Michael Dolce (screen capture)
How TV Shifted Its Portrayal Of LGBTQs In The 1990s
In this mini-documentary chronicling LGBTQ representation on television, Matt Baume does an excellent job pulling together the LGBTQ shifts in the tele-landscape on 1990s sitcoms. From Baume:
Is there any show more perfectly suited for a gay ’90s romp than Frasier? When the show the first premiered, television often treated gay characters as a source of fear. But by the time Frasier was in its final season, lots of sitcoms were having a gay old time.
Hit play for a trip down memory lane on how the portrayal of gays changed over a relatively short period and why. No one does this better than Matt.
Netflix: “Grace And Frankie”
“9 To 5” stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin reunite as two women forced to reinvent their lives in this funny, honest new Netflix Original series, Grace and Frankie.
Elegant, proper Grace and freewheeling, eccentric Frankie aren’t friends, even though their husbands Robert and Sol (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) have been law partners for decades.
But when Robert and Sol announce that they’re leaving their wives for each other, the two women start to bond in ways they never expected.
13 episodes coming to Netflix on May 8th.
Jonathon Groff: I Was Too Closeted In High School To Watch “Queer As Folk”
Jonathon Groff on seeing early portrayals of gay men in film and television:
When I saw “Brokeback Mountain,” I was in a closeted relationship and went to go see it with my boyfriend, so that was really intense for the both of us. We left the theater in total horrified silence.
And I remember being in high school and seeing “Queer as Folk” playing on the TV in the background at a party and being intrigued, but too embarrassed to go turn up the volume and actually watch it.
“Will & Grace” was a big one, too, when I was growing up. And even though I didn’t personally relate to Will or Jack, it was just great to watch them every week and not feel so alone.