- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345412435
- ISBN-13: 978-0345412430
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,581,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Definitive, vibrant, and utterly fascinating, Alternate Channels traces the monumental growth of gay, lesbian, and bisexual images on radio and television from the 1930s to the present. Splashed against the tumultuous backdrop of the McCarthy witch hunts, Stonewall and the gay liberation movement, the birth of the 700 Club and the religious right, the outbreak of AIDS and the arrival of in-your-face queer activism, this chatty, authoritative broadcast history tells the stories of such notorious and noteworthy moments as
- 1947: Radio gays--A bitchy fashion photographer throws fits at the drop of a designer hat on the adaptation of Moss Hart's Lady in the Dark
- 1967s: Monkey business--The Monkees flick limp wrists while caroling "Don we now our gay apparel" for a Christmas special
- 1974: Pepper in the wound--A notorious Police Woman episode depicts a gang of deadly lesbians who rob, torture, and murder senior citizens
- 1977: Wash your mouth out--Billy Crystal portrays Jodie Dallas on Soap, the first hit series with a gay character in a central role
- 1991: L.A. Law breaks 'em--Amanda Donohoe and Michelle Greene share a two-second kiss . . . and start a storm of controversy
- 2000: The last laugh--Featuring not one but two gay male characters, Will & Grace skyrockets to the top of the ratings charts
From mocking banter between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on '50s radio to a historic peck between women on '90s television, from the stereotyping of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals as sissies and psychopaths to their widespread acceptance as real people, Alternate Channels is a compulsively readable chronicle of lesbian, gay, and bisexual images in the media--packed with unthinkable shows, bizarre personalities, unlikely heroes, and some of the strangest protests ever staged in the name of civil rights.
- 1947: Radio gays--A bitchy fashion photographer throws fits at the drop of a designer hat on the adaptation of Moss Hart's Lady in the Dark
- 1967s: Monkey business--The Monkees flick limp wrists while caroling "Don we now our gay apparel" for a Christmas special
- 1974: Pepper in the wound--A notorious Police Woman episode depicts a gang of deadly lesbians who rob, torture, and murder senior citizens
- 1977: Wash your mouth out--Billy Crystal portrays Jodie Dallas on Soap, the first hit series with a gay character in a central role
- 1991: L.A. Law breaks 'em--Amanda Donohoe and Michelle Greene share a two-second kiss . . . and start a storm of controversy
- 2000: The last laugh--Featuring not one but two gay male characters, Will & Grace skyrockets to the top of the ratings charts
From mocking banter between Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on '50s radio to a historic peck between women on '90s television, from the stereotyping of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals as sissies and psychopaths to their widespread acceptance as real people, Alternate Channels is a compulsively readable chronicle of lesbian, gay, and bisexual images in the media--packed with unthinkable shows, bizarre personalities, unlikely heroes, and some of the strangest protests ever staged in the name of civil rights.
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4 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A Book I Was Waiting for Someone to Write
13 July 2001
Format:Paperback
The first striking thing about this book is the amazing amount of research that would have been necessary to have written it. Just how does a person master this much material, run down particular episodes of "Medical Center" from the early 1970s or "Hill Street Blues" from the 1980s, and dozens of more obscure programs? I don't know, but Steven Capsuto has managed to do it.
The result is a singularly fascinating book, and a worthy companion to Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet. And since television plays a more important role than movies in shaping public perceptions of gay people (and in helping young gay people to understand their places in the world), Capsuto's project is arguably even more important.
For gay readers over 40, this book is likely to produce some strong nostalgic feelings. Reading the author's accounts of such significant broadcasts as "That Certain Summer" (with Hal Holbrooke and Martin Sheen) or "A Question of Love" (with Gena Rowlands and Jane Alexander), one can't help but reflect on memories of a former self and how the world was then.
For younger readers, this book will fill an important gap in their cultural knowledge--what happened many years before Ellen and Will & Grace, "lesbian chic" and heightened gay visibility. It also tells the story of lesbian and gay media activism, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and its forerunners. And Capsuto covers television and radio depictions of bisexual and transgendered people in his thorough account.
Perhaps most important, the book also helps to illuminate a continuing flaw in television depictions of gay life: for all the progress of the past decade, there continues to exist a kind of unwritten Hays Code that bars most expressions of affection or sexual desire between persons of the same sex from American network television.
Will & Grace continues to depict what may be the only attractive, witty, smart and successful gay man in Manhattan who has no sex life. In its own way, this show is as deficient today as was "The Andy Griffith Show" in depicting (during the height of the civil rights movement) the only town in North Carolina with no black people.
Television provides a crucial window through which we see our lives and our society. Capsuto's book helps us to remember how skewed that vision has often been, and to realize the important changes that are still needed. This is an important work of cultural and social history.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
I Want My Gay TV!
18 Nov 2002
Format:Paperback
Author Steven Capsuto chronicles the history (1930-2000) of gay and lesbian characters on Network TV and in doing so mirrors the history and struggles of the gay community to be shown as real, full human beings. Even as a reader familar with much of the material mentioned here I even discovered new things that I didn't know. While heterosexual television character continue to romp all over the screen in wanton abandon, even the smallest, simpliest signs of affection between two characters of the same sex is treated with scorn. Has the gay community actually progressed? Given the choices of lonely Will on "Will & Grace," the constant in your face gay sex on "Queer as Folk" and the little screen time of the now lesbian romance and soon child for Dr. Weaver on "E.R." I'm not sure. Media (especially televison) and gay and lesbian studies scholars should take note, there is such a wealth of a history and knowledge here that it can't be ignored. A rich, acurate and very well written text.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Not your mother's history book
1 Dec 2000
Format:Paperback
Witty, insightful, daring, complete, and as non-dry as you can get, this book goes where none have gone before, not only regaling us an authoritative on-screen compendium of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered images, but the "stories behind the stores" - lesbians invading NBC studios, gay activists interrupting Walter Cronkite on the air, from the tortured, pitiful images of the early "exposes" of "the gay lifestyle" to full, responsible news coverage of activism. Neatly divided into small chapters, it weaves the tale of the first whispers of the "love that dare not speak its name" through to the out and loud shouting of "Ellen" and "Will & Grace" (and the format, for better or for worse, makes for great bathroom reading). An absolute must-have for every queer library and TV fan.
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