Number of Gay TV Characters Plummets

Steve Martin gazed out at the Hollywood crowd as he hosted last year’s Oscars and tried to surmise what the vast television audience must be thinking: “They’re all gay,” he said.

Yet for all the jokes about the entertainment industry embracing--or, in the eyes of religious conservatives, promoting--the cause of gays and lesbians, this year’s prime-time lineup will actually witness a sharp decline in the number of regular or recurring gay, lesbian and transgender characters.

According to data compiled by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, the major TV networks featured 20 such characters in prime time last season, scattered across 16 series--including since-canceled “The Ellen Show,” starring Ellen DeGeneres; and “The Education of Max Bickford,” with actress Helen Shaver playing a man who became a woman.

By contrast, the current season opens with just seven gay or lesbian characters (all of them white) on a half-dozen shows. Two midseason programs also contain gay roles, including “Charlie Lawrence,” a CBS sitcom starring Nathan Lane as a gay congressman.

Part of the decrease stems from the cancellation of nearly a dozen series that showcased gay characters, including “Spin City,” “Once and Again” and “Felicity.” In addition, many new shows are procedural in nature, such as the spinoff “CSI: Miami,” dealing with crime-solving instead of delving into personal lives.

“By no means are we saying anyone’s being homophobic because these shows got canceled,” said Scott Seomin, GLAAD’s entertainment media director, who added that he is nevertheless concerned the networks are steering clear of such material--consciously or not--in their desire to serve up the equivalent of “comfort food” in the wake of Sept. 11.

Robert Knight, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Culture and Family Institute, contends that is precisely what’s happening, with the networks skirting “social hot buttons” despite what he sees as a bias in favor of gay rights that exceeds public acceptance.

“The number of gay characters in recent years reflects Hollywood’s commitment to the homosexual agenda,” Knight said. “Post-9/11, they may find it to be a harder sell with viewers. It doesn’t really fit in with home and hearth.”

Gay rights advocates stress that their goals remain unchanged, which is to see gay and lesbian characters presented organically in prime time, without fanfare or controversy.

“What we really want to see is matter-of-fact inclusion,” Seomin said. “We’re not asking producers to make ‘Gay Dramas,’ with a capital ‘G’ and a capital ‘D.’ ”

At least some additional inclusion is likely forthcoming. The ABC drama “MDs” added a gay character after the prototype was shot, and a spokeswoman for CBS’ new series “Presidio Med” (which airs opposite “MDs”) said there are plans to include gays and lesbians. Both medical programs are set in San Francisco, where there is a large gay community.

Moreover, GLAAD’s tally for the networks’ scripted programs paints an incomplete picture--omitting fare such as Showtime’s “Queer as Folk,” a pay cable series based in the gay community that depicts explicit sexual situations. Gays are also prominently featured in HBO’s “Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under” and “The Wire.”

“Queer as Folk” executive producers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman point out that premium channels have far greater latitude than broadcasters, which, they say, primarily use gay characters as comic relief and fastidiously avoid their sex lives.

“I don’t think the networks have ever been happy dealing with gay characters at all. They’re quite happy to give that job to cable,” Cowen said, adding that in regard to this season’s perceived “comfort food” mentality, “Everybody wants to stick their head in the sand and pretend it’s 1962.”

Lipman attributes that skittishness to broadcasting’s reliance on advertisers, many of whom remain cautious about sponsoring programs that might alienate viewers. By contrast, Showtime hoped media buzz about “Folk’s” racy sex scenes would help promote the show. “For cable, of course, controversy is its mainstay,” Lipman said.

Focusing on network dramas and comedies also overlooks unscripted series, which have almost uniformly incorporated gay contestants. In fact, the new edition of CBS’ “The Amazing Race”--pitting various teams against each other in a race around the world--includes a conservative father traveling with his gay son, a woman paired with her gay best friend, and two brothers, one of whom is gay.

GLAAD’s Seomin lauded CBS for its commitment to diversity--especially within unscripted programs, going back to Richard Hatch on the first “Survivor.” Peter Golden, the network’s senior vice president of casting, said the hope is a varied roster of contestants will attract the widest audience and that the central mandate is to “cast” compelling personalities.

“We look for people that will make dynamic and interesting television,” he said. “That’s the first order of business.”

As it stands, the volume of gay-related programming across the TV dial is such that a local comic, who calls himself Gay Boy Ric, issues a daily “Gay TV” update via the Internet and to selected newspapers, highlighting programs of interest.

Alluding to talk by two companies about launching a gay cable channel, Ric pointed to last Thursday--when viewers could flip from a gay character in CBS’ “Big Brother” to NBC’s “Will & Grace” to “a fake gay marriage between two fake gay wrestlers” on “WWE Smackdown!”

“Simply by changing the channel, you can almost create your own gay network,” he said.

Perhaps for that reason, some gay activists are not overly concerned about the decline in representation this fall, saying raw numbers are less significant than the general atmosphere of acceptance. From that perspective, John Aravosis, who led the campaign against Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s TV show, said he has seen steady progress on television--citing Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly’s outspoken support of tolerance toward homosexuals as a recent example.

“Whether we’re up or down a gay character or two isn’t nearly as important as the fact that TV has accepted us as a normal part of the fabric of American life,” Aravosis said.