. Veteran CBS reporter Bill Plante subsequently reported on CBS This Morning that a White House aide denied Biden's statement on marriage equality was a "trial balloon" for the President's later evolution. Biden was interviewed by David Gregory, then-host of NBC's Meet the Press on May 6, 2012. In that interview he came out in support of marriage equality. Biden said, "I think W&G did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has ever done. People fear that which is different. Now they're beginning to understand."
It was an extraordinary statement to make about a TV show, but it was also an explanation: as a straight man who was outside the LGBT community, one of the things that influenced Biden's perspective was seeing us on TV. Humanized, funny, poignant, real.
Three days after Biden's bombshell interview (and after an apology by Biden to Obama), Pres. Obama gave his "evolved" interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, herself the only out lesbian newscaster on TV. The day after President Obama spoke with Roberts, W&G co-creator Max Mutchnick was interviewed on CBS This Morning about the influence of the show on the White House. Mutchnick, who is openly gay, told CBS that Biden had privately told him at a party that he and his husband, Erik Hyman, attended, the same thing about the influence of W&G on America's view of lesbians and gay men.
In 2012, W&G was listed as the ninth most important sitcom in TV history. Last year, items from the iconic sitcom became part of the new LGBT history collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. According to an Associated Press news story, curator Dwight Blocker Bowers said W&G had so much impact on the national consciousness because it used "comedy to familiarize a mainstream audience with gay culture" that was "daring and broke ground" in American media and played a huge role in that transition from homophobia being the norm to acceptance being the norm.
As pivotal as W&G was, opening the door to a range of other LGBT-centered programming like Queer as Folk (2000), Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003), Boy Meets Boy (2003) and The L Word (2004), another TV influence was having an even greater impact on the national consciousness with regard to LGBT people.
Perhaps no single individual has had more of an impact on how mainstream straight America views LGBT people than Ellen DeGeneres. In 1986, she first appeared on The Tonight Show. From 1994-98 she starred in her sitcom Ellen. In 1997 she became the first TV actor to come out publicly in an appearance with Oprah. She paralleled that coming out on her sitcom, and Ellen began addressing LGBT issues as the character started to explore her lesbianism. It may have been too soon. Certainly America seemed unready, even as Ellen appeared on the April 14, 1997 cover of Time as the face of LGBT America (much like Laverne Cox did for transgender Americans last year). But when Ellen debuted her daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2003, she became a daily face of gayness. Millions of Americans have watched her five days a week. They've listened to her discuss LGBT issues, talk about her marriage to actress Portia de Rossi (together since 2004), campaign against anti-gay bullying. But they have also seen Ellen address a vast array of issues, interview myriad stars and open the show with her signature dance moves.
Ellen has "normalized" lesbianism/gayness for millions. Unlike the characters on W&G, Ellen is real, a lesbian leading her daily life in front of America. Her audience has seen her laugh, cry, be funny and sad. But every day they have seen her gay. And they have loved her. Ellen has won more than a dozen Emmys, but she's also won more than a dozen People's Choice Awards. She's hosted the Emmys, Grammys and Academy Awards. She was chosen to host the Emmys in the days after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina (Ellen is from New Orleans), two defining performances in a time of national tragedy and upheaval. Ellen is a trusted member of America's family. And she's a lesbian.
It has long been the theory of our activists that when you know us, you will love us. There is no other medium like TV to introduce people who would otherwise have no connection to each other. We've seen the color barrier break down on TV over our lifetimes. Are there enough people of color in lead roles on TV? Absolutely not. But since 1967, when Bill Cosby broke that first color barrier by being a star, followed by a series of shows with black leads �" The Mod Squad (1968), Julia (1968), Mission Impossible (1968), Mannix (1968), Room 222 (1969) �" it's been impossible for America to move backwards on race on TV. Before the 1960s were over, Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr. and Flip Wilson all had their own variety shows on network TV. And while blacks had been accepted as entertainers for some time, they were still in auxiliary roles. It was far different to have a black entertainer with his own named show. Which is why Ellen's show is so important.
And while we complain here often about there not being enough minority representation on TV, whether it is people of color, older women or LGBT people, the fact is, we are visible in ways we weren't even five years ago. Neil Patrick Harris, the first out gay actor on TV, is omnipresent. Like Ellen, he has hosted numerous awards shows, won multiple Emmys for his role on How I Met Your Mother, and is about to launch his own variety show, Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, on NBC in the fall.
The majority of the top showrunners on TV are gay men, like Ryan Murphy, whose groundbreaking Glee was the next step in the trajectory W&G began. After the decision, Murphy told E! TV, "Today for the first time I know what it feels like to truly be an American, equal and protected under the law."
The interconnectedness of TV and changing perspectives on LGBT people can't be overstated. The night of the SCOTUS decision, we were watching ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, with Jeffrey Tambor as the featured guest. The guest segment began with a stirring clip of Tambor as Maura Pfefferman, a father who comes out as a transgender woman to her children late in life, on the Amazon Studios series Transparent. Tambor, who at 71 has long been a staple on both the small and big screen, was unequivocal when he said it was the role of a lifetime, and that it was an historic role whose authenticity (the show's creator, Jill Soloway, has a parent who came out as transgender late in life) had real impact on real lives.
Last week the actresses who play the show's two lesbian characters, Melora Hardin and Amy Landecker, were on The Late Late Show with James Corden. The actresses were talking lesbian sex scenes and the impact of the show and the obligation involved in portraying lesbian and bisexual characters. Two days earlier, out black lesbian comedian Wanda Sykes had been on the show talking Confederate flag, racism and being a married lesbian mom.
All of this �" the talk show appearances, the LGBT characters on scripted TV, the real-life LGBT people on reality series like out lesbian T Gregoire, who came in second on Hell's Kitchen last month �" is part of reminding straight America every day that we exist. Reminding straight America that gay male couples like Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family with their two kids are art imitating life because there are so many gay men out there who are married with kids now. Reminding straight America that lesbians can be doctors like Arizona and Callie on Grey's Anatomy, gay men can be White House Chiefs of Staff like Cyrus on Scandal, trans men can be coaches like Coach Beiste on Glee, transwomen can be in women's prison like Sophia on Orange Is the New Black, lesbians can be parents like Stef and Lena on The Fosters, teenage boys can be gay or bisexual like 13-year-olds Jude and Connor on The Fosters, or teenage girls can be lesbians like Emily on Pretty Little Liars, or trans women can be models in love with straight men like Maya on The Bold and the Beautiful.
This is a normalization of our lives as LGBT people. When we first started writing this column nearly 21 years ago, there was no gay TV to speak of. Everyone knew Ellen and Rosie O'Donnell and Suze Orman were lesbians, but none had come out yet. There wasn't a single out lesbian or gay actor on TV. Victor Garber had been co-starring on TV shows since 1974, but while he thought everyone knew he was gay, no one did. George Takei was on Star Trek, but deeply closeted. Raven Symone has been on TV since she was four, but we only discovered she was a lesbian last year. We wrote about Frasier (1993) on a regular basis as an encoded gay show, but David Hyde Pierce had yet to come out.
So it's a tectonic shift, this move from our being virtually invisible to the White House flooded by rainbow-hued lights, the President giving an address in the Rose Garden about the importance of marriage equality, and the voices of those who still hate us drowned out on TV by those who love us and want us to be happy.
TV brought the people who said they never knew anyone GLB or T to the place we are now. We may not agree with Biden's statement about W&G, because we know just how much activism has been going on since Stonewall. But he meant that TV has influenced American culture since its invention. Whether it was Ellen yelling into that microphone on Ellen, "I'm gay!" or Kurt Hummel's (Chris Colfer) coming out on Glee and saving lives of LGBT kids everywhere, viewers are influenced by what they see.
TV is where we see the new Pride Month Tylenol ad that asks, in a voiceover by Oscar winner Susan Sarandon, about family, with lesbian and gay and interracial couples. TV is where we see the Wells Fargo ad with two lesbian mothers adopting a deaf child. TV is where we see us. So to bask in this moment of love winning, to hang onto the fabulous buzz with new and old characters who are LGBT, you really must stay tuned.