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silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-Our enemies take offense when the tables are turned. (+ response) ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 11:26:36 -0800
Subject: Our enemies take offense when the tables are turned.
Ben Boxer notes: The shoe is on the
other foot, and the churches don't
like it. Few church organizations
raised such a hue and a cry at
Phelps' scandalous picketing of Matt
Shepard's funeral. NOW they are
distressed, even the R.C.s!
Headline:
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Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 09:47:34 +1300
Subject: Re: Our enemies take offense when the tables are turned.
Dear Ben,
Thank goodness, we don't have a constitution!!! That's all I can say. Why
would anyone want to uphold a constitution which allows people to preach
hatred where ever they wish, under the guise of free speech!
Thankfully in our country, it is illegal under our civil rights legislation,
to preach or insight hatred on the grounds of race, colour, sexual
orientation etc. When will America come out of the 18th century mentality
and catch up to the enlightened nations of this world? Not for a while
longer I guess, now it looks more and more likely G.W.B is going to make it
to the big house.
My thoughts
Peter.
Subject: Showcasing gay culture on Showtime
Ben Boxer comments: I used to think
that too much exposure of gay
culture beyond gay ghettos like San
Francisco's Castro in such events as
Gay Pride parades was an
embarrassment to those of us who
were closeted or who otherwise
distanced ourselves from our more
public gay brothers and sister.
I do not feel that way anymore.
I see now that it must be done if we
are ever to walk as a free people
through the world, be it in a
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist or other society bound to
traditions that denigrate and
sometimes kill us for being what we
are.
The word "solidarity" comes to
mind. It helped Poland and other
nations emerge from the grotesque
shadow of the now defunct Soviet
Union. We are all together in this.
Recognizing our solidarity as gay and
bisexual people will see us through.
"Queer As Folk" is more than
entertainment. The attention it is
earning showcases our own
revolution.
(The following article was
contributed by Michael of San
Francisco.)
Less than 30 years ago, Home Box
Office created the pay-television
business by showing uninterrupted
and uncut feature films. On network
television, feature films were cut up
by commercials, any foul language
was bleeped, and any sex scenes
edited.
Within a few years, HBO was
offering no-holds- barred comedy
specials by performers like Richard
Pryor, George Carlin, Robin
Williams and Eddie Murphy. By the
1990's, it was in television's
vanguard with explicit dramas,
beginning in 1993 with "And the
Band Played On," about the AIDS
epidemic, and continuing with
current series like "Oz," about a
maximum-security prison; "Sex and
the City," about a group of single
women in New York; and "The
Sopranos," about a Mafia family
leading a middle-class life in New
Jersey. These shows' language,
sexual content and violence broke
television taboos.
And now comes Showtime's "Queer
as Folk," taking the explicitness
even further. A 22-hour television
drama about gay and lesbian life,
"Queer as Folk" starts on Dec. 3.
The opening two-hour episode was
seen for the first time on Thursday
night at a premiere in New York
co-sponsored by the Gay Men's
Health Crisis and Showtime.
The series, which seeks to rival HBO
in sexual candor, also shatters an
unwritten rule in television against
explicit depictions of sexual behavior
between men, including kissing,
fondling, anal sex and oral sex, much
as HBO's "Sex and the City" depicts
men and women engaged in various
sexual acts. But if "Sex and the
City" has more talk than sex,
"Queer as Folk" has more sex than
talk.
(Although "Oz" has featured scenes
of men raping men, sex is not the
dominant element in that series, as it
is in "Queer as Folk.")
"We pushed this as far as we could
go," said Tony Jonas, a former
president of Warner Brothers
Television and an executive producer
of "Queer as Folk."
Mr. Jonas said that the highly
successful NBC sitcom "Will and
Grace," about a gay man and a
straight woman, was "a wonderful
mass-appeal show, but it's still
sanitized."
"Our show has no such limitation,"
Mr. Jonas said. "We don't have to
apologize for or whitewash or
pretend what gay sexuality is all
about. In a way, it's a giant step for
cable." The series, set in Pittsburgh,
is based on the award-winning and
darkly funny British series of the
same title that dealt with a group of
gay men in Manchester.
(The title derives from an old
Yorkshire saying, "There's nowt so
queer as folk," meaning there's
nothing so odd as people.)
The British series's explicitness led
to intense news-media coverage
during its 10-episode run in 1998-99.
But the show's popularity with
general audiences seemed to be
inspired not only by its sexual candor
but also by its provocative
characters.
The American series's centers on
five gay men who spend most of their
nights at a gay dance club or looking
for bedmates. The characters also
include a lesbian couple with a
newborn baby and the mothers of
two of the men. (One is played by
Sharon Gless of "Cagney and
Lacey.") The central character,
Brian, played by Gale Harold, is a
seductive advertising executive who
revels in his promiscuity.
"Actually, he's an archetypal
character, a bit like Don Juan, which
is how I play him," said Mr. Harold, a
San Francisco and Los Angeles
theater actor who was, he noted,
"massively unknown" before being
cast as the lead in the series.
He added: "This guy's a blast to
play. He believes unapologetically in
his freedom. He holds nothing back."
The American series was written by
Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, who
also created the Emmy Award-
winning dramatic series "Sisters,"
which ran for six seasons on NBC.
Mr. Cowen and Mr. Lipman said
Showtime executives encouraged
them to be even more explicit than
the British series.
(Some gay writers in Britain
criticized the original series because,
they said, it depicted only one
element of gay life - the club scene -
and reinforced the stereotype that
gay men were promiscuous and
obsessed only with youth and staying
in shape.)
The American show is significantly
different. The original series focused
on an affair between a 29-year- old
advertising executive and a 15-
year-old boy, a plot device that drew
criticism because the boy was so
young. In the American version, the
youth is nearly 18. The new series
has also expanded various roles,
including those of the lesbian couple
and of some older boyfriends, as well
as those of the gay men's mothers.
"I don't think any one of us has seen
anything on television that portrays
gay people in as complex a way as
this," Mr. Cowen said.
"Most of the time we see gay people
portrayed as eunuchs or clowns or
victims of AIDS or tortured teens. I
don't think we've ever seen gay
people expressing and celebrating
their sexuality as they are here."
Mr. Lipman added, "No constraints
were put on us by the network."
Jerry Offsay, Showtime's president
for programming, said the network
was making "Queer as Folk"
because the British series was "the
most interesting, unique, innovative
television show we've seen in a
couple of years."
"It's truly a show that's exploring
characters and a lifestyle we've
never seen before on television," he
added. "You can do the 47th lawyer
show or the 50th cop show or the
700th doctor show. We've seen
those. We haven't seen this before."
"People have no problem seeing this
kind of honesty in movie theaters,"
Mr. Offsay continued. "We and
HBO have the ability to bring the
same kind of honesty into your living
room because we're invited in.
We're not there without your
invitation."
The limits, he said, are "what we
think is in good taste, what we think
is responsible." To an extent,
Showtime has everything to gain
from a series that will inevitably earn
plenty of media attention. The
network's goal is straightforward: to
lure more paid viewers in hopes of
competing with HBO. Currently,
HBO has 25 million paid subscribers;
Showtime has 12 million, according
to Paul Kagan Associates, a media
research company in Carmel, Calif.
The broader issue for Showtime and
HBO is how far to go in terms of
creative freedom. Several network
and cable executives said privately
that Showtime was treading a path
between daring and sensation for
sensation's sake in "Queer as Folk."
But several top executives at HBO
as well as at Showtime said that
dealing bluntly with sex was not what
differentiated cable from network
television.
"The advantage we have is that we
can go for an honest representation
of an idea; we don't have to couch
anything," said Chris Albrecht,
president for original programming
at HBO. "We don't say, `Let4s be
shocking.4 And we use our judgment
about what4s appropriate and not
appropriate for a show. If everyone
on `The Sopranos4 said `Shucks,4 it
wouldn4t feel like a real rendition of
that group of characters. The same
goes for `Oz.4 One of the most
intense places on the planet is a
maximum-security prison. The show
needs to be extremely intense."
The freedom enjoyed by cable
television is the envy of some top
creative writer-producers who must
contend with network television's
standards and practices departments.
And certainly some network
executives resent the constant
unfavorable comparisons between
the freedoms of cable and the limits
of network television. That "The
Sopranos" has failed to win the best
dramatic series Emmy for two years
in a row may be a measure of the
resentment that networks feel
toward cable.
Steven Bochco, who helped create
"N.Y.P.D. Blue," "L.A. Law," and
other network series, said the start
of "N.Y.P.D. Blue" in 1993 was
delayed for a year while he argued
and negotiated with ABC executives
about how far he could go with
language and nudity. He and other
television writer-producers have long
argued that the networks must relax
their standards on language,
sexuality and general realism
because serious shows on cable are
drawing large audiences away from
broadcast networks.
"Cable plays by a completely
different set of rules on every level,"
Mr. Bochco said.
"First of all, they spend more money.
Second of all, they have no
advertisers. They don't have as
many episodes as we do. Their
schedules are longer. And they
compete more directly with motion
pictures on a content level."
But Mr. Bochco said he envied cable
television only to a point. Last year,
he explained, he sold a project to
HBO, but the deal collapsed over the
issue of how much freedom he could
have.
"Ultimately, I withdrew," he said.
"Ironically, HBO didn't give up
creative control, and I didn't feel
comfortable ceding the kind of
control that I've had for 20 years in
broadcasting." The control involved,
among other issues, approval of
writers, directors, the cast and
scripts.
"We were willing to give the same
creative control that we gave to
David Chase and Tom Fontana," said
Mr. Albrecht of HBO, referring to
the creators of "The Sopranos" and
"Oz," respectively.
But Mr. Bochco, who still has great
leverage in network television
because of his track record, is
unusual. Alan Ball, a television writer
who also won an Academy Award for
his "American Beauty" screenplay,
has had perhaps more typical
encounters. Now working on a
forthcoming series for HBO called
"Six Feet Under," a dark comedy
about a dysfunctional Los Angeles
family that runs a funeral home, he
had a dismal experience with his
most recent network series, ABC's
"Oh Grow Up." A comedy about a
group of men living in a Brooklyn
apartment, it ran for 11 episodes last
fall.
"The difference between working
for a network and for HBO is night
and day," he said.
Mr. Ball, who has also written for
shows like "Grace Under Fire," said
ABC executives kept telling him to
"make everybody nicer and
articulate the subtext."
That means, he said, that audiences
must be "spoon fed" information
about the characters on the sitcom
and that essentially nothing in a
character's life can exist beneath the
surface. Subtlety is out of the
question, Mr. Ball added.
"That's why everything seems so
formulaic on network television," he
said. "If you're watching a show and
have half a brain, you know in the
first five minutes where it's going to
go." Working in cable, he said, "I'm
getting the opposite notes. It's like,
`Maybe we don't have to spell things
out so much.' I can't believe what
I'm hearing.
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