Arts
What It's Like In The Life
We're Gonna Get Married!: More Tales from the Rainbow Library
by Scott Sherman
While
there's plenty of gay fluff on TV: Will and Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy, It's All Relative, etc., there’s only one show that for 12
years has provided interesting, intelligent, and accessible coverage of
LGBT issues: In the Life.
According to In the Life's website (www.inthelifetv.org)
"When In the Life made its debut in 1992, the idea that gays and
lesbians could - and should - have a regular presence on national television
was unthinkable. In fact, before the first episode aired, Bob Dole had
already condemned the show on the floor of the United States Senate."
Now, the show notes that it is "broadcast
on over 130 public television stations nationwide, including all of the
top 20 viewer markets, reaching over one million viewers per episode."
In the Life's Pride episode for 2004 is
another example of informative and entertaining reportage. It consists
of five segments, each about ten minutes long. All of the segments are
narrated by Tony award-winning actor Cherry Jones, whose mellifluous voice
and perfect diction are a pleasure to listen to.
In the first segment, "Political Science,"
In the Life examines how homosexuality has been defined and politicized
throughout the years. Beginning in the 19th century and ending today,
In the Life's review is required viewing for anyone not thoroughly conversant
in their gay history. The show finds drama in the early struggles of activists
like Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny, who are two of the true heroes
of our movement. Working with others, they helped overturn the American
Psychiatric Association’s classification of homosexuality as a mental
disorder. By having the courage to challenge the APA's science and bias,
these pioneers stood up to a powerful profession and forced them to see
us as we really are: no crazier than they or anyone else. There is moving
footage of an APA conference where one gay psychiatrist has the courage
to tell his peers that they are wrong on homosexuality, but only from
behind the cover of a mask and a fright wig.
In "Bombay Eunuch," In the Life
looks at a documentary that reveals the secretive culture of Indian eunuchs.
Once considered spiritually divine beings who were magical and powerful,
Western culture has influenced India to the point where they are considered
pathetic and perverse. Now reduced to begging and prostitution, India's
eunuchs still find some joy in their role as a "third sex."
"Level Pink" is an interesting
examination of how the Patriot Act and the ban on gays in the military
continue the ugly legacy of Joseph McCarthy, who equated communism with
homosexuality. Catchphrases like "Pinko,
Commie, Faggot," linked the two "aberrant lifestyles" in
America's minds. Today, the show proposes, the government still conflates
threats to national security with sexual deviance. As one talking head
describes it, in World War II, gays were fired from the military because
they were mentally ill. Then because they were a security risk, then because
they supposedly had a higher rate of alcoholism. Now, GLBT persons are
excluded for a vague, unproven notion of interfering with "unit cohesion."
As one interviewee says, "This is policy that undermines national
security, that wastes money, and that leads us to fire badly needed Arabic
translators in the middle of a war on terrorism."
Most moving of all the segments is "PFLAG
Evolution," which covers the history and future of Parents and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays. This pioneering group was started in 1972 when Morton
Manford was physically attacked at a gay rights protest in New York. His
parents, Jeanne and Jules Manford, were outraged by lack of response from
the media and police. In a show of support, Ms. Manford later marched
with her gay son in New York's Pride Day parade. As Ms. Manford describes
on the show, so many gay and lesbian people approached her during the
parade, asking them to call their parents that she decided to start a
support group, her husband said, "We ought to have a group to get
these people together and talk and set them straight." In the Life
shows how PFLAG's message of acceptance spread to African American families
in Detroit and parents in places like Muskogee, Oklahoma. "All we
knew (about homosexuality) was what we heard from the pulpit of the Southern
Baptist Church," a mother from that small town says. But thanks to
PFLAG, not anymore.
In the closing segment, Harvey Fierstein
offers editorial comments on the gay community's responsibility to its
younger members. Comparing the raising of straight kids to gay youth,
Fierstein notes: "Hillary Clinton says it takes a village. Well,
cookies, it might take The Village, Chelsea, part of the East Side, and
all of Key West as well." Fierstein concludes his often-humorous
essay by urging us to reach out to gay youth and "volunteer some
time and finance to make this a safe world for us all."
We all like to be entertained, but sometimes
the mind and spirit need illumination and inspiration, too. Make In the
Life part of your schedule to provide some healthy balance to TV’s
less enlightening portrayals of our lives.
In the Life airs on Vermont Public Television,
usually on the first Sunday of the month at 11 p.m. It's worth figuring
out how to program the VCR.
Scott Sherman watches CNN, soap operas, and In the Life at his home
in Richmond.