01x03 - The Epidemic

[bunniefuu]

I sat with a young man that I was dating.

He was about 24 or 25.

And we were watching The Normal Heart.

Ryan Murphy did this sort of motif

where he would smash-cut

to men carrying their lovers,

running with their lovers

through the streets.

We are all walking time bombs,

waiting for whatever it is to set us off.

If this article doesn't scare

the sh*t out of you,

g*y men may have no future here on Earth.

Our continued existence depends

on just how angry we can get.

This very young man turned to me

and was like, "Well,

isn't that a little over the top?"

Y'all don't know.

Y'all don't know.

This is what it looked like.

Wasting until you're gone.

Sometimes a year, sometimes a week.

People were dropping dead in the streets.

Jesus!

Hey, get the f*ck out of the street!

Baby!

Oh, my God!

Help!

We forget. Our attention span is so short.

We lived through a plague, a real one.

A real plague.

Like the bubonic plague

that we talked about

when we were in school, in history class,

that's gonna be

in the history books like that.

You don't get to erase us.

That will never happen again.

In 1981, a mysterious disease

hit the United States.

Buried on page 20 of The New York Times,

an article described a rare cancer

found in h*m* men.

It would be months before television's

major nightly news programs

picked up the story.

The early coverage of A*DS

was really frightening.

I remember watching the news

and listening to them

talk about this g*y cancer,

and how it was

affecting g*y men in major cities.

Scientists at the national Centers

for Disease Control in Atlanta today

released the results of a study

which shows that the lifestyle

of some male h*m*

has triggered an epidemic

of a rare form of cancer.

One of the things I have done

in my job recently,

is that I've gone back and looked

at some of the news archive footage

of coverage of the early A*DS epidemic.

And news organizations

had a decision to make:

how much of this they were going to show.

The images we have found

are brutal and heartbreaking.

But if America is to come to terms

with this k*ller, they must be shown.

No matter how many g*y men died of A*DS,

even when the numbers got into

the hundreds and then the thousands,

it was still seen as an impersonal loss.

All this media attention and sympathy

for these A*DS victims

just really bothers me.

Let's call a spade a spade.

A*DS is a venereal disease

and the vast majority of its victims,

I think they're morally deficient.

We may not have a cure for A*DS,

but we do know how to prevent it.

There is no questioning

that h*m* grew tremendously,

because people were scared.

There was such a hysteria about A*DS.

People thought, "Well, this is something

that only affected g*y people,

and if it's k*lling g*y people

what is the big deal?"

And so they didn't care.

Little did they know

it wasn't just a g*y disease,

and the impact it would have,

not only on America, but on the world.

The very first television movie

about A*DS

was in 1985, An Early Frost.

I remember watching An Early Frost

with my mom, in silence,

thinking, "Oh, she's gonna think

this is gonna happen to me."

I just remember how beautiful he was.

Aidan Quinn was this gorgeous man,

and those blue eyes

that looked right through you.

I'm sure you've heard of

acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

A*DS?

Are you telling me I have A*DS?

I remember getting the script

when I was 25

and just being blown away

by the emotional quality of it

and the content of it.

This was a time

before Rock Hudson came out

and was on the front page

of The New York Times.

And that happened actually

while we were sh**ting.

So the knowledge about A*DS

was very, very scant and minimal.

I wonder how many other people

will wanna shake my hand

when they find out what I've got.

We wrote the movie for Kansas.

It was for people who knew nothing

about A*DS, nothing about g*y people,

because it was important that people

understood what was going on.

So, really what this is about

is that him coming home

and telling his family he has A*DS,

that he's sick.

But we did our research, and it turned out

that the majority of people who did this,

their families didn't know they were g*y.

And that's why we included

the double whammy,

"I'm g*y, and I have A*DS."

I have A*DS.

That's impossible. That's a

Who told you such a thing?

The doctors did. They did tests.

No, A*DS is that disease that's

I'm g*y, Mom.

Dad.

No! No.

That scene was 31 years ago,

but it still comes back,

just thinking about it, to fight

for the respect the character deserved.

I know this is difficult for you.

And I know I should have told you

about myself sooner.

But I am not going to apologize

for what I am

because it's taken me too long

to accept it.

An Early Frost was acclaimed by critics.

It won four Emmy awards

and beat Monday Night Football

in television ratings,

capturing a third of America's viewing

audience on the night that it aired.

The most interesting fact

is that the movie did not have

one single advertiser.

- No one would advertise on our movie.

- There was one advertiser.

There was only one,

and it was for the Bible.

I like a Bible I can understand,

and for me The Book is the best.

For a truly traditional Christmas,

go buy The Book.

While I was watching it,

I had this bad cold.

And I was coughing away

during the broadcast,

and my boyfriend nudges me

and he says, "You sound like he does."

And he pointed to Aidan Quinn,

who was suffering from PCP pneumonia.

Hey, are you okay?

So watching an actor

portray A*DS on-screen

is what got me to go to my doctor

for this cough I had.

And that's how I found out.

I had to do the same thing

two weeks later with my family.

I had to tell them

that I was HIV-positive,

had been diagnosed

with A*DS-related complex,

and, oh, by the way, I'm g*y.

And ever since, I've called it

"An Early Frost double whammy."

You try not to think about it.

You just know that

your best friend has died.

You just know that a person

you had a love affair with

is in Lenox Hill Hospital with PCP,

which has an 80% fatality rate.

We have to get the information around.

It's very hard because there is

no g*y network, unfortunately.

I had heard, by that point,

of Larry Kramer.

I should have heard about him

in '81, in '82,

when he was screaming back then.

But the press gave him

virtually no attention.

But on my way to work

on Wall Street one morning

this cute guy handed me a flyer

for a demonstration

that was happening about an hour later.

And it was ACT UP's first demonstration.

- What do we want?

- A cure!

- When do we want it?

- Now!

- What do we want?

- A cure!

- When do we want it?

- Now!

I was on the trading floor

inside JP Morgan,

and the traders and the sales force

were talking about A*DS.

And the head trader, my mentor

decided he was gonna just

shut down the conversation

and he said, "Well, if you ask me,

they all deserve to die

'cause they took it up the butt."

So I was like,

"I'm gonna find this group."

ACT UP, get involved!

Tomorrow morning at city hall!

ACT UP, get involved!

Tomorrow morning at city hall!

I got to the very next meeting

that Monday night

and never stopped going.

It became quickly my life, my church,

my future, my savior.

Using TV and the media,

from ACT UP's perspective,

was the whole game.

We were about to give television

a picture they had never seen before.

I'm willing to meet with three people

if the rest of you leave.

The activists purposely set up

the performative aspects of their protests

so that there would be people kissing,

there would be same sex couples kissing.

There would be ostentatious displays

of g*y and l*sbian identity.

It was the first time

that could be televised.

The community was rising up

and willing, for the first time,

to take to the streets

in significant numbers

week in and week out.

ACT UP, get involved!

It's time to march on city hall!

Putting our bodies on the line

The whole world is watching.

The whole world is watching.

Going in front of the TV cameras,

showing anger and determination

and that we weren't gonna take it anymore.

And I think, for Americans, this was

the coming out moment for the movement.

This was the time

they probably first saw us

because it was on national television.

Crossfire: Against All Odds.

What would you tell some kid

who might have h*m* tendencies

- if you want him to live a long life?

- "Use a condom."

And also to use a lubricant,

by the way, that has a

- This is Russian roulette.

- It is not Russian roulette.

It is Russian roulette

to not give people this information,

when human nature dictates that they're

gonna go out there and have sex

- You mean celibacy is impossible?

- It's just not gonna work.

People aren't gonna do it,

and lots of people are gonna die.

60 Minutes was one of

the biggest audiences you could get,

and we thought it was high time

that 60 Minutes

did a story about ACT UP.

You might not like the extremes

they go to, but they couldn't care less.

They're angry, and they're dying,

and there's no cure in sight.

I do not want to go gentle

into that good night.

I want to fight

till the last possible moment.

It gives me a reason for living.

Fight A*DS! ACT UP!

As ACT UP's message spread across America,

activists focused on the urgent need

for affordable, accessible treatment

for people living with A*DS.

Don't ever give up the fight!

Health care is a right!

The government was still not spending

much money on A*DS research

or resources for people with HIV.

So we had been focusing

much of our activism on the FDA,

trying to get it to speed up

the drug approval process.

And we finally decided to take it

to their front door.

AZT is not enough!

Give us all the other stuff!

We are simply asking the FDA

to do it quicker.

Silence equals death.

Silence equals death.

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

And it was a major splash.

We were all over the news that night.

The whole world is watching!

The visuals we presented that day

changed that dynamic forever.

It started to lower,

according to Gallup, instantly,

a dramatic decrease in the backlash

that had been occurring

during the A*DS crisis

on Americans' views of gays.

And within three years

of that demonstration,

the A*DS research budget at the NIH

under two Republican presidents tripled.

That's the power of TV.

The FDA's approval of AZT today

is one of the quickest approval actions

on record

and will make the drug available

to the 14,000 A*DS victims

who can be helped by it.

By 1990, there was over a billion dollars

a year in A*DS research.

Just three years, that's all it took.

And those tax dollars

are why I'm here today

and why millions of people

around the world are still alive.

Do you think that you'll live

to see a cure?

No. No.

You expect to die from this?

Seeing that pessimism

that I was plowing through in '92

is very bittersweet

because I know that that was

the reality for most of the people

who were fighting back then.

It was a minority of us that made it,

that made it through.

And there's a lot of survivor's guilt.

And a lot of ghosts that we see

when we look at any of that footage.

Most A*DS story lines have been about

the white g*y experience

and very, very few about

the African-American experience.

Practically anything g*y on TV,

it was white.

Certainly when you saw story lines

dealing with the A*DS crisis,

it was always from a white perspective.

And the A*DS epidemic was devastating

to the black g*y community, specifically.

So I wanted to explore that

with Noah's Arc.

I need to come clean about something.

I've slept with a lot of men.

Wow.

So it's likely that I'm HIV-positive,

and if you don't want to go out with me,

I completely understand.

Ricky, it's okay.

- Are you sure?

- No.

I'm positive.

We dealt with a lot of these issues

on Noah's Arc.

We dealt with HIV and A*DS.

But before that, it wasn't until

Jeffrey Wright in Angels in America

that I actually saw a three-dimensional

g*y person of color

in a show about people living with A*DS.

Whatever happens, baby,

I'll be here for you.

Je t'aime.

Je t'aime.

And the thing about that role

is that he is this incredibly articulate

and passionate man of color

who was willing to stand up for himself.

I want a white nurse.

My constitutional right.

Find the vein, or I'll sue you so bad

they'll have to repossess your teeth,

- you dim black m*therf*cker.

- Watch yourself.

You don't talk to me like that,

not when I'm holding something this sharp

or I might slip and stick it

in your heart, if you have a heart.

On Pose, I feel there's no way of talking

about 1980s New York City

and centering q*eer and trans people

without talking about this

very apparent, omnipresent bogeyman,

when the people that you love most

and surround yourselves with,

the people who've given you resources

and love and care,

are dropping day by day.

It takes sitting in what makes us

feel uncomfortable,

asking ourselves

why it makes us feel uncomfortable,

and then moving to the next place

of release.

Pose pushes that envelope

for people of color and trans people.

So what does it say?

Come on. Don't keep me in suspense.

Rip the Band-Aid off.

When Blanca went into the hospital

to find out her status

Blanca,

the test confirmed that you have HIV.

the world needed to see her perspective

of it and how she would handle it,

because no one ever shed a light

on a trans woman who had HIV.

- Thank you.

- For what?

It must be hard having to tell people

they're gonna die day after day.

These shows cracked the conversation open

in a way that we just have not had it yet.

It's powerful. It's so powerful.

GLAAD started in 1985

in the midst of the A*DS crisis.

We started protesting media journalism

and the coverage of the A*DS crisis,

'cause they were villainizing g*y men,

and we quickly realized

that not only did we have to correct

the record in media and journalism,

we also realized that we were losing

so much ground

in Hollywood and in storytelling.

The industry's silence

is at best ironic and at worst tragic.

There weren't many willing people

to tell those stories.

And there weren't many actors

willing to play LGBTQ roles.

So our visibility took

a really enormous step backwards.

In the midst of the A*DS epidemic,

as LGBTQ characters

were disappearing on television

LGBTQ audiences began to look

for representation

in the most unlikely of television shows.

Golden Girls, I mean,

I live for The Golden Girls.

It is my nighttime ritual: go home,

unwind, watch The Golden Girls.

I've seen every episode

two or three times.

Oh, my, my, my, my, my, my!

Why do I feel the need to bathe?

The Golden Girls is an iconic show

about a family that someone

kind of created themselves.

And I think a lot of g*y people,

especially my age and older,

who may have not always been embraced

by their families,

we really connect with those characters

who are kind of a chosen family.

And of course, they had g*y story lines.

Blanche, we don't have to worry about what

the world thinks about our relationship.

It just doesn't matter,

because we're there for each other.

I'd do anything for Doug,

and he'd bend over backwards for me.

I look at Golden Girls as, really,

they're all g*y archetypes.

There's a real genius there

because you couldn't get away with,

having guys on it at that time,

but there's a way to subvert that

and, you know, trick the status quo

by making it about these older women.

You really haven't grasped the concept

of this g*y thing yet, have you?

There must be h*m* who date women.

Yeah, they're called lesbians.

They remind me a little bit

of the biting humor

that drag queens can sometimes have.

I think that g*y men

can kind of relate to that,

those dry looks

that Bea Arthur would give.

I call it the Tennessee Williams effect

in terms of how g*y men,

for a very long time,

had to be in the mouths

of female heroines.

You know, every story that Tennessee

Williams told was about a g*y man.

And that replacement

that we had to make for many years

is why we love our divas so much.

Just so embarrassed to be seen

in this old thing.

It's like we can relate

to those narratives

inside of something like The Golden Girls,

inside of something like Designing Women.

I think there's a great symbiosis

between women and the LGBTQ community,

particularly g*y men.

They have both been marginalized

by society.

So it was so easy for me to just put all

those male voices I loved into the women.

Finally they're speaking,

they have their own names.

Now, the truth is that we women

haven't had enough power

or money or confidence

to start much of anything,

but we sure as heck

get the blame for everything.

I'll tell you something else!

So I think once the LGBTQ community

knew that we were on their side,

every speech that was made

on Designing Women,

no matter what it was about,

was a liberal diatribe

against bigotry, prejudice,

and they felt a kinship with us.

That is the night

the lights went out in Georgia.

Julia Sugarbaker, you know,

all of those speeches

you could have put it

into the mouth of a g*y activist,

and that's why we responded so much

'cause it's like you're saying the sh*t

that needs to be said!

To watch a show that you just love

because you love it,

and suddenly they're dealing with

a g*y issue, or they have a g*y character.

I want you to be in charge of it.

You know, design it for me.

Why do you want us to design your funeral?

Because I'm dying, and I like your taste.

I knew I already wanted to stand up

for the LGBTQ community on television

because I felt that cause profoundly.

But that was way ratcheted up

after my mom got A*DS.

And we were in the hospital,

my mom was in the hospital with just her

She got it through a blood transfusion

during heart surgery.

But there were 17 other young men

on the floor,

and they were all dying of A*DS.

I would be sitting in the little room

where you look at TV at night,

and they were dying alone in their rooms

with just a game show on.

And it just broke my heart.

And my mom was treated abysmally,

probably better than any of the g*y men,

but still horribly.

Nobody knew how you get it,

so we're all in gloves and masks

and her medicine's

kicked into the room in a bucket.

And one day I heard one of the nurses say,

"Well, if you ask me,

this disease has one thing going for it.

It's k*lling all the right people."

And I just thought,

"Okay, I'm gonna remember that.

And that's gonna be on TV."

Now, I don't like to hurt

anyone's feelings,

but if these boys hadn't been doing

what they do

they wouldn't be gettin'

what's comin' to 'em now.

As far as I'm concerned, this disease

has one thing going for it.

It's k*lling all the right people.

Imogene, I'm terribly sorry.

I'm gonna have to ask you

to move your car.

- Why?

- Because you're leaving.

What are you talkin' about?

All of us, all of the "other thans,"

all of the "pushed asides", you know,

we've gotta stand together and

we've gotta say, you know, "Hell, no."

Imogene, get serious!

Who do you think you're talking to?

If God was giving out

sexually transmitted diseases

to people as a punishment for sinning,

then you would be at the free clinic

all the time.

I told my mom, "I wrote the show for you."

And it was justice for her,

and I felt a little bit of justice

for those 17 young men who died

while I was on the same floor with them.

A*DS is terrifying.

You never get used to it.

People are afraid.

There's no cure, Angela.

In the late '80s, as A*DS deaths

dramatically increased,

daytime soap operas

began to address the epidemic.

We do know that you cannot catch it

from a towel,

from a kiss on the cheek

or a hug or holding hands.

Jesse

I promise you, it will be all right.

Soap operas had an extra

emotional element,

because they were like

a lifeline to people.

Soap operas were your friends

during the day.

They were just huge. They were staples.

People talked about soap opera characters

like they knew them

and would get emotional about them.

Any soap opera moments do I remember?

How much time do you have?

I grew up on All My Children.

Everyone always says this was the first

g*y character on daytime soaps, this was.

But I remember the l*sbian lover

of Donna Pescow.

I don't want you to see her!

I don't want you to see anyone else.

I love you.

I want to be your lover.

As soap story lines adapted

from the late '80s to the early '90s

We were involved

in equestrian things together.

He needed somebody to talk to, to be with.

So did I.

LGBTQ characters appeared

with increasing frequency.

Well, maybe you don't want me here,

Mrs. Clayton, but I know Charles does.

Over my dead body.

And in 1992,

One Life to Live set its focus

on g*y teen Billy Douglas,

highlighting

the LGBTQ youth experience,

which had rarely been seen on television.

When I was a producer at CBS This Morning

Ryan Phillippe was playing a g*y character

on One Life to Live.

And I was like,

"This is super groundbreaking!

This is a really important story line,

we have to cover it."

And I remember interviewing

Ryan Phillippe, who was so young.

My mom's favorite TV show

was One Life to Live.

So my first real acting job

was on my mother's favorite soap opera.

You know, I was a senior in high school

in Delaware at the time,

somewhat naive, didn't know anyone

who was openly g*y.

But I knew the character

was a g*y teenager.

At that time, this was well before

Ellen and Will & Grace

and all these other things,

so it felt like a pretty big decision

at that point in my life.

It's a topic that's under the spotlight

in your own living room

every day at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Here's what's happening right now

in the fictional town of Llanview

on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live.

The pivotal player is this 17-year-old,

Ryan Phillippe,

who just graduated from

the Newcastle Baptist Academy

in his hometown of Newcastle, Delaware.

I was really young at that time,

but I remember people talking about it

and being on the news.

I'm 17, just getting out of high school,

I still care a lot about what friends,

family, church thinks.

And I'll tell you,

it took a lot of prayer.

Nights, I stayed up late thinking

about it. I'd talk to my parents.

I was at the time enrolled

in Christian school,

and the reaction, once I did take the job,

was pretty serious

in terms of they weren't happy

with the fact that I had taken this job.

Damn it, Joe, you think it was easy?

You think I go around

telling everybody that I know,

"What would you like on your pizza?

Oh, by the way, I'm g*y"?

The important thing about Ryan Phillippe

on One Life to Live

was, yes, he was playing a g*y teenager

and, yes, it was important

for teenagers to see that,

but let's remember who the audience

for soap operas is: stay-at-home moms

who for the first time, for many of them,

were seeing a g*y teen

on their televisions.

When we started getting the fan mail

was when I realized

I was doing something that mattered.

And any fears or reservations went away.

"Dear Ryan, as you act on One Life to Live

as a g*y teenager, I also act.

I act as a straight, normal 21-year-old.

It has become routine to act

like the perfect son or brother.

You are the first person I've ever told,

and maybe the last, that I am g*y.

I don't think I will ever be able

to tell anyone the truth.

Had not your portrayal in this story line

of a g*y teen hit me so deeply,

I probably would not be telling you.

I feel that way because of things I hear

my family say about h*m*.

I know this is just your job,

and I'm sorry for throwing

all of my problems at you like this,

but it feels good just to tell someone.

Thank you for your time."

Those letters, man, that's when I realized

I'm actually doing something here

that matters,

that even though it's on a soap opera,

even though I'm 17,

even though I had reservations initially

about it, that this is having an impact.

As soap opera characters captured

the attention of daytime audiences,

another daytime format, the talk show,

beamed real-life people into

the television sets of viewers.

I remember watching Donahue,

and one of their guests was a g*y person.

And that was the topic.

Like, "Can you believe we're talking

to a g*y person today?"

d*ck came out to me, I guess, in 1980,

before I was ever out.

It's been very difficult

with my parents, and

How did you feel when you learned

that your brother was g*y?

It's been an incredible,

incredible thing between us.

It brought us much, much closer.

Yeah, but how did you feel

the moment he told you?

I was floored.

I was home alone when it was on,

and the second my family came in

I changed the channel.

This was Phil Donahue, which was

the most successful syndicated show

up until Oprah Winfrey came along.

He was the afternoon show

that everybody watched.

Phil would bring somebody on

and spend an hour with them

and talk about everything in their lives,

and take questions from the audience.

On the way up in the car today,

in the conversation,

we were wondering what your show

was going to be about.

And we prayed it wouldn't be

a bunch of gays and lesbians.

- A bunch of

- That's what we prayed about.

So God did not answer your prayer.

- No. You

- I'm sorry, what?

- This is interesting.

- Oh, you like the show?

I think it's great. It's interesting.

Phil Donahue introduced

"forbidden" and taboo topics

to the American woman

in a way that didn't patronize her.

And to be able to reach that audience,

which is the core of America,

I think vital in that kind

of format and platform.

I cannot be nor will I accept

anyone putting me into the closet.

You can't do it to me.

When you go on a talk show,

you're gonna get some audience members

that give you a little pushback,

and you're gonna hear

the hatred and the ignorance.

And you're gonna get to respond to it

in real time.

All the people I know who've had it

are h*m* or junkies

Tell me why 95% of the people

who have A*DS in Africa are heterosexual.

Does that mean heterosexuality is evil?

Maybe in Africa,

but that's not the case here in America.

But Donahue wanted to cover issues

and cover them in their totality,

not just the personal, but the issue.

If we cannot speak to this woman,

we are nowhere.

And I suppose we shouldn't be surprised

that prejudice does not go away

on the occasion of one Donahue show,

however powerful may be my platform.

To his credit, as far

as talk show coverage of HIV/A*DS,

Donahue was up to bat first.

Here is a leader for our time,

Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

I did go on Phil Donahue's program

in that dress made by Jean-Paul Gaultier

in order to raise money.

I usually wouldn't do things like that.

However, I did that because of the urgency

to raise awareness about

that dreadful disease of A*DS.

We have to say we need money

not only for a cure

but also for the care

of those very unfortunate people

who have that disease.

Dr. Ruth was just so perfect

to talk about sex

in a way that was really disarming.

You just ended a relationship

that was beautiful.

It was very serious, for me anyway.

I fell quite in love with him.

The way I hear you talk about it,

it still hurts.

She was so open to answering questions

about any kind of sexuality,

and I think that went a long way

to making it very safe.

What I think you must do

is to be out there.

You're a very good-looking man.

Don't get discouraged so easily.

The talk shows during the day were watched

by housewives in the suburbs.

They were watched by people who didn't

have any contact with h*m*.

So these talk shows were crucial

of changing the attitude

towards h*m*.

When I was growing up, I grew up

with a single working mom,

so television really was kind of like

the surrogate babysitter in a way.

When I was younger

there was a lot of talk shows,

and so I feel like my first,

you know, exposure

to trans and LGBTQ representation

was largely through those shows.

The only trans images

that I ever saw growing up,

right before I started my transition,

were on, like, Geraldo or Jerry Springer.

Jerry! Jerry!

I was born to be a man.

Most of those shows with trans people

were, like, "Guess which one

is the real girl"

and they would have a bunch

of trans women on

and a couple of cis women on.

Did you think ever in your life

you would sit here on national television

distinguishing a man and a woman,

you say "I'm not sure"?

Maury Povich pulling somebody out,

saying "Which one of these girls

is a man?" on national TV

for the world to laugh at

and giggle and point and, you know

How rude.

For some talk show hosts,

the ratings were very, very important.

And that was very detrimental

to the community.

- What's your name?

- Robbie.

Robbie, you're a very statuesque

young lady.

Yeah.

You are a young lady, aren't you?

I mean, I don't know.

There wasn't anything more.

It wasn't "g*y people who"

It was "These people are g*y,

and they're gonna talk about it."

And it was usually some club kid

sort of like, "I'm g*y, okay? Hey!"

Anybody that was sort of alternative

in that way

was sort of portrayed

as a freak or as a joke.

But the fact that you would have

these q*eer kids on TV

at 3:00 in the afternoon on Geraldo,

I think club kids and club life

and g*y life

really became a circus

that you could join.

- Everybody say love.

- Love!

- Everybody say love.

- Love!

Y'all at home, touch your TV set,

'cause this is the most important show

you'll ever watch.

A lot of those talk shows during that time

was, like, we were the joke,

until with Jenny Jones,

then they saw how horrible and how wrong

and tragic it could be.

On March 6th, 1995,

in front of a live audience,

Scott Amedure revealed his secret crush

on his unsuspecting straight neighbor

Jonathan Schmitz.

Let's have Jon come out here

and see who has the crush on him.

Here's Jon.

The people at the show were laughing.

They think it's hilarious.

Did you have any idea

that he liked you this much?

No, no. No, I did not.

But then when these guests go home,

he ends up murdering the guy.

Three days after the taping,

Schmitz shot and k*lled Amedure,

later confessing to the police

that the m*rder

was the result of extreme embarrassment

from his appearance on the show.

That man k*lled that g*y man

because of, I don't know,

his embarrassment, I suppose?

The secret crush episode

was pulled from broadcast.

Jonathan Schmitz was found guilty

of second-degree m*rder

and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison.

He was released in August of 2017.

You know, the fact is,

there was a lack of responsibility

in the conversation, in the way

that those issues were handled

because it was all about ratings,

and it wasn't about, for the most part,

informing the lives of people.

I made the intentional choice

that I would cause no harm.

And I did that by causing harm,

I think, in the beginning.

I was just following everybody else's lead

and doing what we used to call

confrontational television.

So you're upset because they call you

names in front of the children?

They tell my children they shouldn't

love me because I'm g*y and it's wrong.

That's not correct. What matters

is what's factual and happened

In the beginning,

I was just happy to have a show.

And then about '88, '89, before every show

I would have the producers state to me

their intention for the show.

Like, I'm not gonna do something

that I don't purposely intend to do

'cause I made a decision I was gonna

use the show as a force for good.

And so I started

to change the way I thought about

how television could be used.

I think I have a lot of g*y friends,

so I now understand,

but it was one of the main points

of ignorance for me for a long time,

and I know that there are a lot of

other people out there who are watching,

'cause 20 million people watch this show,

who really are like I was,

who don't understand what you mean

when you say "We're in love."

Everybody was learning the language.

Everybody was learning

how to talk about it.

So when Oprah would take up our issues,

it was with care and understanding

and love.

Whatever your personal feelings

about h*m* are,

whether you think it's right or wrong,

we ask that you listen to the people

in this studio today.

My name is Juanita, and I want to tell

my family and friends that I'm g*y.

And I hope it doesn't hurt their feelings,

or they're not disappointed in me,

because I'm still the same person

that I've always been.

There were so many people

who felt secure enough

to come out on the Oprah show,

and they hadn't told their parents yet.

So we started to have people

sign an agreement

that said you're gonna tell your mother

before the show airs

'cause they should not hear it

on national television.

Is it easier to tell them on television

than it is to sit them down in a room?

Yeah. This way I don't have to see them,

and I'll hear it later. Yeah.

Oprah had so many episodes

where it was something that was

out of this world

to have on television at the time.

And the audience wasn't accepting of it,

the in-studio audience.

h*m* is wrong.

And if you are going to say

that you also support that,

it's double-standarding.

The God I serve doesn't care

whether you're tall or short or g*y.

To me in my mind I thought,

"Okay, my parents are gonna be

It's gonna make it easier

for them to accept me

because they'll see

that Oprah says it's okay."

And if Oprah said it's okay,

then all right. Let's go with it.

There's the very iconic Oprah moment

when the news was maybe

not giving us all the information

and our president wasn't even

mentioning the word "A*DS,"

we would look to talk show hosts,

and I remember watching Oprah

going to a small town in West Virginia.

A*DS hit this small town one day last July

when a Williamson man

suspected of having A*DS

took a dip in the local swimming pool.

And much to my surprise,

the people of West Virginia were willing

to have a town hall meeting about it.

Why would you think you would be

welcomed here if you had A*DS?

Because I felt I was dying,

and I thought they could overlook the fact

that I was a h*m*

and see that I needed some compassion

and to be in my hometown.

The thing that was

really difficult to watch was just

the anger and the rage

being directed at this man

who was already living in fear.

I'm repulsed by his disease,

and I'm repulsed by him.

This is a disease of nature.

Nature will take care of something

that's wrong, it'll eradicate it.

And if they were all put 'em

all together, without any women,

they would be extinct

from the face of the earth in no time.

A*DS would k*ll 'em off anyway.

The vitriol in that room,

I mean, the thought of it

makes my eyes water.

Because so many people didn't understand

how to approach someone with A*DS.

It's not just the fear of A*DS.

A lot of people have a fear

of h*m*, period.

Or a disdain for h*m*.

The fact that Oprah Winfrey

had such compassion for him

and was using her platform

to really educate the entire country

through this one story,

you know, that gave me hope.

What I understood is the common

denominator in the human experience

different things make us joyful,

different things make us sad,

but when you're sad, that feeling

feels the same for somebody else

anywhere else in the world.

And it was my role to get

the millions of people who were watching

to understand that.

And so I used it as an intentional tool

to get to help people

see themselves differently

through the lives of other people.

In high school, I remember

watching An American Family,

the PBS series about the Loud family.

And I was mesmerized by this idea

of taking real life

and turning it into a TV series,

which led me to The Real World.

- Find out what happens

- When people stop being polite

And start getting real.

The Real World: San Francisco.

We had been hired by MTV

to create a scripted drama

about young people

starting out their lives in New York.

And then MTV said,

"This is too much money."

And so we said, "Well, what about

an unscripted series about young people?"

What if we took six young people

from different walks of life

and we put 'em in a house together?

Oh, my God! Holy !

What?

It was racially diverse,

it was socioeconomically diverse.

This is totally insane.

There would be lots of conflict.

- It's fun.

- All I'm saying

And that conflict would result in growth,

and that growth would be our story arc.

And Lauren Corrao,

the MTV exec we pitched it to,

looked at us, and she said,

"That's exactly what I lived

when I moved to New York."

And they bought it by lunch.

For us, I was just one of

the young people watching

and thinking "That's kinda cool.

It's really cool."

We all watched MTV pretty much

24 hours a day back then anyway.

Young people

were so tuned into the channel.

From the moment they got home

from school, MTV was on.

It was setting the agenda,

it was getting out the vote.

It was highlighting important issues

facing young people.

If you had it to do over again,

would you inhale?

Sure, if I could. I tried before.

The first season of The Real World

was beyond successful.

I want my MTV.

And MTV really hadn't had

appointment viewing up to that point.

People were making an appointment

to watch The Real World.

So you go, "Okay, I guess

this is really what's going on.

This is what the real world looks like

to people outside my limited experience."

And Bunim-Murray decide to cast

an openly g*y person.

And not just once, they continue to do it.

I'm the l*sbian.

The third season, they cast Pedro Zamora.

- I'm Pedro.

- We found our six other cast members,

and MTV says to us,

"We really think it's important

that the roommates know that someone

is gonna be HIV-positive in the cast."

When we were moving into the house,

we all knew

one of the roommates was HIV-positive.

We just didn't know who it was.

I think in theory you're like,

"I don't know what it's gonna be like

living with someone with A*DS."

It seems very scary.

But once you're actually faced with

this movie-star-beautiful young man

who's friendly and who's funny

and likable and disarming,

you actually meet the person.

- Pedro Zamora

- Pedro.

- Pedro.

- Pedro Zamora.

- Pedro.

- Pedro.

Everybody my age watched The Real World,

and that meant they were watching Pedro.

We fell in love with him on that show.

How could you not?

My reality today is that

I'm a person living with A*DS.

I'm not dying. I am living with it.

I do remember there was quite a bit

of variation among our roommates

with the amount of comfort

living with Pedro.

I mean, I felt uncomfortable.

He's the one with the disease.

He should make me feel comfortable.

And that's selfish, but that's how I felt.

Lucky for us, Pedro was an A*DS educator.

So he very carefully,

somewhat strategically,

kind of unpacked a couple of things.

I will probably not see the age of 30.

I will probably die

before I turn 30 years of age.

But that, of course,

is statistically speaking.

And what I have to remind myself

constantly is that I am not a statistic.

I think sometimes people forget

that Pedro was just 22,

and then, although

he was so mature and so poised,

he was still just a kid.

He was still

He was this 22-year-old kid from Miami

who left home for the first time

and wanted people to know who he was.

He's in the city of love,

where, you know, you can meet another guy

and you guys can go out on a date.

Any likely chance

that you'd move out here?

Maybe.

And you guys can hold hands,

and you're not worried

that you're gonna have someone

chasing you with a baseball bat.

But it took everyone by surprise

that he was dating and falling in love.

We're very pleased to have you all here

to celebrate the relationship

that we have with two incredible people.

He basically makes life very easy for me,

and it is a lot easier for me

to face my own fears

and face the uncertainty of my own life

knowing that he's there.

So, I love you.

This is 1994,

and nobody on TV

was talking about g*y marriage

in any kind of real way at all.

And I think the big thing on TV

at the time

was there was gonna be a g*y kiss

on Melrose Place.

Good night.

But they cut away at the last minute.

And we felt like, you know,

they're making this big deal

that Melrose Place might have a g*y kiss.

Oh, my God.

But we are having a g*y marriage

on our show.

As soon as we moved out of the house,

I remember we had a wrap party.

They showed the first episode

of the show at that party,

and we had never seen it before.

And I remember crying and crying

as I was watching the first episode,

and it was really being so relieved

that Pedro was coming across

with such richness,

and that the story was really

gonna be, like, fair to him.

I don't know if anybody knew

why I was crying

when I was watching the first episode.

But it really came home to me at that time

that that was what was really important

about our season.

The series is just at the halfway mark

when Pedro was hospitalized.

So we're having

this surreal experience where

It was supposed to be fun.

We're supposed to be enjoying

the stupidity of being famous,

and, you know,

people wanting to meet Pedro.

When he got sick,

it just made this weird turn.

Been having some kind of lesions

or something like that,

you know, in my brain,

it's just really spooky for me.

It's really scary.

I

I mean

So the great communicator,

Pedro Zamora, couldn't talk.

The first thing he was losing

was his ability to speak.

And it wasn't like he couldn't understand

what was going on around him.

He just couldn't put words to it anymore.

It was the evening of November 10th.

And Pedro is very, very sick.

And so we stayed with him overnight.

Just being present,

kind of listening to him breathe.

And then morning came,

and the nurses came in

to just change his sheets

like they did every morning.

And they just pulled his sheet back,

and he died.

Pedro passed away the day after

the last episode aired.

Over the past few years, Pedro became

a member of all of our families.

Now, no one in America can say

they've never known someone

who's living with A*DS.

The challenge to each of us

is to do something about it

and to continue Pedro's fight.

It is 24 years later,

and he's been gone longer

than he was alive.

He died at 22, and it's been 24 years.

But I take heart in the fact

that it's been 24 years,

but he is still remembered.

I think Pedro achieved something

really special.

He got to put a real story

in the living rooms

of millions of people across America.

And especially at that time,

there really was nothing else like it.

I'm completely biased, but I will say that

I think this is reality TV's high point.

I think it was the best thing

ever to happen in reality TV.

I don't think that a single show

from then on out

didn't for one second consider,

especially ones looking

for a young audience,

"Can we call ourselves authentic

without having an LGBT character?"

'Cause all of a sudden we all know

that we know one or two.

And The Real World said

it's not real without one.

Before there was a real world

on television,

out writer Armistead Maupin

created a groundbreaking

serialized newspaper column

called Tales of the City

inspired by Maupin's own life

as a g*y man in San Francisco.

There were several efforts to make

Tales of the City into a movie,

but it never really quite contained

the story the way I wanted it to.

So when I realized

that I had landed in television,

it was very exciting because

it is our most powerful medium.

We sit down and turn that thing on

and let it tell us something

about our lives.

Contrary to families traditionally seen

on television at that time,

Tales of the City depicted a chosen family

and prominently featured LGBTQ people

as fully-developed characters.

Tales of the City told the story

of San Francisco

and our community

in a way that was so beautiful

and so loving and so accurate.

It was about a family

of different origins,

but a family still, nonetheless.

I think I'm going home to Cleveland.

- That's not close to death, that is death.

- It's what makes sense right now.

Come over here.

It's time for some girl talk.

I remember making a speech

at Warner Brothers

when they said, "The g*y characters

can't be featured at all.

It might be a neighbor."

That was the model,

the funny neighbor down the hall.

"You could do that,

but it can't be about their lives.

We can't go to bed with them."

And I said, maybe a little grandly,

"Taking the g*y people out of Maupin

is like taking the poor people

out of Dickens."

I knew I wasn't gonna do this again.

What I had created was a story

that now has run for 45 years,

and I couldn't derail it just because

some idiot in an office in Burbank

wanted to get the q*eers out of it.

On the evening of January 10th, 1994,

Tales of the City

had its US premiere on PBS.

Its representation of LGBTQ life

was unprecedented on public broadcasting.

I was home at my little house

on Parnassus Heights.

I'd smoked a joint that afternoon,

and I had nodded off into this

blissful reverie with the television on.

And suddenly Entertainment Tonight

came on.

Nude scenes, sexy romance,

graphic language, g*y lovers, narcotics.

We are talking X-rated movie, right? No.

It's a miniseries right in Mr. Rogers'

neighborhood on PBS.

"This is happening right here

in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood on PBS."

The first thing I thought of was,

"Hallelujah, this is fabulous publicity."

You know, by making it scandalous

they made everybody tune in to a PBS show.

There had been no g*y kissing

on network television,

and we were on PBS,

so that means we were network.

We broke the kiss barrier

in Tales of the City

when the characters Jon and Michael

were kissing after a date in a car.

And it caused a b*mb threat

in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

the night of the show.

The American Family Association,

which was being infuriated at the time,

the Reverend Donald Wildmon,

whose son now runs

the American Family Association, said

The question is whether or not

tax dollars, taxpayers,

are gonna be forced to help pay

for one h*m*

to have "annal" intercourse

with another h*m*

and to put that into a movie.

"Annal" intercourse. Poor man.

"And put it on TV,

where our children can see it."

Well, first of all, we didn't do that.

When the American Family Association

organized against Tales of the City

and sent a videotape

to all members of Congress

with what they considered

to be the naughty bits,

they created the smut reel. Yeah.

Look at all these naked people,

look at all these men kissing each other.

Look at these trans people on television,

that sort of thing.

And sent it to every member of Congress,

who watched it in the privacy

of their congressional chambers.

And probably had

a great deal of fun with it.

And PBS ran scared.

They had the biggest hit in their history

since Upstairs, Downstairs.

It was a giant hit.

They had previously told me

that they couldn't wait to do

More Tales of the City, the second one.

So we were moving ahead with plans

to produce the second miniseries,

and suddenly they dropped it.

And they made every lame excuse

in the world

except the one that was the truth,

that they were afraid of

the American Family Association.

While the religious right campaigned

to keep LGBTQ stories off TV,

a writer named Winnie Holzman

was developing a high school drama

that would inspire LGBTQ youth

for generations.

So the beginning of My So-Called Life

was about

doing a show

from the point of view of a teenage girl.

I'm in love.

His name is Jordan Catalano.

He was left back, twice.

He's always closing his eyes

like it hurts to look at things.

I came up with this idea

that she was completely gonna

change her life

and start to hang out with a new crowd.

Somehow it was very natural for me

that that new crowd

had a g*y friend.

You're Angela's mom?

Yes, I am.

- I like your house.

- Thank you.

Who are you?

But I didn't even think of it

with the word "g*y,"

to be honest with you,

because I liked thinking of it more

like somebody sexually ambiguous.

I find Rickie a little confusing.

Okay, so maybe he's bi. Who cares?

- His cousin can still drive.

- What? He is what?

Do you hear these terms

she's throwing around?

- "Bi"?

- It means bisexual.

I remember talking to the casting person

and saying to her

"I don't think this is gonna be like

we can just call up some agents."

Like, we're gonna have to get creative

about how to find this person.

Let's face it.

The industry wasn't developing

young, g*y Latino people of color.

But my agent said,

"I want you to read this.

It's the role of Rickie.

And I just think that he's somebody

that you would really understand."

I actually understood it to the point

where I felt

like somebody had been

following me around high school.

So I went in for the audition.

And I remember walking into

the waiting room,

and I was the only person there

who I thought was dressed like him

because they all had, like,

khakis and polos

and I was like, "That kid

would never be caught dead in a polo."

I had this Cross Colours shirt

that was striped,

and I had, like, hair-sprayed my hair

as high as I possibly could

and had my eyeliner on.

So I walked in, and I met

with Mary Goldberg, the casting director,

and we did the scene.

And I started to walk out the door,

and before I walked out,

I turned back to her and I said

"I said, I don't know

if I'm ever gonna see you again,

but please tell whoever wrote this

that it means a lot to me.

That it would have made a difference

if I had seen this

when I was 15 years old."

And she turned back and said,

"Don't worry.

You're gonna be able

to tell her yourself."

Wilson was, by an incredible coincidence

or a stroke of fate,

he was incredibly similar to

what I had been picturing in my mind.

Watching My So-Called Life

was really intriguing and refreshing

and exciting

because it was kids in high school

really expressing

what they really thought and felt.

- You want to have sex with him.

- Who?

"Who?"

Rickie, give us the male perspective.

The character of Rickie Vasquez

really spoke to me.

He was Latino,

and he felt like an outsider.

This was somebody who hadn't even

completely admitted to themselves

that they were g*y.

And he's starting to feel like he needs

to kind of decide who he is.

So I was thinking

of asking her to the dance.

Why?

Well, I know you think

the dance is really stupid.

Why don't you ask him?

Shut up!

I love that show. It's unbelievable

that it was only on for a season.

- I can't believe that.

- It was so realistic.

Like, a brown g*y boy on TV.

That was That is wild now,

to think about that, in 1994.

I really think we'd be good together.

Okay, but you're g*y, right?

I don't like

Winnie wanted to show

Rickie's journey of self-love.

Yeah. I'm g*y.

Now for the cast of My So-Called Life.

My agents at the time thought it was smart

to not say much about

my own personal story.

But I let them know pretty quickly

that that was not an option.

I was a 15-year-old

closeted h*m* at one point.

And the fact that it's on the show

is still amazing to me.

A q*eer person playing q*eer

was beyond just groundbreaking.

I think what Wilson did was he put a face

to every q*eer person

that's ever been an adolescent,

that's ever wanted to fit in

and grappled with the idea

that their lives would be different.

There were, at that time,

really no representations

of young q*eer or trans people on TV.

He was the first and the only.

And so, having his

very complicated existence

as a person of color,

as a gender nonconforming g*y boy,

was a close enough reach for me.

He had curly hair.

He had enough melanin in his skin.

And I think that you grab on to

whatever you can as a young person

when there's so few images.

The simple bravery of owning oneself,

both in front of the narrative

and behind the narrative,

is the kind of act that changes the world.

Wilson Cruz became the first out actor

playing an out series regular

on network television.

I really believed

it would be more powerful

if young people understood

the person playing that role

stood behind that story.

But when we made the pilot in 1993,

ABC didn't pick it up.

So we went through a whole year

where we were put on hold.

I made a pact that if we got picked up

that I would come out to my parents.

We got picked up, and I told my mom first.

It went okay.

I told my dad,

and my dad threw me out of the house.

We had about three months

before we started to go into production

on the series.

And between my car

and some friends' couches,

I made it through three months.

And when I told Winnie my story,

she decided that that was

also gonna happen to Rickie

on My So-Called Life.

I was starting to feel

this sense of responsibility

toward just expressing what I understood

was really some young g*y people's

experiences in life.

I mean, obviously not all,

but, unfortunately, too many.

So Christmas of '93 I tell my father,

and we stopped speaking.

And in December of '94,

the episode in which Rickie

is thrown out of his house airs.

Ten, fifteen minutes pass,

and my phone rings.

And it's my dad.

And

he says, "You know,

I think it's about time we talked."

There is not a day that goes by

that I don't get a message from somebody

who says their life was changed

because of Rickie.

And I wonder sometimes, you know,

how many fathers turned

to their sons or daughters and said,

"I think it's time for us to talk."

That's the power of TV.