01x04 - Breakthroughs

[bunniefuu]

We're not g*y.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

No, of course not.

- It's fine if that's who you are.

- Absolutely.

- I have many g*y friends.

- My father's g*y.

Building off the coded humor

of the 1980s,

sitcoms of the 1990s began to tackle

LGBTQ issues more directly.

Fran, I'm g*y!

Oh, thank God!

The Fox sitcom Roc

featured one of television's

first same-sex weddings,

when the lead character's uncle

got married to his boyfriend.

There's an evolution that we can track.

It starts in television,

with characters and stories

where you open the door

and in walks a g*y character.

Nothing makes God happier

than when two people,

any two people, come together in love.

Trans representation in the '90s

remained confined to

guest star appearances.

And stories were filled with tropes

about the trans experience,

including trauma and shock reveals.

I've had a sex change.

There was this kind of humiliation

that was assigned

to anyone who wasn't clearly masculine

or clearly feminine, like "It's Pat."

- Age?

- Thirty.

- Height?

- Five-eight.

Sex?

Yes, please.

But up until the late 1990s,

every out character on a television series

was still a supporting character.

And you're g*y?

Well, except for one night in college

when I was drunk.

They no longer don't exist.

They exist in that world,

but they are clearly

on the fringe of that world.

You know, we'd had supporting characters,

we had guest stars.

But it was never completely about

the g*y person's life.

Audiences were still waiting

for an LGBTQ lead character,

but all that changed in 1997

when a sitcom star

decided to come out publicly

and told her story on ABC's 20/20.

Imagine the most difficult

and personal decision

you have ever had to make in your life

becoming the hot topic of debate

in newspapers, magazines and television.

That's exactly what happened

to popular comedian Ellen DeGeneres,

who next week will make television history

and finds herself

at the center of a storm of controversy.

The bottom line is, I am the manager,

and you make coffee. Understood?

- Did that seem bossy?

- No, it was good.

- Okay.

- It was good.

Ellen was the girl next door.

She was zany and funny, and she could make

anything more hilarious than it was.

The show was fine as it was,

but really good sitcoms go under

under a certain level, and they start

really getting into a character.

I just want you to be happy.

You know,

it's possible to be happy without a man.

Must you joke about everything?

I wasn't the girl on a sitcom

that had boyfriends

and was looking for the right guy.

It just didn't work out,

and that wasn't who I was,

even though we put guys on there,

and I had dating scenes.

And even Disney and ABC

were trying to figure out

what would make my character more

compelling and how we could keep going.

I had gone to

a kind of, like, hippie retreat.

You could take drumming,

you could take pottery,

you could take different kind

of psychological courses,

and mine that I chose

was changing the inner dialogue

of your subconscious mind,

and Drumming was full.

I was doing all this meditation

and deep soul-searching

about the shame that I was carrying

because I was g*y,

and I thought if anyone knew

that I would lose my career,

and they wouldn't like me anymore.

I cried a lot,

and I realized how heavy that shame was

that I was carrying around.

At the end of that week,

I called the executive producers

over to my house,

and I told them that I wanted to come out.

And I remember thinking,

"Oh, my God. This is amazing."

And in the same breath, I'm thinking,

"This could be the end of the show."

We had to meet with Disney.

She had to state her case.

And they said no.

I had many meetings with Disney saying,

"This is my career,

and, you know, if it fails,

you can cancel me and do another show.

But it's my life."

So it was begging them to do it.

And after she poured her whole heart out,

they finally said, "Okay."

I remember walking back to our offices,

and she was just crying

and crying and crying.

She was so relieved.

But looking back on it,

that was just the beginning.

We called it "The Puppy Episode",

because a Disney executive said

I should have a boyfriend on the show.

They said, "We're not gonna

get her a boyfriend. It doesn't work."

And he goes, "Well, then get her a puppy."

So we kind of mocked

that whole ridiculous phrase

of "get her a puppy"

and called it "The Puppy Episode."

Disney was so worried

that this was going to leak out

that everything had to be

incredibly secretive.

So much so that all the pages

were printed on crimson red paper.

You could hardly read it.

The truth being

that it was not xerox-able.

You didn't xerox it, but in truth,

it did end up leaking out.

And it started kind of a shitstorm.

Is America ready

for a television h*m* character?

- sitcom history.

- Coming out of the closet.

- may make or break the show.

- the l*sbian.

Rumor about your character on Ellen.

Ellen Morgan coming out of the closet.

Anything you want to say about that?

I think it's gotten out of hand.

What happened is we were talking about

adding a character to the show.

And his name was gonna be Les Bian. And

She was having a lot of fun,

teasing it along,

and the audience went crazy laughing.

We do find out

that the character is Lebanese.

- Lebanese?

- Yeah, yeah.

- And

- Just out of the blue?

No, there have been clues.

You've seen her eating baba ghanoush

if you've watched the show.

Maybe I'm Lebanese.

- You could be Lebanese.

- I could be Lebanese myself.

- I didn't know that.

- That's odd.

'Cause I pick up sometimes

that you might be Lebanese.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

But as it got closer and closer,

you started realizing

"This is really big.

This is historic."

Two weeks before

"The Puppy Episode" aired,

Ellen DeGeneres came out herself,

appearing on the cover of Time magazine

and on a Diane Sawyer special.

When was the last time

you had a moment's doubt,

wondering if it were the right thing?

You know what?

I made the decision during the summer

that I wasn't gonna live my life

as a lie anymore.

It became bigger than any of us

ever anticipated.

Nobody knew it was gonna be what it was.

And it was great for about five minutes.

We had protesters.

People wanted to shut it down.

There were death threats.

We were sh**ting a show.

It was not even the episode yet.

It was like, "Let's get everybody out.

Get Ellen out of here.

There's a b*mb threat. Now."

But we were gonna do this episode

come hell or high water.

All right. Roll sound.

Ellen, are you coming out or not?

Yeah, Ellen, quit jerking us around

and come out already!

We didn't want her

to be ahead of the audience.

We wanted the audience to be ahead of her.

What is the big deal?

I've got a whole hour.

They were waiting.

They were waiting and waiting.

They had no idea when we were gonna

say it, how we were gonna do it.

The casting snowballed.

k.d. lang, of course.

Melissa Etheridge.

Then we got Billy Bob Thornton.

Then we got Demi Moore.

And Ellen's mother

was in the airport scene.

And then, of course,

Laura Dern graced us

with a great performance.

I don't date men.

Why?

I'm g*y.

You're g*y?

Wow. I thought you knew.

- No, didn't know.

- Yeah.

In fact, I thought you were g*y too.

Laura was a dream come true.

She was great and a rock for me

when I was emotional and scared.

You thought I was g*y?

Oh, wow. I'm sorry.

I just kind of got that vibe.

"Vibe"? Like a g*y vibe?

And Oprah.

We couldn't have asked for a better person

to play a therapist than Oprah.

So that's basically it.

No major problems, nothing pressing.

What kind of vibe do you get from me?

Oprah is the queen of everything

and everyone.

I thought it would validate the, you know,

the seriousness of the show.

'Cause I wanted it to be funny,

but I also wanted people

to pay attention to it

for so many different reasons.

Has there ever been anyone

you felt you clicked with?

And what was his name?

Susan.

Oprah being there,

for us as black people, was a big deal.

That was more of a big deal for me

than actually Ellen coming out,

was the fact that there was

a black person in the space

cosigning.

I thought it was so brave of her

and so artistically brave of her

to use television

as a platform

for speaking her own truth

in a way that the whole world

would be instantly aware.

So I wanted to be a part of that.

I knew that it would be impactful

for the world. And it was.

This is so hard,

but I I think I've realized

that I am

I can't even say the word.

The best part about this episode

was that Ellen was so vulnerable.

Why can't I say the word?

I mean, why can't I just say

Every single time during rehearsal,

I would cry.

Because, you know, it was the first time

that I was saying I'm g*y.

I'm so afraid to tell people.

I mean, I just

Susan, I'm g*y.

Viewing parties from coast to coast

drew huge enthusiastic crowds.

In Birmingham, Alabama,

where the local ABC station

chose not to air Ellen,

over 3,000 people

watched the satellite broadcast

and partied with pride.

Forty-two million people

watched the coming out episode.

It was one of the biggest ratings bonanza

that ABC had ever seen.

They couldn't believe it,

but there was tremendous backlash.

People were boycotting Disney.

A lot of advertisers were dropping out.

Wendy's, Chrysler.

They did not want to be a part of this.

They were getting such pressure.

You've got one percent

of the population, max, is l*sbian.

Two percent, max, is h*m*.

So you've got 97% of the American people

that don't buy into this thing.

If you have Disney stock, sell it.

If you see a Mickey Mouse shirt,

buy a T-shirt that's something else.

If they can't hear from us on this,

they'll never hear from us,

and if we can't stand up on this,

the church is over!

It was a scary time.

I was getting death threats,

and a lot of scary things

were happening at the same time.

It was very exciting,

you know, freeing my soul

and my just being exactly who I was

for the first time in my life,

and then I was getting all this hate.

At Harpo Studios, we had to take

the switchboard operators

off the switchboard.

We literally shut it down,

because the level of vitriol and threats

and "Go back to Africa"

for acting in "The Puppy Episode,"

was like nothing I had ever experienced.

We prayed that the people

who were her fans,

who loved her, who loved the show,

would stick with us.

But in the fifth season,

ABC put a parental advisory on the show.

Ellen wasn't happy about that.

I really like you.

And I really like you too. I just

The character came out.

That's not a bad thing, okay?

What happened though

is a successful sitcom was on the air,

and then all of a sudden

the lead character

became a totally different thing

to the audience.

Everybody wanted you to be funny

and like the g*y uncle

that they had, maybe, in their family,

but nobody actually wanted to hear

about your sexual exploits.

She couldn't continue ratings-wise.

The ratings went down,

and it was finally canceled.

I remember her show getting canned,

and she was on the cover of magazines,

"Yep, I'm g*y,"

and then all of a sudden,

she was just nowhere to be seen.

She was ostracized

for being truthful about her life.

Being open.

Having a hit show

and being a moneymaker for a studio,

I was important to them.

And then suddenly I was poison to them.

And so you're sitting at home going,

"Damn. They did this to Ellen?"

Like, "They love Ellen.

What the hell are they gonna do to me?"

There was a lot of closet doors closing

after Ellen.

Just a few months

after the Ellen cancellation,

in Laramie, Wyoming,

news broke about a brutal hate crime

against a young g*y man

named Matthew Shepard.

Good morning, everybody.

A terrible turn in a terrible story.

It's really tragic and so disturbing, Ann.

Matthew Shepard was beaten last weekend,

tied to a wooden fence by two men

who met Shepard

in a bar in Laramie, Wyoming.

Eighteen hours later,

a passing bicyclist summoned help

after almost mistaking

Shepard's bloodied body for a scarecrow.

When Matthew Shepard happened,

people went to their televisions.

You couldn't help but watch it

on the news and be moved by it.

News organizations had no other choice

but to cover it

because it was such a horrific event.

I hope that in the grief of this moment

for Matthew Shepard's family

that Congress will pass

the hate crimes legislation.

I am so pissed off.

It just hit me

why I am so devastated by it.

It's because

this is what I was trying to stop.

This is exactly why I did what I did.

You had all these currents,

all these things going on.

And so it was,

"Wow, we're on this high about Ellen,"

and then her show gets canceled.

Wow, we're on this high, and then,

you know, there's Matthew Shepard.

We were almost there.

And it made people

sit up and pay attention.

At the same time the LGBTQ community

was grieving the m*rder

of Matthew Shepard,

NBC was quietly premiering a new sitcom

on Monday nights.

We were told to write a love story

for NBC,

because Mad About You

was going off the air.

We wrote a love story

to replace that television show.

The characters that were

at the center of the show

were a straight couple

living in San Francisco,

and they had neighbors,

and their name was Will and Grace.

Max and David came into my office,

and they pitched an ensemble series.

And then kind of over here in the corner

was the Will and Grace relationship.

My instinct was, "Stop.

Let's look at the relationship between

a g*y man and a straight girl."

But it's a different love story.

- I love you.

- Love you.

My bosses at the time said,

"Advertisers won't embrace it.

This is a waste of time."

And I said, "If the material's not good,

then we never have to have

this fight again.

But if it is good,

we might make something that

separates itself from all

the other sitcoms that are out there."

We knew the second

we tried to teach the audience

anything about this subject,

we were gonna be in trouble.

FYI, folks, most people that meet me

do not know that I am g*y.

So as a result,

we actively stayed in this space of,

"We are writing a television show

to entertain as many people as we can

once a week."

Jack, blind and deaf people

know you're g*y.

In the pilot episode of Will & Grace,

they're at this bar.

She's in a wedding dress, and they have

this moment where they say, like,

"Wouldn't it be great

if we could just be together

because we're so close?"

Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

I remember watching it

with a lot of weight,

thinking,

"Oh, no. Is he now gonna be with her

and this is what this show is about?"

Kiss! Kiss!

Nothing? Anything?

Sorry. No, it's

And I remember feeling

very relieved and like, "Oof.

Okay, great."

The same thing happened with Will & Grace

that happened with Friends.

It didn't become a hit

until the summer after the first season.

The core cast, those four actors,

were so strong together.

They delivered on our hopes

and our expectations.

They over-delivered.

And the audience just followed suit.

My first true "Holy sh*t,

I'm watching someone g*y on television"

was watching Will & Grace.

Especially in seeing Will and Jack.

It was the first time

that I had seen that be embraced.

Why do you have to be so mean?

Because you love it. And I love you.

And you love gel.

What that did for me as a teenager,

my whole family would watch the show,

'cause it was so funny.

That was the show that was the catalyst

to get me to come out to them.

I can't take it anymore!

This man is straight!

I think Jack is the straight one!

I have never been accused

of something so heinous!

Heinous.

At the height of "Must See TV,"

75 million Americans were watching

at least some of Thursday night.

That was, back then,

a third of the country.

Will & Grace was the sh*t.

There's no question about it.

It became the show

that everybody wanted to be a part of.

What's sex with a man like?

- I've loved it ever since

- It's good, actually.

Will & Grace featured

over 100 celebrity guest stars

during its eight-season run.

Can you do this?

Say something "lesbianic."

Home Depot.

Is this b*tch for real?

Mr. Takei, would you sign my doll?

b*tch, get out of here!

You spilled my Skittles!

A very distinct and specific part

about the technique of writing TV

is having an awareness that you are

gonna be inside a person's living room,

and it's gonna be beamed to them

when they're in a very intimate space.

Jack, you are more yourself

than anyone else I have ever known.

This is different.

My mother will fall apart.

And because of that,

we always wrote the show

thinking about our parents.

I want you to know who I am

because I'm proud of who I am.

Mom Are you wearing Chloé?

Jack.

Mom, I'm g*y.

We just wanted them to say,

"Okay, we get it, and we love you."

And that was the way

we wrote every episode.

You could never disappoint me.

I just want you to be happy.

Looking back on it, there have been clues.

Granted, there were not as many

African American people on that show,

but there was still a minority

on that show,

which was the LGBT community,

like Sean Hayes.

And, well, he was the one

that really turned their whole show out,

and he was just so open.

And when I saw him doing that,

I was like, "Okay.

Well, I definitely have

a different experience than him,

but if he can do it, I can do it."

Will & Grace was such a big,

popular, accessible show,

and so many people watched it,

even if they weren't LGBTQ.

And even though I didn't

necessarily directly relate to it,

I enjoyed having this kind of, like,

q*eer identity on-screen.

When I took the job

I had no intention of educating anybody

about being g*y.

I only took it

because I was an actor who needed a job.

I didn't realize until after it was over,

after those eight seasons,

and a few years after that even,

"Oh, wow.

That really had an effect on people."

And what an amazing thing to be a part of.

It was probably the biggest blessing

of my entire life.

We promised each other

that we were never going to make anything

a social commentary.

And then I heard

Vice President Biden say

I think Will & Grace probably did more

to educate the American public

than almost anything

anybody's ever done so far.

And I spit out my mini quiche.

I mean, I could not believe

what I just heard the vice president

of the United States say,

and the rest is "herstory."

In the summer of 2000,

as Will & Grace

was about to enter its third season,

an unlikely hit emerged

that changed the television landscape.

Thirty-nine days, 16 people,

one survivor.

Survivor. I thought that show

was so incredibly breakthrough.

I loved the casting of Richard Hatch.

If Survivor had been scripted,

I don't think they would have written

this g*y Machiavellian character.

It would have never got through

the network process.

Catching fish makes people happy,

but that's not why they're voting me here.

They're not voting me off

because I'm not letting them.

The winner of

the first Survivor competition is

Rich.

Congratulations, Rich.

Survivor's finale

became the highest-rated episode

of television that year

with over 51 million viewers.

Richard Hatch, an out g*y man,

took home the game's million-dollar prize.

Richard Hatch on Survivor,

which was the biggest show at that time,

and he was a bad guy on that show.

And it was so nice to see a g*y character

that didn't have to be perfect.

Survivor's success

inspired a surge in reality programming,

which created more platforms

for LGBTQ visibility

on mainstream television

than ever before.

Reality television

ended up being an important part

of the coming-out process in this country.

Because it is one thing

to have g*y characters.

It is another thing to have g*y people

playing themselves, living their

own lives, doing something unscripted.

As reality television gained popularity,

one of the networks that emerged

as a leader in the format was Bravo.

When I went to Bravo,

there was already

a huge g*y thing happening there.

They had a show called g*y Weddings

before g*y marriage was even legal,

which is wild to think about.

They had the first g*y dating show

called Boy Meets Boy.

And, of course, q*eer Eye had just begun.

And around 2002,

one of my producers at Ralph Lauren

who booked our photo shoots said,

"I heard about this show, q*eer Eye

for the Straight Guy. It's on Bravo."

I was like, "What's that?

A nonstick cooking spray?"

I was like, "Do you even have

dental insurance?" Which they didn't.

But I took a leap of faith and quit my job

and started doing

q*eer Eye for the Straight Guy.

You know, you are suffering from

the post-collegiate T-shirt syndrome.

- I just I never

- PCTS.

There was definitely conversations about,

"Is the name too strong?"

And I distinctly remember

one of the producers

writing a letter to the network saying,

"No, it must be 'q*eer Eye.'

It's about reclaiming that word 'q*eer'

and making it a celebratory word

instead of a slur."

When we started to see the word "q*eer"

in titles of shows in mainstream TV,

it took the power back from that word

and shifted it, reframed it

to mean something new,

to mean something fabulous.

Something that you should

want to be a part of.

I can't overestimate the importance

of q*eer Eye for the Straight Guy

when it premiered.

You had these five g*y guys

who were on the show

because they were each great at something.

They were experts in their field,

and they were actually making

the lives of a straight guy better.

There was a station in Oklahoma

that refused to air

q*eer Eye for the Straight Guy

because it was just too out there.

And instead they were airing

old episodes of Coach.

Now, I love Craig T. Nelson

as much as the next guy,

but I was just trying to get people

out of pleated khakis and mullets.

Did anyone tell you

how to tie a proper tie?

No, never had anybody teach me.

They used to make it on themselves and

- Slap it on ya?

- slap it on me.

You're a man now. Figure it out.

q*eer Eye,

what's really beautiful about it

is that it's really about fathering.

The presence of male caring

that we are so devoid of in our culture.

It's like, "Let's gently show them

what male care is all about,"

and I think that's what makes it

really beautiful.

Seeing the last three minutes

of any of those episodes,

when you see, week after week,

a heterosexual male in tears

Oh, be happy.

thanking this group of g*y guys

for what they've brought to his life,

that was a huge cultural shift.

That had never ever happened.

I mean, it was beyond acceptance.

It was immersion.

Television is a very intimate medium.

It's unlike a movie

where you're watching it

with a hundred other people in a theater.

You're in people's living rooms,

you're in people's bedrooms.

And these were the George W. Bush years,

not particularly progressive politically,

and there was a moment

at a White House Correspondents' dinner

where President George W. Bush said

And I'm sorry Secretary Rumsfeld's

not here either.

The guy constantly surprises me.

Do you know

what Rummy's favorite TV show is?

q*eer Eye for the Straight Guy.

During the Bush-Cheney years,

every election seemed to be about

how g*y people

were going to destroy your life.

I'm not for g*y marriage.

I think marriage is a sacred institution

between a man and a woman.

It's your obligation as an artist

to react to the environment

that you're seeing.

I think what was sort of happening

was there was a lot of storytellers

who finally had

an opportunity to tell their stories,

and it felt like we had this shot.

As LGBTQ visibility

on television increased

in what Vanity Fair called

"TV's g*y Heat Wave,"

new opportunities arose behind the camera

for LGBTQ writers and creators.

The writers come into the room,

and there are so many stories.

It's like they're opening

a whole cupboard now

full of stories

that had never been opened before,

like Alan Ball, and just watching

what he was doing on Six Feet Under.

My favorite show growing up that was not

a comedy or SNL was Six Feet Under.

The character of David who is out and g*y

was such a good example

of he's out of the closet,

and that, like, messy,

after out of the closet time.

Do you f*cking even think about

how I might be feeling?

Not if you don't tell me!

You could notice!

You could give a f*ck

for once in your life

about somebody besides yourself!

And there's Ryan Murphy, who I knew and

had grown up with early in the business.

The show Popular by Ryan Murphy.

I was obsessed.

I was obsessed with the characters

of Nicole Julian and Mary Cherry

'cause they were so campy and bitchy.

Oh, my God. Are those to die for?

- No one should die for a pair of shoes.

- Hush!

I would read these recaps in this forum

called Television Without Pity,

and the recapper was like,

"The only people that watch this

are g*y guys and women."

And I was like, "And me! Oh, wait."

That big moment where I was like,

"Oh, I, like, might be g*y.

Anyways, moving on."

Ryan was doing Popular

when I was doing Dawson's Creek.

We were always talking about battles

you were having with executives

to put this on or that on.

And Kevin Williamson, the creator, said,

"I'm gonna make

one of these new characters g*y."

- You are not g*y.

- Yes, I am!

You know it!

He was the quarterback

of the football team.

Just a very stereotypical

straight white guy.

So that was a huge moment.

I remember watching and being like,

"Oh, a g*y character."

I was so closeted,

and I grew up in a really conservative

family and household.

So I don't know what I was looking for.

I was like, "There's someone like me."

This morning,

I told my father that I was g*y.

It would cut to Katie Holmes,

and I'd go dead-eyed.

Then he'd come back on the screen,

and I'd pay attention.

At the end of that second season,

the network and the studio asked

would I take over the reins

of running the show at the time?

I said I would do it

if they would let the character have

a g*y kiss

with another high school teenager.

There.

At the time, there were comedy kisses

between characters on shows.

Like two men having

a very close friendship

- And then

- We're not doing anything!

The network didn't want me

to sh**t it in a close-up.

They wanted me to sh**t it

in a wide shot from across the street.

And I said,

"We're getting the close-up of the kiss."

- Jack.

- Hey.

Hey.

What are you doing here?

Aw, hell. This.

I remember when that kiss was aired on TV.

I sat with six of my friends

in one of our tiny studio apartments

and watched it happen.

The same rules apply.

"How can we make an episode

that people want to watch?"

But inside of all of that

is someone's truth,

and those are the best episodes of TV.

And I knew how important a character

like that would have been to me.

The increasing number

of LGBTQ writers and creators

presented TV audiences

with LGBTQ story lines

told from a different perspective.

I was a senior in high school

at a college party,

and I had just done a drink

off of an ice luge,

and then in the room that I walked past

of this kind of house of college students,

q*eer as Folk

was playing on the television.

It was almost like seeing an orgy.

But there's nothing more visceral

watching that show

than that first moment of, like

people at a club.

It was like

And there was

someone in underwear dancing.

And it was incredibly exciting to me

and incredibly scary to me.

The New York Times

reviewed q*eer as Folk and said,

"Where is the Grace character,

the straight character

who takes us into this world?"

And we said, "There isn't one.

It's about g*y people."

We told the network,

"We would like to do this show,

but this show is going to be

a celebration of being g*y."

This is not a bunch of guilt-ridden

or shamed g*y people

who are suffering or dying.

This is not gonna be that kind of show.

Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman,

the LGBTQ creators

who also wrote An Early Frost,

adapted the hit UK series q*eer as Folk

for American audiences on Showtime.

When I got the script, I read it,

and I thought I could play the part.

I wanted to play the part.

And I was excited about the idea

that it would be made.

But I remember thinking,

"If this actually gets made

as it was written on the page"

- Coming in?

- Huh?

"then it's going to be like nothing

people have seen before."

Shut the door.

My mentor, whose name was Calvin Mason,

he was openly g*y,

an incredible, incredible advocate for me.

I would never be here or have the career

that I do without him in my story.

He had helped me get in the door,

he saw it all happening,

and then the contract showed up

with a 20-page nudity rider.

And his exact words were, "Peter,

we all know you're going to happen.

I am concerned that if you do this show,

I can't take you over to ABC,

'cause they will say, 'I just saw this

dude getting a*s-f*cked on Showtime.'"

And I was like, "That's a good point."

But my ultimate conclusion was,

"It may be the end of my career

as an actor,

but I want to be able to say

I was a part of it."

At the time, there were still 14 states

that had sodomy laws on the books.

q*eer as Folk was the first show

that showed us

having sex.

That showed us fully expressing

who we were.

Television has a power

to normalize something

that people don't understand.

q*eer as Folk focused on the issues

that were specific to g*y people.

And one of them is the animus

that is held for anyone who's g*y.

Which is the reason the scenes

of Brian and Justin at the prom

felt so liberating.

There was a bit of showing off.

"I'm gonna take you to your dance."

"If anybody's got any problems,

they can talk to me about it later."

Well, the reality of the circumstances

come screaming home

in a way that is so far beyond

any expectation.

Justin!

The violence expressed in the show

reached its crescendo in the final season

at Babylon,

which was the nightclub

that was at the heart of the show.

It didn't feel like it was a surprise.

It felt like, "Yeah,

this is something that could happen."

Some folks say,

"That show is a little bit dated."

And yet LGBT violence

is very much a part of the world

that we're living in now,

and it couldn't be more current.

I firmly believe

that television is a weapon

to be wielded very thoughtfully.

You know, now the main g*y

political website in China

is called queerasfolk.cn.

Somebody took all the DVDs,

subtitled them in Mandarin,

and put them up online for free.

And it became this phenomenon.

It became this, you know,

clustering place for people,

and it's a flash point in their story.

I mean, they finally have

an open LGBT movement now.

My favorite thing I've ever said

about q*eer as Folk is,

"They came for the q*eer.

They stayed for the folk."

And I think that that's really

profoundly true about what television does

at this moment in time

in our cultural narrative.

Recognizing the growing power

of LGBTQ content,

a television channel called Logo

launched in 2005.

The channel was created specifically

for LGBTQ audiences.

I think Logo is very much a part

of the g*y revolution.

And Noah's Arc, I think,

was really the beginning.

I don't think anyone else was willing to

take a risk like that on a show like that.

I grew up on these amazing sitcoms

that featured four really great women,

starting with The Golden Girls,

then Designing Women,

and eventually Sex and the City.

And so I thought, "I want to see

a show like this but about us."

- Noah?

- That became Noah's Arc.

- Wassup, boy?

- These are my best friends in the world.

So I had these archetypes

loosely based on what I had seen

on these other shows about women.

And then I wanted to break down

those stereotypes

to tell the stories of a bunch

of different kinds of black g*y men

and how they were all looking for love

and experiencing love in different ways.

The character Noah

was sensitive and emotional

in ways that often black folks

would refer to him as a sissy,

but that's not who he was in the show.

He was the romantic lead. He was the hero.

What up, dawg?

Wassup, Noah?

As much as I love

the idea of that character,

it took me a while to figure out,

"How do you play that character?"

We've never seen that guy on TV before.

No, dawg, you can't be kissing on me

like that. We boys.

Okay, I get it. Very funny.

This is what you want, isn't it?

A homeboy.

A road dawg.

Certainly not a boyfriend.

I think we showed the world,

particularly black and q*eer men of color,

that they could be fierce and fabulous

and not apologize for it.

It's taken me a lifetime

to get comfortable in my own skin.

If you're embarrassed to be seen

with the real me, then that's on you.

But this is me, Wade. Take it or leave it.

Oh, man, Noah's Arc was huge.

Huge. Especially in

the African American community.

It was a very long time before I felt that

there was any g*y representation at all

for a person of color.

And we live in a world

where white people have to do it first.

How about a toast?

- Will & Grace.

- To Will and Grace's baby!

Love that show.

But still waiting.

For people of color

to be on that show for real.

The first time that I actually remember

seeing any kind of representation

was Will & Grace.

It's very entertaining.

It's great to see LGBTQ characters on TV,

but that's not necessarily me.

"You be not judged one more time.

Judge not that you be not judged."

Amen.

On the show,

there is this conversation about

how are you gonna go back to this church

that doesn't accept you for who you are?

A lot of people

in the African American community,

the church was so important

and is so important.

To deal with the struggles,

to deal with racism,

that safe space of community

was the black church.

So when your minister starts talking

and starts putting down people

who are g*y or l*sbian or bisexual,

it just makes you feel like

"Where's my safe space?"

To what do I owe the pleasure?

Reverend Allen,

I want to talk to you about

my wedding.

With Noah's Arc, I wanted to address

the experience of

holding to your religious conviction

and being true to your sexuality

at the same time.

Now, who's the lucky bride?

I am.

And the idea that you do have g*y men

who are very religious

and live very honest, open lives.

It's really important

to have q*eer characters of color

interacting with

other q*eer characters of color.

Because there's a different dynamic

when it's more than one of us,

and we share this language and this love

that doesn't always translate

when it's the one black guy

with his white boyfriend in this one show.

A lot of that was used

in the language on Noah's Arc.

- What happened?

- Did you do it?

Yes, I did it.

You let him get your booginas?

Yes, Alex, I let him get my boogina.

Obviously, g*y men speak differently,

you know.

In many ways, we create our own language,

and so it was cool

to introduce terms like,

if I can say this, "boogina."

Girl, guess what Noah just told me.

It was important to have an authenticity.

We live in an era now

where everyone is saying,

"Yas queen" and "slay" and all these terms

but somehow have been

sort of co-opted now,

and there's no real connection

to the origin.

And where's the queen?

The queen has entered the ball!

Oh, yas! Yas!

We're still living in an era where

black g*y characters don't get their due.

Noah's Arc had a very specific dynamic.

I would say it was black male sisterhood.

- I'm sorry. Am I intruding?

- No, why don't you join us?

I was surprised to find that a big part

of the Noah's Arc audience

ended up being black women.

Because it was like clicking the TV

and all of a sudden

something you've never seen before

pops up on your TV.

Even today,

you couldn't make that show today.

Logo, you have to give them credit for it,

'cause they put it out there.

I remember watching Noah's Arc

with a g*y black male friend of mine,

but I'll never forget that experience,

because for the first time,

he saw himself on television.

And for us, it was this crazy thing

that we never even knew we needed,

and we never even thought was possible.

And I don't even realize

that had a real impact on me.

I didn't know it until years later

on Master of None.

Ma?

I'm g*y.

Like, without Noah's Arc,

there is no Thanksgiving episode.

That I would then be making television

for people that looked like me

from a female perspective.

You can be l*sbian if you want to,

but when you come up in here,

you gonna respect my house.

Growing up with me, it wasn't

There wasn't any representation

of lesbians.

Not that I can remember.

There weren't l*sbian shows,

but in my mind, they were lesbians.

Like Charlie's Angels.

Kate Jackson's character, Sabrina.

I'm pretty sure she was a l*sbian.

When I watched it, she was a l*sbian.

Kate Jackson's character.

Probably.

She's g*y. She knows it. Hi, Kate.

She was the one who I could see, like,

coming over

and re-grouting your tub for you.

Alice from The Brady Bunch. l*sbian.

Alice for sure was g*y.

When the floor gets wet, it's slippery.

I don't know why we were housekeepers.

I guess it's a good thing that

we're, you know, neat.

Don't buy that Sam sh*t.

That was supposed to be her "boyfriend."

Sam "the butcher."

Sam, a nosegay is just what I need.

Right now, I got the gayest nose in town.

Nope. l*sbian.

There seemed to be

a g*y vibe about Gilligan's Island too.

Especially the people on it.

Mary Ann. l*sbian.

She didn't want anything to do

with Gilligan.

She would bake something

to get attention. That was it.

You know, lesbians, we'll feed you.

We'll feed you.

Mary Ann, she was kind of tomboyish.

But I liked Gilligan. I really did.

Maybe I wasn't g*y then.

Or maybe he was feminine.

I don't know why,

but I was attracted to Gilligan.

Maybe he was more of a butch l*sbian.

Annual performance evaluations.

Mary Beth Lacey.

Cagney & Lacey.

I don't know if they, like, consciously

are trying to target the l*sbian audience,

but you just can't help it.

"Brusque."

I've never been brusque in my life!

Cagney and Lacey, both of them.

Yeah, the l*sbian duo.

They solved stuff, they fixed things.

Come on.

No!

That's what lesbians do.

Get down!

I care about you Christine Cagney.

Xena: Princess Warrior.

Big l*sbian.

Big l*sbian.

Probably the number one picture

that you would see all over l*sbian bars,

all over pool tables, you would just see

lots and lots of Lucy Lawless.

And her sidekick was so in love with her.

She wanted her bad. Yeah.

Here, now I'll do your back.

Then there was Night Court.

Roz was very

Just that dry sense of humor,

straightforward, tough.

Christine, it's nothing personal.

I just can't stand being around you.

Total l*sbian.

And Marsha Warfield?

Turns out she's a l*sbian. I was right.

Roz was just

Her sexuality

was whatever you want it to be.

It's really funny

how we're all searching for that.

We're all searching for somebody

so that we have somebody that we can go,

"That's like I am.

That's me."

But after Ellen, TV execs

could no longer ignore l*sbian viewers,

and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

developed a relationship

for a supporting character, Willow,

that lasted two and a half seasons,

the longest l*sbian relationship on TV

at the time.

I don't need to be snuggled.

Vixen.

But it wasn't until 2004,

when Showtime premiered a new drama,

The L Word, that l*sbian lead characters

became the focus of their own show.

Who gets to say what passes as art

and what is obscenity?

My character, Bette Porter,

is a gallerist.

And so I was doing a lot of research

into what it meant to be a gallerist,

and no research

as to what it meant to be a l*sbian.

And I'm ovulating.

Let's make a baby.

I thought, "The l*sbian part, that's just

gotta be about love at the end of the day.

So I've got that covered."

But I had no sense, truly,

in any kind of visceral way,

of the otherness that that might entail

until I was making The L Word.

What was so revolutionary

about The L Word,

it was the sex.

I think lesbians watched it just to say,

"Let me see

what I'm supposed to be doing."

You know. "Make sure I'm doing it right."

'Cause it was like the first time

that we actually got to see

hot women having sex.

I don't even know

what happened in the show.

I would skip it, fast-forward.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Here we go. Hot women having sex.

It wasn't about this voyeuristic thing

where these dudes say, "Can I watch?"

It was not like that.

It was like we could exist

outside of the male gaze.

'Cause in a guy's hand,

pizza guy would have showed up

somewhere in there.

"Oh, hey, ladies."

The L Word came to me

because I socially knew

the woman who created it, Ilene Chaiken.

And she asked if I wanted

to play a part on it.

- Mrs. Peabody, I'm

- Call me Peggy.

I don't like "Mrs."

It's so frumpy, like I'm an old mare.

Peggy Peabody was a very cultivated woman,

an arrogant woman.

Who the hell are you?

But in a funny and a light way.

In an affectionate way.

I was a l*sbian in 1974.

Just 1974?

Just 1974.

That was all I needed.

Well, you know, that is what we refer to

as a "has-bian."

"Has-bian."

And I just loved the wit of it,

and I loved the relaxation of it.

That, to me, is how life should be.

The first time I really watched the show,

I went to Ilene's house,

and we watched a few episodes in a row.

And when we stopped watching,

it was so odd to go back into the world,

which was not dominated by lesbians.

It was really odd.

Like you got used to that paradigm,

this not only female-centric paradigm

but this l*sbian-centric paradigm,

and that felt right.

I was doing an interview

with Deborah Norville,

and before she was going to show a clip

where Bette Porter kisses another woman,

she warned the audience.

Now's the time to tell the little guys

to go and get a snack,

because you might not want them

to see the clip that we're about to show.

What'd your husband say

about scenes like that?

What's so interesting is that,

to me, if that were

a heterosexual love scene,

you wouldn't have to say to the audience,

you know,

"Send the children in for a snack."

I don't think that you would,

or would you?

I think it depends on

To her credit, she had the conversation

with me. She didn't shut it down.

A kiss like that

between a man and a woman

- Is no big thing.

- we've seen it a lot.

- Right.

- That's really the big difference.

- Not everybody has seen a kiss like that.

- Right. It's interesting.

Because in the end of the day,

it's about love and how you show love,

and to me that's so much healthier

than some of the things

that we see on television.

Attention was being paid.

That's the main thing, I think.

Attention was being paid.

It was just so great for lesbians

to see themselves reflected

in a real variety of ways.

I watched that show all the time.

There weren't enough black people

on that show. Otherwise it was great.

I learned what kind of l*sbian I was

when I was watching The L Word.

I went through every one

of those characters. I'm like,

"I'm a bit like that, I'm a bit like that,

but I like that.

I agree she's sexy."

There were so many appealing,

interesting characters

who were all very different

and who were all g*y.

And so broad numbers of people

could see themselves represented.

You know, once ba*ls get rolling,

they roll faster and faster,

and progress is,

for a very, very long time,

a slow, incremental climb,

but at some point,

things gather momentum

and then really soar.

Despite advances

in g*y and l*sbian visibility

in the early 2000s,

TV's depictions of bisexuality

were still primarily underdeveloped.

For so long, bisexual characters

were used in a deceitful way

or in a manipulative way.

In 1988, in the midst of the A*DS crisis,

NBC broadcast

an episode of Midnight Caller,

featuring a bisexual man

who intentionally exposed

men and women to HIV.

The episode was protested

by ACT UP and GLAAD.

Bisexual tropes were usually to serve

some sort of story line plot twist.

Remember the night I came up

to you two at the bar,

I said, "Are you two together?"

Yeah. I told you we weren't.

It was more shock value.

Well, she wasn't the one

I was after, Tony.

It wasn't about them as a person,

it wasn't about their lived experience.

And in the '90s, if you look at

the episode from Roseanne

or L.A. Law, they all had these kisses

during sweeps week

to create marketing and buzz,

and using LGBTQ story lines

to further their business agenda.

On L.A. Law,

although the character C.J. Lamb

dated both men and women,

the term "bisexual"

was never used to describe her.

- I like men.

- So do I.

Oh. Then You mean, you're

Flexible?

I see.

I don't really see images of bisexuality

as being out there as much, you know?

It's usually bisexuality

is almost a word that's used as a cover

to say like, "Oh, I don't really

want to admit that I'm g*y."

I'm not even sure bisexuality exists.

I think it's just a layover

on the way to g*y town.

So often in television,

the bisexual as a girl

is either like,

"Ooh, she's bisexual. That's hot."

Like it's a party trick she's doing

or something like that.

And for guys, bisexuality is often like,

"He's g*y. He's just not

comfortable enough to say it yet."

There's no such thing as "bi."

You just haven't come out yet.

How can I be g*y

if I love fooling around with your sister?

Yeah.

Why is bisexuality hard to label?

Or harder for people to accept

than being g*y?

- Are you saying that

- I'm not g*y.

- What are you saying?

- I'm not

strictly heterosexual either, it seems.

In 1992, top-rated sitcom Roseanne

broke new ground

when out bisexual actor Sandra Bernhard

played bisexual character Nancy Bartlett.

I thought you were our little g*y friend.

You just don't get how it works.

Please don't label me.

I am a people person.

Sandra Bernhard, she was, like,

so forceful and so funny

and so strong and so unafraid.

- Do you even know Madonna?

- Yes, I do know Madonna.

And I know Sean Penn.

And I've been with both of them.

At the same time.

And the fact that she took this outrageous

and very wild identity,

like you wanted to be her.

- I'm glad to be here.

- Nice to see you. Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

- We'll be right back.

In 2006, Sara Ramirez

was cast on Grey's Anatomy

as Dr. Callie Torres.

She was on the show for 11 seasons,

television's longest-running

bisexual character.

It was very difficult to see myself

anywhere in television.

And I know that there are a lot of

q*eer-identifying women of color

who identify as bisexual

and want to be seen

and want to feel respected.

So I feel that Callie being

a sexually realized character

on Grey's Anatomy was very important.

Callie was a three-dimensional, full woman

who was bisexual,

and it wasn't as though

she was on her way to being g*y.

She was truly bisexual.

So I'm bisexual. So what?

It's a thing, and it's real.

I mean, it's called LGBTQ for a reason.

There's a B in there,

and it doesn't mean "badass."

Okay, it kinda does. But it also means bi.

Sara continues to be a voice

pushing for and demanding

better depictions of bisexual people.

Here it is now,

and you're playing a l*sbian.

Yes, Callie Torres

is in a l*sbian relationship.

She's bisexual.

Sara Ramirez is such a great example of

somebody who represents

who she is on camera and in real life.

That a bisexual can play a bisexual

is a very novel and new thing

when it comes to television.

It's like, "Wow,

we can actually be ourselves."

During her arc on Grey's Anatomy,

Callie fell in love

with both men and women,

including fan favorite George O'Malley,

played by actor T.R. Knight.

Is this really what you want?

'Cause if it's really what you want,

we could do it.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Really?

Really.

Coming out, I think I'd be lying

if I wasn't saying

it's something that terrified me

constantly.

There's this constant bargaining

that is happening of, like,

"Well, someday I will,

but it's gonna be under this circumstance

and I'm gonna be in a relationship."

It's exhausting.

So in 2006,

I had a conversation with an actor

who was not out publicly.

He was out privately but not publicly.

But he talked about his life

and how he goes to this kind of ceremony

with someone else

or he'll do this,

and the whole navigation

of not being out publicly.

And the more he talked about it,

it just

It just made me very sad.

In October 2006, a story leaked

from the Grey's Anatomy set

that Isaiah Washington had called

another cast member a g*y slur.

The press latched on to the story,

but they did not know who was on

the receiving end of the slur.

Once it came out that there's only one

unmarried male member

of Grey's Anatomy at that time,

you know, it's kind of obvious,

you know, where the arrow was pointing.

And so the choice was

to deny,

to ignore, or to come out.

There are so many things

that are out of our control.

The only thing you can control

is yourself, and so that's what he did.

He spoke to the issue.

He owned for himself what it meant.

He came out.

He sort of took control of that narrative,

which was a beautiful thing to see.

You all stand on each other's shoulders,

right?

So all the people that came out before me,

I could look to them and

build on their strength.

And it shows that you can be grateful

for even a time of your life

that you were miserable.

If we have to tell you

who our guest for tonight is,

you're living on another planet.

Ellen DeGeneres is with us.

Where you gonna go, Ellen?

I've been having such a hard time

all year long.

I mean, there's just been

a lot of stuff coming out of me

between doing something that

I'm proud of for the first time in my life

and then getting attacked for it.

So it's been a grieving period all along.

I've been in depression, in and out,

because it's been really hard for me.

I was getting slammed by every newspaper,

every late-night talk show.

I was the butt of the joke,

and I wasn't prepared for that.

So I went into hiding because I thought

that's the only thing I can do.

You know, people in this industry

didn't want to hire me.

So I moved and stayed away for a while

and kind of went into a depression.

All people talked about was,

"Ellen is a l*sbian. Ellen came out."

And I think that that's all

people could think about.

But it was exactly the opposite.

I just wanted to do it

and get it out of the way

so I wasn't carrying around this secret.

But I I mean, I look at it as a gift.

Because I worked really hard

to get to where I was.

I lost everything by doing something

that was the most important thing

to me as a human being

in this journey that I'm on,

and then I got to start all over again.

In 2002, television producer Jim Paratore

had an idea to convince local TV stations

that Ellen should host her own talk show.

I had to go on tour and do shows.

Jim's idea was,

"Let's show them that you're funny.

We'll go to specific markets where we know

they're struggling with this decision

about a talk show.

You'll meet with them backstage

afterwards."

A lot of these station managers,

the first thing they would say to him is,

"She doesn't even curse."

I guess all g*y people curse or something.

That it was a shock to him

that I was clean.

And then they saw who I was.

I wanted people to remember

that I was funny.

But we had to go around the country

and beg.

By the end of 2002,

Ellen had gotten enough local affiliates

to commit to take a chance

on her new talk show.

Sharon Osbourne was getting a show

at the same time.

They were teaming us up together

and kind of making them buy me.

They said, "If you get Sharon,

you have to take Ellen."

So, I was like the brussels sprouts

on the side of the dish that you order.

She is funny, she's quirky,

and she's got a brand-new TV show.

Ellen DeGeneres says

the appropriately titled

Ellen DeGeneres Show is her passion,

the thing she eats, sleeps and breathes,

and it premieres today.

Ellen, good morning. Welcome back.

Well, good morning.

Are you going to talk about being g*y?

Are you gonna talk about what you've

talked about in the past?

Your personal life?

I haven't talked about that

for a long time.

But I think everyone

just was scared to death.

They just thought it could fail

if everybody, you know,

would be reminded that I was g*y.

I had to adjust what I was wearing,

and I had to be careful

of what I was saying.

And I kept saying that it's not fair,

because, you know,

I lost my straight audience,

a lot of my straight audience

when I came out.

And now I'm gonna try to pretend

like I'm not g*y,

and then I'm gonna have no one.

Let me just be myself.

It's September 8th.

This is our very, very first show.

And you are my very first audience.

And

Her coming back is that power,

it's that strength.

It's that

"Wait a minute.

You're not gonna just shut me up

and think I'm gonna go crawl off

and never be heard of again. No."

We're gonna win 'em over,

and that's what she did.

I feel like people that would vote against

g*y marriage were like, "But I love Ellen.

But I watch Ellen every day."

She gets the chance to speak to people

from all different corners of the US,

and she shows them what her life is like

and that she's just like everybody else.

The fact that she's there every day

and you can turn on the television

and there's Ellen.

The ripple effects of that

are incalculable.

By the end of the first season,

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

was one of the highest-rated shows

on daytime television.

I hope we're talking here in five years,

if you want it to go that long

and we're still talking about the next

guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

- I'd like it to go, actually, 15 years.

- Okay, I'm sorry

And 16 years later,

we're doing this amazing, fun show

that makes people feel good,

and I look out in the audience and I see

every color of skin, every age group.

It just makes me feel like I did

everything that I wanted to do and more.

Whatever happened and however it happened,

I am able to now, because I'm married,

and I can say "my wife" on TV a lot.

There's a smile on my face,

there's a spring in my step,

and there's a ring on my finger.

And talk about being g*y.

I appreciate you being here.

I'm Ellen, and I'm g*y.

Twenty years ago, I said that.

It was a much bigger deal then.

Ellen is a boss.

She's a badass.

She may have lost the battle,

but she won the w*r.

What she did was go past entertainer

and become icon.

She truly is a phoenix.

She rose from the ashes

and has this amazing career.

I think the kind of tenacity

and her willingness to live her truth

no matter what

is what has made Ellen

have such staying power.

Look how many people love her now.

All that's behind.

I'm pretty sure sometimes

she's out there like, "You m*therf*ckers."

She'll never admit it, but

"You wishy-washy m*therf*ckers."