- Source: List of 1970s American television episodes with LGBT themes
Following the Stonewall riots and the birth of the modern gay rights movement in 1969, gay activists began challenging the way American television episodes with LGBT themes presented homosexuality. With the slowly increasing visibility of LGBT characters on fiction series, a pattern began to emerge, beginning with repressed lesbian sniper Miss Brant from 1961's The Asphalt Jungle and continuing through a murderous female impersonator from The Streets of San Francisco and Police Woman and her trio of killer lesbians in 1974 and beyond, of presenting LGBT characters as psychotic killers on crime dramas. On medical dramas, the disease model of homosexuality was fostered in characters like 1963's Hallie Lambert from The Eleventh Hour and Martin Loring from Marcus Welby, M.D. in 1973. Gays, the viewing public was told over and over, were simultaneously dangerous and sick, to be feared and to be pitied.
In response to complaints about several early portrayals, networks began vetting scripts with gay characters or content through two recently formed advocacy groups, the National Gay Task Force and the Gay Media Task Force. Several episodes saw substantive changes based on these consultations, but in other instances, notably the Marcus Welby, M.D. episode "The Other Martin Loring", only minor changes were made and groups like the Gay Activists Alliance led zaps, raucous demonstrations, against the networks. Protests against the 1974 Marcus Welby, M.D. episode "The Outrage", with its male child molestation plot, and the aforementioned killer lesbian trio from the Police Woman episode "Flowers of Evil" led producers to start moving away from the killer queer plot device. Gays and lesbians would continue to be portrayed as killers but their motives would less frequently be related to their sexuality. Gays started killing out of greed and jealousy, just like heterosexuals. Other dramas not legal or medical in nature also ran occasional episodes featuring LGBT characters.
Sitcoms too began presenting LGBT characters, with All in the Family producing several episodes on the theme beginning in 1971. Gay sitcom episodes tended to follow one of a handful of plot devices: a character close to a lead character would unexpectedly come out, forcing the characters to confront their own issues with homosexuality; a lead character is mistaken for gay; a lead character pretends to be gay (a recurring theme in Three's Company, where Jack Tripper (John Ritter) has to pretend to be gay so that his landlord(s) would allow him to live with two single female roommates); or, more rarely, a recurring character from the series comes out. In the first instance, it was rare that the gay character would ever make another appearance. Dating back to Robert Reed's turn as a transgender doctor on Medical Center in 1975, transgender characters and issues have tended to receive sympathetic treatment.
This list covers American television episodes with LGBT themes that aired from 1970 through 1979.
Episodes
See also
List of 1980s American television episodes with LGBT themes
List of 1990s American television episodes with LGBT themes
List of made-for-television films with LGBT characters
List of pre-Stonewall American television episodes with LGBT themes
Lists of television programs with LGBT characters
Notes
References
Alwood, Edward (1996). Straight news: Gays, Lesbians, and the News Media. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08437-4.
Becker, Ron (2006). Gay TV and Straight America. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813536880.
Capsuto, Steven (2000). Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-41243-5. LCCN 00104495. OCLC 44596808.
Castañeda, Laura; Campbell, Shannon B. (2006). News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. ISBN 1-4129-0999-6.
Cortese, Anthony Joseph Paul (2006). Opposing Hate Speech. Foreword by Richard Delgado. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98427-3. LCCN 2005019176. OCLC 849085841.
Danuta Walters, Suzanna (2001). All The Rage: The Story Of Gay Visibility In America. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87231-9. LCCN 2001001665. OCLC 46500686.
Teal, Donn (1995) [1971]. The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969–1971. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11279-3.
Tropiano, Stephen (2002). The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV. New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. ISBN 1-55783-557-8. LCCN 2002003220. OCLC 606827696.
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- List of 1970s American television episodes with LGBT themes
- Lists of American television episodes with LGBT themes
- List of 1990s American television episodes with LGBT themes
- Lists of television programs with LGBT characters
- List of 1980s American television episodes with LGBT themes
- List of pre–Stonewall riots American television episodes with LGBT themes
- List of comedy television series with LGBT characters
- List of LGBT-related films by year
- LGBT themes in comics
- List of reality television programs with LGBT cast members
