Sitcoms have been a main staple of television since the beginning, and as with any long-lasting type of media, the depiction of life changes and updates with the times. It was once thought of as taboo to have an out gay character being portrayed on weekly television, with a smattering of representation in the 1940s and 1950s usually portrayed as a lisping and effeminate for laughs. After the sexual revolution of the 1960s, representation picked up on American television and the portrayal was not always the stereotypical fops that were portrayed in the past. All that Glitters was a syndicated sitcom and featured the first transgender character on TV, ABC’s Barney Miller had recurring gay partners and a story line surrounding Officer Zitelli, who is forced out of the closet. All in the Family had a few episodes that dealt with the subject with a friend of Archie Bunker coming out and Edith’s cousin’s life partner. The Corner Bar on ABC was a short-lived sitcom that feature the first continuing portrayal of a gay person on American television with the character Peter Panama. Probably the most important and memorable character was Jodie Dallas on the 1977 ABC series Soap played by Billy Crystal. This portrayal and the success of the show opened doors to have a gay person as the primary character on a sitcom. Over time, and with society’s acceptance of homosexuality, the inclusion of gay characters grew exponentially. This article will look at four lesser-known shows that audiences may not remember, and this is in no way supposed to reflect a complete list which is vast.
Brothers (1984):
This was a bold show for the 1980s and was the first original sitcom on cable TV with Showtime having picked up the series. The story centers on Cliff (Paul Regina) who is about to get married, but just before the bride can walk down the aisle, Cliff calls it off and comes out to his brother Joe (Robert Walden) and later to his older brother Lou (Brandon Maggart) who doesn’t take it quite as well. The series centers mainly on the brother’s relationship and how they deal with the life altering news that one of them is gay. The show never tried to play the gay stereotype for laughs and instead tried to show and express the multitude of personalities that exist in all humans. The show also covered hard-hitting topics like HIV and AIDs at a time when the public was not fully educated on the disease. When Joe finds out that a former teammate is HIV+ he learns all he could and in doing so educates the audience. The show lasted for five seasons and a total of 115 episodes.
Oh Grow Up (1999)
Old college roommates, Hunter (Stephen Dunham) and Norris (David Alan Basche) still share an apartment, when their other college roommate Ford (John Ducey) leaves his wife and comes out as gay, the pair invite him to live with them. Hunter also discovers that an affair 18 years prior produced a child he knew nothing of and now must try to connect to a daughter that he never knew he had. The cleverest part of the show was that their dog’s barks were translated with subtitles on the screen. The series suffered from mixed reviews and after the network moved the show from its original time slot in an effort to bolster ratings, it was eventually pulled before the full 13 episodes could be aired.
Partners (2012)
Joe (David Krumholtz) and Louis (Michael Urie) are lifelong best friends and are now partners in their own architecture company. Louis is a wild follow your gut type of guy and Joe is the more levelheaded stable personality. When Joe gets engaged to Ali (Sophia Bush) and Louis starts dating Wyatt (Brandon Routh) all four of them must learn to live with the fact that Joe and Louis will always be in each other lives and business and that between the four of them, there is actually three couples. The show was cancelled halfway through the season and immediately removed from the air with seven filmed episodes unaired.
The New Normal (2012)
David (Justin Bartha) an obstetrician and Bryan (Andrew Rannells), a television producer, are an affluent gay couple who decide they want to have a child, so they begin the process of finding a surrogate. Their first choice tries to blackmail them for more money by threatening the life of the yet to be conceived child. But when they meet Goldie (Georgia King) and her 9-year-old daughter Shania (Bebe Wood), the couple immediately decide to go with her. Goldie is trying to escape her philandering husband and overbearing, bigoted, homophobic grandmother Jane (Ellen Barkin) and to follow her dream of becoming a lawyer. This leads to an unconventional family forming as the gay couple takes in Goldie and Shania during the pregnancy and also must deal with all the crazy relatives. This show was met with mixed reviews with most remarking on how surprisingly touching it is with a mixture of sarcasm and sentimentality. The show was also criticized for perpetuating racial stereotypes and using an intersex person as an object of derision.
Throughout the years as homosexuality has become more accepted within society and I think a large part of this is due to honest representation in television and movies with characters who can be smart, witty, funny and fierce and still not fall into a stereotypical mold. Wonderful stories of fighting for acceptance have been viewed across the nation painting a sympathetic portrait of what it is like to be out and gay. This inclusion has grown through the years and with each new series that shows these characters, we teach someone a lesson about the infinite variations within life.