Out of 710 characters appearing in network TV series for the 2005/2006 season, 16 are homosexual, according to GLAAD. This actually represents a small increase over last year.
Jennie Livingston's documentary on vogueing, Paris is Burning, comes out today — 14 years after it was produced.
Posted Aug. 30,2005 at 9:33 AM EST by Andy Towle in Elsewhere | Permalink
GLAAD - the $7.5 million paper tiger. Aren't these statistics a report card on their own failure to influence the industry with the largest audience affecting our lives? While Joan Garry was building her now abandoned empire, drawing the largest salary of any other gay nonprofit head [based on percentage of the organization's income] the group itself became functionally irrelevant--never more apparent than last November when ABC simply refused to give them a preview tape of their "20/20" smear of Matthew Shepard. And what are TV producers supposed to do when, on the one hand, GLAAD lambastes them about stereotypical scripted characters while, on the other, lauds "Q Eye for the Straight Guy"?
Posted by: Leland | Aug 30, 2005 3:30:17 PM
Your entry about Paris Is Burning is a bit misleading. The movie is being released on DVD 14 years after it debuted in theaters. It's been out on video, just not on DVD.
Posted by: timothy | Aug 30, 2005 7:20:51 PM
Actually it comes out next week, the 6th, at least according to the websites I checked. Can't wait to get it on DVD!
Posted by: Michael | Aug 30, 2005 7:46:29 PM