Get Used to It: Ep. 17, "Media"

oh [Applause] [Music] do [Music] hi my name is johanna grama and i'm media co-chair for the gay and lesbian alliance against defamation i'm guest hosting today sitting in for sheila james cuell and you're watching get used to it today we're going to be talking about gays and lesbians their portrayals and coverage in the media and i'm very happy to have such a wonderful panel today we have sean dwyer who is a writer and development director for norman lear's act iii productions welcome and thanks for being here thank you we have david erinstein who is a film critic and historian and freelance writer thanks for being with us thanks for asking me and bettina boxall who's a metro reporter for the los angeles times and who covers lesbian and gay issues for the times thanks for being here with tina my pleasure in talking about the media we've really seen an explosion in the last five years of gay and lesbian issues and coverage and we wanted to talk a little today about how this came about and whether or not you think this explosion is taking place and how long it will be lasting in print for example bettina what have you seen in the last five years at the times or at other papers well certainly i would agree that there has been an explosion the number of stories and the variety of stories has greatly increased and i think it it follows a natural progression i mean you have a movement that has been around for a very long time and has been pushing and eventually a critical mass is reached when um knocking on the door is heard and the door opens somewhat and issues become more in the public eye aids obviously had a great deal in bringing many of these things into the public eye more gay people are open about being gay are willing to press their claims are willing to tell their stories pressure from groups such as glaad has been exerted for a number of years and and more people within the media industry um who are gay are willing to be open about that and are um willing to make pressures from within that cert that things be covered and that they not be ignored and it then becomes a snowballing effect you know somebody covers something somebody else covers something i mean when you have major news organizations that they basically give the subject legitimacy as a a new story and then other um other people pick up on that and are able to continue it you talked about being on the inside and that that's helped uh things uh sean you're an openly gay man working in hollywood in the television industry and how is that working from within have you found that uh how have the changes occurred in tv from your point of view and have you felt something on the inside well definitely uh as far as television goes what you've seen is uh sitcoms is mostly what i deal with and that has evolved from gays being portrayed almost as a stereotypical as the butt of the joke almost exclusively up until the last few years there's never really been a major regular cast member on a sitcom or dramatic show that was gay that didn't have a sweater tied around his neck or you know swishing into the to the room for the big joke and what you're seeing now is characters like the one on melrose place the and also sandra bernhard and roseanne who are non-stereotypical gays which is very interesting to see and uh why do you think we're in comedy so much uh you know it's it's funny because not as much in dramas yeah it's it's the way things work almost it's a society thing i think it's easier to to put across a message with a joke than it is in a more real dramatic setting and that's where barriers have been broken in television it starts with uh blacks in the early 70s when they first had their first batch of sitcoms it was that was the way that they were able to get into the living rooms of america and then women again in like the 80s more prevalent as leads of shows or as women running a household that was the way they were able to break into that barrier they were able to get there through comedy because uh it's more palatable for america to accept that and that's what you're seeing now and uh with like especially with roseanne with the sandra bernhardt character you're seeing someone who is not your stereotypical gay person and what they did they introduced her i think she's even a bisexual she is well you know she kind of flips and flops but that's that's you know that's a person's prerogative that's what's interesting about it she's not like a martyr she's not she's a regular person she may switch her ideas about where she is but a lot of people do and that's what makes her interesting and that's what makes her not like their predecessors well we've seen a lot of things happening in television even more so than film and david i wanted to ask you why is it that tv has more albeit not that many gay and lesbian characters as opposed to uh theatrical films well i i've been sort of asking myself that question a lot lately it seems that every time something is done in film it's it's a big deal it's much more monumental and because films tend to deal with um because because gay and lesbian issues are political issues in the world they are dealt with in this way in film uh or perceived in this way in film unlike television where i agree that there's been tremendous amount of work and the fact that gay and lesbian characters have been integrated into uh situation comedy settings where they're not the butt of the joke in in film though then you have to talk about well what films do you mean when you go into discussing film you're going into the arts in general and hollywood film is one thing independent film is another there's been a tremendous burst of energy and interest and work being done in the independent arena and you have out gay and lesbian filmmakers and performers who've been able to make tremendous strides i think part of this is a generational thing where the people who are doing the most important work now are young and uh have always been out which is just a wonderful thing to think about of people who never occurred to them to be in the closet about their sexuality and the work that's coming along now some of the most interesting work which which i feel is an independent film reflects this and we're getting to see a lot of diversity within independent film in terms of short films features documentaries of all kinds that deal with the realities that we face as gays and lesbians from any number of different angles but do you think that the impact of films independent films is the same as hollywood i mean when because i guess when we talk about the fact that we don't see characters a lot of time we're talking about the hollywood picture the studio picture right well i think that there's a great deal of unfairness involved in it towards independent filmmaking when so much emphasis has been given to the power of hollywood now hollywood does have a lot of power in the sense that the films are expensive they're made with big stars and that they can get into huge numbers of theaters at one time and there are huge publicity campaigns attached to hollywood films so that you can turn on the tv at any given moment and you'll have star x promoting this or that or the other film uh that's all well and good as a demonstration of a certain kind of omnipotence but we can't rule out the effect that independent films have had with people on an individual level who've discovered them for themselves and also with uh with with television showings of certain kinds of films certain documentaries i think that we can't really underestimate the impact that the screening of of television shows on public television like silver lake life the view from here which was an incredibly brilliant documentary on living with aids and most recently on pbs with tales of the city has on audiences that see them but there's nobody out there charting and calling people up and getting uh if one or two people are really moved by something or really their eyes are really opened uh to things that they haven't experienced before or from the standpoint of gays and lesbians who are looking out there for images of themselves in the world and are tuning into these shows or seeking out independent films when they go to various festivals and what have you that's that's terribly terribly important and we can't let the power of hollywood uh push that out of the way but it reminds me of the idea of when you're talking about hollywood and the scope of it i mean i know that we can't discount it but if you look in the print for example the same area you talk about all the covers of those mainstream magazines that have lesbians lipstick lesbians and even though we're not depicted in the in the ideal way you know i wonder what kind of impact that does have i mean in covering a smaller area for example bettina does that have the impact of these other kinds of covers well i think i mean i was about to make the point that with um even with independent films aside from the audience that you're reaching if you have a successful independent film the hollywood you know the big hollywood uh producers recognize that i mean you've seen it in areas outside of of of gay issues or gay films um uh the success of the merchant ivory films all of a sudden you're you know you you've had films um along that line being picked up by the major hollywood studios so success in a small small way in a small market breeds success in a much bigger market that reaches a much bigger audience i mean these things don't operate completely independent of each other and there's very much a ripple effect i think i mean is there an audience for these films uh you know gay and lesbian issues i mean do we think that or do we think that they're being made out of the kindness of hollywood's heart in some cases out of producers who see some you know ripple of an effect i know i really don't think so i mean when you when you anybody who goes into a one of your better gay lesbian bookstores and everybody out there should go look for one of your better gay and lesbian bookstores wherever you happen to be i'm constantly overwhelmed by the tremendous diversity of issues ideas personalities that all can come under the heading of gay or lesbian and there's a tremendous amount of new work is being done with people without artists rediscovering themselves rediscovering their community rediscovering ways discovering new ways to look at the world both both from a personal standpoint and just in general and in dealing with where their lives as gays and lesbians fit in or don't fit in uh to the overall framework of things and out of this uh produces an incredible amount of work and we only scratched the surface of the kinds of work that is going to continue to be coming out well i think you're right i think publishing has taken a leap where the other areas in the medium haven't and i'm wondering what the hesitancy is well as far as hollywood is concerned i think that uh they're only going to be run by what the bottom line is if a film makes a lot of money they're going to want to do another film in that area or at least be persuaded to do that you look at the success of like the crying game which was an independent film but made 60 or 70 million dollars in america and philadelphia which you know looks to be making about 70 million you're going to see that that is now an audience like there is a crossover audience people are willing to see those images and people are willing to go and pay for to watch that and i think that'll help i mean it is like a ripple effect you're going to start with independent film and if independent films become successful you're going to start getting a little wave and if they you know then a lower budget hollywood film will come out and that'll be a little more wave and and uh and then you know you'll start getting it up there it'd probably start with supporting characters which it always does before you ever get to uh you know a major hollywood film with a lead you know philadelphia is an exception i think that was built mostly around the aids issue which was so out there but um i mean i think that that's what's going to happen so i mean do you think that you you all sound very optimistic on what's going on and you know but we're still talking about network censoring shows for lesbian kiss for example with roseanne and there seem to be some hurdles that we just can't get over as gays and lesbians and and how we're portrayed are there anything that you cannot cover or is it difficult for you to get things written up in the times about gay and lesbian issues well i don't think that it's really any more difficult for me in approaching you know gay issues than it would be approaching anything else i mean you know the times is a big um in some ways rather stodgy institution and there are certain you know certain barriers that you're going to run into regardless of what you're covering um and i i'm not really sure that at this point those barriers are any more pronounced you know with gays in the gay community than they are with anything else yeah you had mentioned i think that the los angeles times has a a guide uh and what is it called well it's this uh i think you're referring to the style book guide which which um it's an official uh manual um dictating um the usage of words you know um both you know technical grammatical and and uh and words within a social context and actually we just had a went through a rather interesting period where virtually uh every columns in the country was taking pot shots at the the development of the guide as being fart to pc it covered it was very broad ranging and and covered the descriptions of of everything you know from people who were disabled to you know to to gays whatever and actually the the gay terminology wasn't too criticized um there was uh some displeasure in the outside world with uh and and also within the times with not with the recommendation that the term gay or lesbian be used rather than than homosexual and uh there were um various uh various comments that well why not it's in the dictionary i mean you know what's what's the matter with the with the term homosexual has there been resistance to follow that the guy um well there was there was resistance to to the recommendation that you know that gay or lesbian be used um rather than homosexual and the bottom line is you know the word you know it's still quite quite possible to use you know the term homosexual and i use it in my stories um but uh there was a feeling that it was there was two pc but i mean gays were you know by by no means the it was not binomials the only subject that came under attack i mean it was far far more criticism um at the the terminology um involving the disabled um and uh um you know some some terms involving gender things like that so it was by no means the center of the controversy you were going to say something dude yeah well i think it's very interesting that language is always the point of resistance with uh with political movements when political movements start asserting themselves and start uh redefining terms the the powers that be have to move back and they don't want to and you get things like you know why is is gay or lesbian being used why can't we use use homosexual and uh making arguments in that area is is is also a way of making advances i think sometimes the uh the powers of me don't really know this don't really sense this at the time it's almost you know when they're uh just in their bones it's like oh we're going to have to look at them differently now oh we're going to have to talk about them differently now it becomes an issue of who is defining whom you know are people being defined by outsiders or people being defined by um themselves and you give a group the power to define themselves and that is a power i mean you know it's the power of of a description and a definition which is very important well that's that's really what we're talking about here throughout this discussion because the the power to define ourselves in in a very um along very very broad range of subjects and in many different areas and under many different headings and subheadings is tremendously important and it's it's something that we have one are winning in what we're doing it's it's it's terribly important i mean in my own lifetime knowing that uh there was a period when it was something completely exterior to me that was being defined by someone else and the point at which people started asking who's who set up these definitions what do they mean uh what is this insane notion of what a gay or lesbian person is that is being promulgated is some sort of scientific truth and why is it uh have nothing to do with the world that i know and why is it that i'm not allowed to speak about that why is it that my opinion about who i am as a gay or lesbian person is not to be trusted well doesn't you know when you talk about defining again or an organization like glaad comes from the outside and tries to define that that's effective to a point but then on the inside if there are people making those definitions gay and lesbian people saying this is how we want to be defined i think that that changes uh changes i think that's the area that we need to possibly be focusing on i mean i don't know what you think is the most effective tool in this changing of the definition or taking uh control of framing who we are i think the most effective tool is pushing you know just uh just keep on pushing like i know as a writer i was working on a pilot last year um and we had a lot of resistance because our second lead was a gay man and it was someone who was coming to terms with his sexuality he was kind of ambivalent about it but we were going to introduce him have america fall in love with him and then you know episode six pop out of the closet that would be great and uh and it's you're talking about definition and we knew where our character was coming from and we knew what kind of views he was going to have but the executives we talked to had no clue as to they couldn't wrap their heads around it they couldn't see well what's funny about him that was a question like where's the joke and the joke is you know from his character you know and you build that in but uh they had a lot of trouble really grasping it and that's because there hasn't been we were trying to make something new there hasn't been an example they looked to examples to see well how we supposed to react to this let's look in the past however reacted to it before and uh and that's why that's where the pushing comes in where you just you know if it's all people in power people in power can push and uh and that's how it's going to happen so who's who's pushing whom who should be doing the pushing and um the pushing should be coming from from the creative uh from whoever has the power you know you say whenever you talk we've talked about this before where companies production companies say well we can't have gay and lesbian characters because the network won't let us and the network says we don't we'll we'll hear about them but they don't bring them to them right and the point is whoever has the power can push it and could make it happen if they if they believe in it and if they strive and they and they do push it through i mean the whole point is is that you know hollywood is entertaining if you have that power and that power can come from anywhere it can come from a network it can come from production company come from a star you know roseanne arnhem and uh and that's where you know the power base is is very different in every situation and that's where things will be pushed through i think i think things work together i mean you have you have pushing from the outside which creates a uh an atmosphere from the inside you know on the inside from which um efforts can be made and you know a base is created and i mean an anecdote comes to mind with with the los angeles times that this was years ago before i i came to the times where apparently some gay reporters wanted to get together with management and talk about coverage of gay issues which they they thought was you know deficient in various ways and apparently one of the editors responded with a memo i think to his superior saying that he didn't see how such discussion would be fruitful so i mean we've you know come a long way at the los angeles times um from from that um and one of the reasons we've come that far is because of pressure on the exterior you can't you know they don't they don't work independently of each other and people on the inside you know are part of an institution too i mean if you know if you if you're a red rebel advocate you're not going to have your job very long i mean you know there's a very delicate balance um that has to be maintained and has to be recognized in in terms of when you speak out about what and you speak out all the time about everything nobody's going to listen to you're going to be dismissed as you know just this this is zealot and you're going to lose your credibility and um lose an ear so it's it's it's picking picking your fights it actually has a support group for gay and lesbian journalists and i think wasn't it the first uh group to launch the national gay and lesbian journalists association i'm not sure if it was first but it was certainly instrumental in in helping to form the national organization and yeah there's there's been a gay caucus at the within the times for um probably about five or six years and uh you know it's really uh probably one of the and you know the largest groups at uh at a major paper it still seems when uh there are um you know conventions for the gay and uh gay and lesbian journalists association and it's interesting that the la times always has the biggest contingent which i think of the major the major um national um you know papers that are recognized nationally and i think that's partly a reflection on the you know greater conservatism on the east coast people at the la times obviously feel freer to belong this organization and to be open about it and are less leery of it jeopardizing their career whereas i mean as of a year ago there was no one from the washington post who was a member of that organization and part of that is because the washington post had an editor who is well known to be um very you know pejorative about gays and um you know he's no longer there so you're certainly not going to join but when you're when you have that tradition of knowing that you know that that your your boss um is not going to be at all happy if you come out you know as gay well then you shut up you know and then keep your job and i think another thing that's happened is because um gay issues have become so prominent that there's no way that the news organizations can avoid dealing with this and they're going to be whether they like it or not looking to gain lesbian reporters for information it's it's absolutely necessary if if anything's going to be said or done especially when when we reach certain crisis points and around gay and lesbian issues but i agree it's very important to choose your moment when you're going to to speak out when you're going to remind people that you know listen you know we're not in a vacuum here yeah when you're talking about the coverage it's shocking in terms of the coverage that we got this march on washington last year and uh previous ones that were completely ignored not covered at all and it'll be interesting to see what will happen or what do you think is going to happen for example with the the gay games and stonewall 25 that's coming up well i don't are the papers planning to yeah i'm not sure that you'll get quite the same coverage um that you got with the washington march partly i think even though it's stonewall i mean kentucky with the gay games i don't think it's quite seen as so political and there was so much coverage of the washington march that you may see you know a little bit of pulling back as if well you know we're really going to do this again um and uh i think there's a different story out there now too because of the recent newsweek story about homophobia there's going to be more of that of more of what the straight world is starting to have to rethink us and there's going to be a lot about that i think that's that's sort of a story that seems to be working its way through the major media right now i would like to point out that we had a story on homophobia a year ago well that's a good thing too i think just the that kind of helps middle america or you know the the rest of the straight population to begin accepting at least or begin understanding where their hay comes from or where their prejudice comes from and also i think it helps people who are already illustrate people who are already there who feel that you know that they're terribly isolated they have uh gay and lesbian family members who they love and and everything's fine but you know like well i can't really discuss this with the rest of the world well we've certainly been everywhere this past year and we have to take a break now so come back we'll be right back after these short messages pick up your telephone right now and call the number on your screen find out how you can enrich your family values by learning about your gay children we had no idea what the gay community was like learn how these parents deal with their fears about attending parents flag meeting one of my biggest fears was that i would see someone that i knew call the telephone number on your screen right now and see how these parents have taken themselves to acceptance and beyond because that parent does not know the positives yet about the gay community here's one time it doesn't matter who your neighbor is [Music] here's the other life's too short stop the hate welcome back my name is johann agrama and i'm media co-chair for the gay and lesbian alliance against defamation and you're watching get used to it well we've been talking about the media gays and lesbians our portrayals and our coverage and our guests today are sean dwyer who is a development director with norman lear's act 3 productions david arenstein a freelance writer and film critic historian and bettina boxall who's a metro reporter for the los angeles times who covers gay and lesbian issues we were talking about where we've come you know from the past and and where we're going do you think we've hit a lavender ceiling is this uh saturation of gay and lesbian issues are we going to be seeing more of us or or is this it i think we've just scratched the surface i mean we've taken baby steps there there are a couple of positive portrayals on television but there are there are problems there are problems that need to be uh forced probably um the fact that there were two pilots last year that featured gay characters and one which is harvey fierstein project didn't get picked up and another monty was rewritten without the gay daughter so there are still hurdles to come i mean just the fact that i was talking before about a pilot that i had pitched with a gay character we met with resistance everywhere we pitched it and they wanted us to change it they wanted us to make him not gay and uh so there still is resistance there and the whole point is that we have just hit the surface you know well what can what can be done i mean an organization like glaad which deals with defamation in the media and writes letters and makes phone calls is that effective or what can viewers be doing to move this along well uh they can write letters to the to the network to the production companies when they see shows that they like uh that that is something uh that's uh that p that people can do but um it's funny that you know you you're talking about sort of having running into lots of resistance and uh in in television production i think in film uh we we're we're also just scratching the surface but i don't see any limits at the moment there seems to be an enormous amount of creative work being done by a new generation of people that aren't hemmed in by any boundaries of how to portray gays and lesbians or what stories to tell or how and this has led to a lot of very very exciting very very experimental work uh there's a lot of other areas that that that should be filled in by by hollywood more you know quote unquote mainstream filmmaking dealing with gay characters there's plenty of novels out there that should be adapted to the screen some of them are sitting in development hell in in various studios around town uh but i think you're going to see a gradual uh moving into this i think it's i think it's an inevitable process with gay and lesbian issues out in the world that it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore our existence and if somebody's looking for something new in terms of a plot or character or situation here we are yeah i think that's important too to look at the fact that um especially with the younger generation starting to come forward a generation where where gay and lesbian was not a a bad word or a word that was never discussed i mean as it becomes part of our culture then our culture is affected by it so i think that what you you will see in the future may be more chances and more places because the generation that's coming into power is more tolerant towards it but isn't it also true that i mean one of the reasons that glad formed was that we are in the culture and we're not being shown in the culture and the only way to do that is to get these tv even though they're stilted and maybe a hollywood movie here and there and you know some some coverage and i'm wondering how do we get towards integration where we are just another character who happens to be gay or lesbian or we are in the financial part of the newspaper not just the metro or the lifestyle section of the paper i think that's still floating around because just recently there was a low-budget independent film called go fish which had its premiere at the sundance festival very low budget little comedy about a group of lesbians about a group of women who match up to friends of theirs um samuel goldwyn picked it up and they announced very proudly and clearly that they intended to take this movie all over the world they said that they're lesbians everywhere something that you know we've always known and they're sitting up and they're realizing that this little this this little comedy is something that could really travel that there is an audience that is uh dying for a nice little lesbian comedy and that that fact is going to impact more and more on the kinds of works that are going to be made especially if you've got a film that cost virtually nothing in hollywood terms and that can head straight for profit here on in well they always talk about the profit and i guess this is what irks me i mean they say well will people watch this or there is no market in terms of the films or you know we we really can't have somebody in television because of the ratings and and yet if you look at the talk show circuit we're on continuously because people seem to be interested well you know there are markets in their markets and hollywood always talks about the the highest end of it which is to say the big mainstream movie made for 40 million dollars this is going to open in 5 000 theaters everywhere is going to have to turn in a profit of uh or turn in a box office receipts of say 25 million dollars over the weekend and it's it's a penny less than the things it does and it's all that's that's only one kind of movie and so many of the uh the low budget independent films have been able to go to to to uh to something approaching actual profit uh they do have a commercial viability and they are reaching audiences and they will continue to reach other audiences through through home video as well i think it's important to go for hollywood to uh to push them in that direction too that to show them that that viewpoint is viable and that people want to see it uh i think it's important to get the mainstream films to see that view or to have incorporate characters into that you know i mean it's important to get to hollywood also not just independent because there's always been why hold on because i know david feels that to stop focusing on hollywood let's focus on the independence i think independent film has always as always shown sides of life that people you know other sides of life you know whether it was i mean i don't know i don't have any examples but you know like smaller sections of lifestyles and smaller sections of populations but uh but what you an independent film is successful it makes a couple million dollars but if you get a character in a major hollywood film you have guaranteed millions and millions of people seeing that yeah seeing it on video and seeing it on television after that and i think that that is where society will be affected more than than independent film unless it hits really wide i i disagree i think that you can get a film out there through hollywood through absolutely you know just pat the pure power of hollywood but i don't think that necessarily uh translates into something that could be far more viable from an independent film something that's less filtered by hollywood's attitudes my only interest in hollywood really is getting hollywood to believe in itself there are tremendous amounts of gays and lesbians in this industry who have programmed themselves to not think of their own existence to just be silent and go along with with the program uh well of course it's true of women it's true of people of color i mean you know everybody's programmed to think of of just profit and and sort of they lose themselves and white men it's also the fear it's also the fear of being uh you know pigeonholed if you if you bring up gay matters well then you're the gay executive you know whatever if you bring it over black if you your producer wants to push only black issues you're the black film producer yeah but if you're the black film producer you'll never get to be the white film producer so why not why not deal with reality you know it's um i think this is this is also impacting overall in society that people are beginning to question this notion of what constitutes the mainstream because they're not in it and their lives count they have stories to tell they have things to do i mean you know was certainly in the world of journalism this is this is starting to uh to impact a lot more in in terms of stories that when something is happening who is it happening to in what community what sort of a story is this is this a story about uh people at a socioeconomic level or is it about this particular area in town where there is a concentration of this group that group the other yeah so uh gay and lesbian stories obviously uh feed into that do you feel pigeon holed no i don't um and perhaps i'm naive and and will be proven wrong but um i you know uh covering gage is only one of the things that i've done you know over a number of years um at the la times i'm sure i will not be covering gay issues for the rest of my life um it happens to be my beat right now i i know that i can do other things i have done other things they know i can do other things so um no i mean i don't think that i have you know been permanently uh forced you know into one role that i will never be able to escape from i was going to return earlier to um to talking about mainstreaming which which is sort of an interesting issue with with with print um and when when is it relevant to bring up someone's identity i mean we deal with this issue all the time i mean obviously if you're talking if you're interviewing um men and women and quoting them in the newspaper well you know the name is obvious you know you have a woman here you know you have a man here but i mean we her name is pat ryan or chris for sean but i mean at the times we are we are taught for instance not to introduce uh race gratuitously i mean we don't identify someone as being you know white or latino or or black just for the hell of it and i think the same thing you know applies to to gay when when is it you know if i'm interviewing somebody on a subject in which they are not you know obviously gay but they are gay when is it appropriate and relevant to to introduce the fact that they're gay i'm sure an organization like glad assuming that that the person is not a convict um or um you know isn't being arrested for um embezzlement would like you know if if it's an interesting person you know a good role model you would you would like the person to be identified um you know as gay but you know when if if i'm not really talking about the person's personal life you know what is that really right i don't really know that that's true i mean i think that what glad has always gone for is if you're doing stories and including people of all races and ethnicities and making a point of showing different couples or different people and in you know similar situations and their reactions then also include us but i don't i think we would agree with you that no you don't need to talk about somebody's sexual orientation just as a point well i was just reading and it was in the uh the new york times today there was a piece in the sports section about martinez and it was talking about she's entering into the you know the twilight of a career and when one of the things that was very interesting in the piece is that it brought up the fact she mentioned the fact that she's in a new relationship with somebody who likes tennis but isn't a big sports nut and terribly involved no name but she said that that's what i like about her and this was brought in in this sort of free and easy way of course it's easy for sports people to uh to talk about about martina now but i thought it was nice that it wasn't just a sports story in that way and that you know like as martinez you know leaving tennis and going off to whatever she's going to do you know how's your love life is not it is not a uh an invalid question well it's very funny now you know we're seeing the coverage of the winter olympics and when they're interviewing you know the pair skaters or this they delve in to their families and where they came from and then you get to the men's skaters and you know there are no little blurbs about where they came from or their family or her friends don't get me started on ice cream so so it's just another way of that's a place where it wouldn't be gratuitous because everybody else is doing it we're doing it for the heterosexuals in terms of trying to show those ice skaters would like to delve into the details of their family life i mean you know you've got a resistance on the other side too where where someone you know may be um fairly open about their sexuality but it's quite another thing to have it discussed in print quite another thing to be talking about it you know those commercial endorsers are going to go straight out the door yeah well and of course you're dealing with people whose whole livelihood is based on what they do after the olympics on an image and quite frankly middle america is not going to take that well i love the cynical we've taken i mean it's just and it's reality it's just not a good business decision and that's where they have to come from right now because they are not in a position yet so what's going to change this i mean we've talked about oh tv is doing great and independence doing great and g we're getting covered what's going to change this where it is no longer an issue where we're not going to have endorsers fleeing i mean some people seem to get it and are creating and doing and some people seem to be on another planet i think it's going to come from the people themselves i think that there's going to be there's all this talk about actors playing gay roles or being out in hollywood i think that you know somewhere in this city right now is somebody who's going to be the next big thing and is not going to do the closet is just not going to do it and we'll get through that by dint of his or her talent and i think the same thing will happen in 40 years with ice skating yeah i think something is going to take a very long time i think glad will play a part in helping that too because they do positive things also they they acknowledge you know they they go after you know you don't like how we go after her you're looking at me that way but going after part i think that gladwalk's a tightrope i mean the point is that uh commenting or criticizing a lot of gay characters or something in certain situations on tv and film you're you're giving a producer reluctance to go there again and that could be a problem just because it's out of stereo yeah i mean it's just like um when black sitcoms started in the early 70s when they came to flourish every time black sitcom came out a black group would either attack it or pull it apart and and uh and so there's there's a certain reluctance of people to uh to go there again to do that again to to grow from that because they don't want to deal with the public black backlash again i mean it's like there's still a lot of controversy in the black community about there is certainly there is it's still shows like martin split the african-american community right down the middle it's just like good times premieres in their attack it because it's just showing blacks as poor victims the cosby show premieres is saying well that's totally unreal blacks you know that's not portraying us the way we are it's that's that's the tight rope that that glad needs to walk i believe just because i think they do a great thing by acknowledging positive stereo positive positive role models by with the glad awards and uh there was a i was there last year and it was a great it was a great evening because it really did it presented good role models and good things in the future as well as you know seeing that backlash well i'd like to turn the tables now in terms of you know what is the future for an organization such as glaad and the kinds of things that they talk about in the manner in which they do it i mean i still um see um gay groups in the gay community itself i think often doesn't i don't believe have an appreciation for for what journalism really is i mean they say things in terms of advocacy and i think glaad sees things very much in terms of of a positive image rather than a complex image or an image of quality i mean you can have something that's positive it can be the complete crap it can be um whoops shouldn't say that that's an mcc word we'll find out it can be you know a very simplistic i mean ultimately i think what the goal of everyone should be is is um you know the rich complexity of people um and you know we we don't just have to have um you know a articulate wonderful person realistic we're talking about hollywood television we're not talking independent so when you talk about complex um we don't have great expectations for complexity i mean there are some fantastic shows out that that have three-dimensional characters they are few and far between so i think what we hopefully are striving for is a balance of of you know i don't think we're only going for the positive image there have been independent pictures that have had you know gay characters that are complex and not somebody that you would necessarily like whether it's uh swoon swoon you'd mention um we um there's another film savage knights that has a a character that you know might not be all that likeable with what we're here the gary oldman oh yeah uh we think the world we think so i don't think it's that it's solely that i think we would like to see more complex and variety but you know we haven't had enough to balance it out especially from the hollywood area of television and and film also to come to glad's defense on this on this point i think i think i think one of the things that's interesting is that it sets up a dialogue within the community which is terribly important it's it's very important for glad to point out something's going on you should take a look at this we think this but that doesn't mean that everybody should just fall in line uh people could like it not like it and then this opens up a space for talking about the kinds of images that we're seeing and uh what we think of them and what we want instead or whether this or that is adequate yeah i don't think we've ever pretended i mean i i suppose sometimes when you make statements everybody thinks you're speaking for an entire community and it is difficult given our community and the diversity of opinion in it but one thing that we're doing now is really going within the organizations we've set up our sexual orientation and the workplace trainings to talk about these issues not from a product point of view but how is this hap what's happening in the workplace uh we've seen like at the la times the folk you know the caucuses growing at studios uh networks television stations so hopefully that will have some impact you know working within instead of just that could trickle out into those people who are making those decisions and um sean was saying that you thought that the surface was just being scratched i'm not sure that that's quite true with uh with with journalism and print media i think um the coverage um is somewhat governed by controversy and we're certainly going to have controversy around for uh quite some time because there is a very um committed and steady opposition to gay rights this year we're going to have a number of anti-gay initiatives probably on on ballots in a number of states so that is going to become the the equivalent of the case in the military issue last year but without without that controversy um and coverage of it um the stories you know are going to receive someone you've seen that already since the gays in the military died down i mean things have gotten somewhat quieter and certainly last year if there had been no opposition to clinton's proposal and sam knight just said oh that's just wonderful fine we'll have you know we'll have gays in the military there wouldn't have been nearly you know the the volume of stories and the volume of of uh of tv shows on the subject would have been minuscule in comparison i do sometimes wonder what the what the level of public interest will remain at you know just and sometimes i wonder does anybody read my stories except for you know gay people and the religious right you know how how many of of of the you know how many members of of the public um have a sustained interest in this topic and i go back and forth you know and sometimes i think that nobody's reading me but but you know but uh gay activists and uh and conservative activists uh and then i think well no i mean it really is a subject that is very interesting uh in a number of ways and and touches on a number of different uh social aspects and and holds long-term public interest but i mean you know news news moves in waves and coverage moves in waves and and um you know we've had a certain amount of g-whiz coverage and you know in the past year and the issue has has very much uh been legitimized as you know as a news topic and and i don't think there will ever be a turning back from that i mean it's that niche has been carved but i think you might have um some editors you know rolling their eyes and saying you know we've really you know done this and you know what's the new angle because we need an angle you mentioned the initiatives that are coming up if those aren't going to be in major areas do you think i mean what kind of coverage oh i still can we expect i think um i mean look at look at the um coverage that the oregon initiative got i mean i got a great deal of national coverage and it was you know it was one state um and you know along with colorado which didn't get so much coverage but i think um you know what happened in those two states you know very much cleared the way for uh for national coverage and particularly this year when you're it looks like that there will exist in a number of different states and in in variations so i i think that it'll generate you know intense coverage within those states and will also garner a fair amount of national coverage because it very much is you know it's a trend with fairly far-reaching implications and and in the national coverage i think they will hook into the fact that different initiatives are being dealt with in different places and get are getting different reactions depending on how quickly the various gay groups involved are moving to quash these things what's being done what's being said the kinds of ways that the the right is trying to tailor its bigotry to slip through and i think the overall impact of of getting people to realize that being able to hold a job have an apartment somewhere and mind your own business is not a special right there's nothing special about that it's just uh it's just very ordinary and it doesn't mean that you know by putting this in you will immediately be able to uh you know adopt somebody else's child or something you know and you know hang from the ceiling i don't know what insane fantasies they create about the power that we don't have one thing that'll be interesting to see how sophisticated the coverage is i mean it was interesting to um compare the coverage in oregon within the state of oregon with the coverage within the state of colorado it was vastly different partly because the ore initiative was uh so much stronger than than the colorado one but in colorado the coverage was really pretty superficial you know special rights versus equal rights whereas uh in oregon i mean there was really an examination of of advertisements and and statements and he's really treated as a serious political campaign and was dissected in a very thorough manner i mean certainly a lot of gay coverage now um by broadcast and print is just a repetition of rhetoric by each side you know he said she said the gay say this the the anti-gays you know say this and it just cancels each other out you know with without much of an attempt to go beyond and to um examine the material and um and not just repeat the rhetoric and it would it would be nice if if the coverage could become more sophisticated and more complex whether it will i have no idea well in talking about um you know you had said scratching the service i think that's what we're all hoping for in terms of not just more but the complexity and really delving into this issue because until it is we have to deal with so much misinformation as it is that until we clear that away and actually get to the root of these issues public opinion won't change because it will be just the same things uh said over and over time it's has flown and i really want to thank you again for for being here um sean dwyer thank you david ehrenstein and bettina boxall you've been watching get used to it we've been talking about gays and lesbians and the media and our coverage and if you want more information about how you can make a difference and get involved in changing public opinion through the media or affecting change in the media there will be a number at the end and you can call glad and we would be happy to work with you thank you for watching get used to it we will see you again next time and thanks to sheila jameskule for allowing me to guest host i'm johanna gramma and see you later [Music] you