Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet
Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 1992 18:17:02 -0400
From:         gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject:      GayNet Digest Volume 5 Issue 667

In this issue:
                         lesbians on network tv
                   getting the message to the phobes
                             Melrose Place
                          OLTL Tuesday, Aug 25
                                  OLTL
                                  OLTL

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 30 Aug 92 10:09:00 EST
From: "CYNTHIA FUCHS" <cfuchs@gmuvax.gmu.edu>
Subject: lesbians on network tv

     While Matt lingers generally unseen in the background of
this premiere season of "Melrose Place"--despite or because of
the ballyhoo attending his announced existence--I have stumbled
upon a surprise on Network TV. ABC, that same large corporate
body bringing us the OLTL gay teen storyline, offers a show
called "Arresting Behavior" (on Wednesday nights in Northeast
corridor). I've seen three episodes so far, and the program
parodies the real-video shows, those you-are-there-in-the-camera
shows typically featuring cops. "Arresting Behavior" features not
"real people" but actors (for example, Ron Eldard [best known for
the movie _True Love_] and Chris Mulkey [known for _Patti Rocks_
and the TV version of "Twin Peaks"]), who play Southern CA cops
and their immediate families, as they are being followed around
by cameras, on and off the job.
     The above-mentioned actors play brothers who have a sister
who has just moved in with her girlfriend--the first episodes
dealt in part with the brothers' nearly manic inability to grasp
the notion that their sister is queer. During last week's
episode, the men show up at her housewarming party and are
surrounded by dykes, at whom they continue to make feeble passes,
not getting it. Finally, they do get it, complete with some
anxiety about the genetic implications for themselves, which they
resolve by agreeing that their parents have produced three
children who like "chicks." This eases their minds!
     So far, the show hasn't demonstrated great scripts or
brilliant anything, but the dialogue and the camerawork are
occasionally funny and hey, the premise is quite matter-of-fact
about lesbians as regular characters, certainly something fairly
new on TV.
     I thought someone on gaynet might want to know about this
show....

     Also, thanks to everyone responding to Geoffrey Schramm's
request for info on LBG programs. I teach at GMU and am a party
to this project.

Cindy Fuchs
cfuchs@gmuvax.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 12:21:43 EDT
From: Tim Pierce <twpierce@cs.amherst.edu>
Subject: getting the message to the phobes

John Medlin <jmedlin@u.washington.edu> writes:

> The question:  how do we get things like the Rizzo essay, the earlier
> refutations of the intimidatingly footnoted phobe essays, etc., before the
> eyes of those who need to read them?  the media willing to publish such
> stuff is not going to be read by phobes.  Is it practical to raise money
> to run off numerous copies and hand them out at
> conservative/Republican/phobe gatherings?

I ask, "What's the point?"  The real phobes -- the Robertson and
Buchanan sheep, the Republican lapdogs, and the rest -- will always
find excuses to disbelieve any evidence of queerness as a positive
phenomenon.  Get it out to the rest of the world, and we will attract
queer-sympathetic people and possibly swing over opinions of folks on
the edge.  Send it to the _Times,_ the _Globe_, the WSJ.  Put it on
the evening news: submit a "viewpoint" piece to your local station.
Or, as you cleverly suggest:

> Or post them on telephone
> poles? (If rock-group groupies can plaster placards all over a city, it
> looks like the gay community might be able to do something similar)

But promoting queerness in die-hard phobe circles seems to me trying
to teach a pig to sing.

-
____ Tim Pierce                / The Queer Resources Directory: access via
\  / twpierce@cs.amherst.edu   / anonymous ftp at nifty.andrew.cmu.edu in
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / directory /pub/QRD.

------------------------------

From: Greg Pratt <aragon@lachesis.acm.rpi.edu>
Subject: Melrose Place
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 15:06:51 EDT

This is probably my last posting from this address.  After tomorrow, I'll be
on my way back to RIT and dealing with my mail at glp5941@ultb.isc.rit.edu.

Anyway... don't let Fox off the hook on its promise of the gay character.  On
the other hand, show some patience.  It's a new show, and they probably want
to build a more firm viewing base before they give the AFA something to waste
another few hundred dollars on postage over.  :)

Ciao...
--
Gregory Pratt                               "The problem with the gene pool
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute            is that there is no lifeguard."
Association for Computing Machinery                             --- unknown

------------------------------

From: manz@ee.ualberta.ca (Brett {Druid Queen} Manz)
Subject: OLTL Tuesday, Aug 25
Summary: Plot synopsis for OLTL, Aug 25
Keywords: soap, OLTL, plot
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: 	Sun, 30 Aug 1992 09:32:46 -0600

  I'm still behind schedule... but here goes Tuesday.


Tuesday, Aug 25

  Vicki and Clint are having the same old argument.  Clint wants to
go away to their ranch for a while, to get away from everything
(paricularly to get *her away from Sloan!)  Vicki is resistant to
this suggestion because she feels obligated to Sloan and Andrew.

  Clint is not impressed with her sense of priority.  Vicki, it seems,
is beginning to feel that Clint is acting like an asshole.

  Joey has gone to meet with Virginia.  She has a letter she wants
Joey to give to Billy.  Joey says he doesn't know where Billy is.
Virginia says she knows he knows, but she isn't going to pressure
him to tell.  She just wants Joey to give him the letter.

  He says "He doesn't need a lecture, if that's what it is."  Virginia
assures him that it isn't.  Walter has written a nasty letter to the
editor, regarding his feelings on Gays and the Names Project Quilt,
and it has been printed in the paper.  She has written this letter to
Billy in hopes that it will be an antidote for the hatefull letter
written by his father.  "But it's not going to do any good unless
Billy can read it.  Will you take it to him?"  Joey agrees.

  Vicki and Clint are still arguing.  Clint is really a jerk.  He
says "I'm going to the ranch in the morning.  If you decide that you
might want to spend some time with me instead of with Sloan Carpenter
[HAH!] you know where I'll be."

  Vicki declares that Clint is not being fair and storms out of the
house. [About time!]

  Joey comes in as she is leaving.  "What's wrong with mom?" he asks.
Clint says nothing.  Joey starts making a sandwhich.  "Is that
sandwhich for you, or for Billy Douglas?" asks Clint, rather snidely.
Joey states that it is for him.

  Clint asks him what he was doing outside (he was supposed to be
in his room, sleeping.)  Joey says he couldn't sleep so he went for
a walk.  Clint informs him that he should start packing as they are
leaving for the ranch in the morning.  Joey asks him not to make
him go.  Clint won't budge.

  "Can we talk about this?" he asks.  "If I left for the ranch right
now I'd be walking out on Billy."

  "You'd rather walk out on me?" asks Clint. [can you say `persecution
complex'?]  "Billy Douglas is part of the reason you're going to the
ranch with me anyway.  I've told you more than once to steer away
from that kid."

  "Billy is a friend.  You also told me, a long time ago, that friends
stick up for each other.  If I left right now I'd be walking out on
Bily, and I'd be walking out on Andrew.  He really stuck his neck out
to get the Names Project QUilt to come to Lanview, and you know some
people aren't going to like that."

  "Some people?" yells Clint.  "*I* don't like it!  In the morning,
bright and early, you're boarding the plane.  And that, my friend,
is final."  Clint walks out, leaving Joey alone with his sandwhich.

  Joey sits for a moment.  "No I'm not," he says, bundles up his
sandwhich, and leaves the house.

  Of course, he goes to see Billy.  Billy is looking at the paper,
and, understandably, seems quite upset.  Joey tells Billy about
his father's demands to go to the ranch.  He assures Billy that
he does not intend to go.  He then tells him about his recent
discussion with Andrew, and that Andrew did not tell his mother that
he had come to the rectory.

  "And guess who else I found out is your friend..." he says. "Your
mother!"

  "Yeah, right," says Billy, unconvinced.

   Joey says he has proof, and gives him the letter.

   Billy reads the letter...


        "Dear Billy,
            By now I'm afraid you may have seen the letter your father
         wrote to the Banner when he was angry and upset.  I wish you
         were here at home right now so I could tell you in person how
         sorry I am.  But I understand why you're staying away.

            I pray that you are taking care of yourself.  I also pray
         that you'll come to know the truth of two things you might find
         hard to believe just yet.  One is that I love you, and that I
         always will, whoever you are and whatever you choose to be.
         The other is that your father loves you too.

            He's hurt, and he's afraid so he lashes out, which doesn't
         excuse his behaviour at all.  But the hurt will finally ease,
         and the fear will fade, and your father will know what I know:
         What a wonderful young man you are, and how deeply he loves you.

            I hope you will forgive your father and me for the pain
         we've caused you.  Please consider coming home when you can.
         Things will never be right till you do.

                                            Love,

                                            Mom."


  "Well?" asks Joey.  "Good news?  Are things any better at home?"

  "No.  No they're not.  My mom says she's sorry, at least.  But my
dad... he still hates me, and everything I stand for.  Or didn't you
see his letter?"

  "Yeah," says Joey.  "I saw it."

  "Well maybe you didn't get the gist of it Joe.  How about I read
it to you?  It's entitled `No Gays, no Quilt' and it goes something
like this:

        "I wouldn't go so far as to say that drug users and homosexuals
         deserve the kind of death that AIDS has brought to them.  But
         surely these breakers of the law, both God's and man's, don't
         deserve to be memorialized.  Unless it's on the bathroom walls
         where they make their sad and fatal dates."

[This sounds rather a lot like one of the more notorious buttheads who
 used to plague this, and other simmilar groups, don't you think?]

  Billy tells Joey that he's leaving.  "If my father `comes around',
and we're not talking weeks or months here, we're talking decades,
I don't plan on hiding out that long."

  "When the AIDS memorial quilt comes to Lanview Andrew is really
going to be under the gun," says Joey.  "Why don't you want to be
there to support him?"

  "Oh, I'm looking *real forward to seeing the quilt.  A huge
memorial to homos, just like me, all of whom have died."

  "You sound just like your father."

  "Well do you think all those things he's said to me over the years
just bounce off?  They don't.  They sink in.  Sometimes I think I hate
myself almost as much as he hates me."

  "He doesn't hate you."

  "I'm leaving Joey.  I'm sorry."

  Vicki is at the restaraunt having coffee with a friend.  She is
talking about her problems with Cint.  "After all these years,
everything I *thought we shared a belief in... we don't!"

  Later she returns home.  Clint asks her if she's made a decision
about going to the ranch.  "Yes, I have," she says.  "I'm not
going."



I'm going to try and get Wednesday's done tonight.  Gotta run, I'm
meeting some friends for Dim-Sum.




-
---------------------------------+-------------------------------------
 My opinions are my own.         |  You can't be proud of who you are
 The truth belongs to everyone.  |  if you're ashamed of what you are.
 Civil Rights Are For Queers!    |  Cruise Men, Not Missiles! - anon

------------------------------

Date:         Sun, 30 Aug 92 16:38:44 EDT
From: SWATCM@morekypr.MIT.EDU
Subject:      OLTL

please contine the story updates. I have classes through the show and
your imput is all I have to keep up ... Thanks .:-)

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 15:36:06 -0600 (MDT)
From: WERLING <awerling@nmsu.edu>
Subject: OLTL

Speaking of One Life to Live, I was so happy to see that the August 28
episode was 100% dedicated to gay- and AIDS-oriented stuff.  It was such
an intense hour that I found myself sobbing throughout and had to take
some time afterwards to get it back together.

I think it's time to write another letter.  I had the address, but not
with me...if no one else posts it I shall...it's the address to ABC, actually.



Andrew Werling   awerling@nmsu.edu   yip@acca.nmsu.edu
"now we find sodom strange take it out put it in your mouth how do you like
gomorrah now a taste of this swallow that feel the fish hide the hat ezekial
where's your wheel you better grease it GREASE GREASE GREASE GREASE! ROCK!!!"
       --Chainsaw Kittens, "Ezekial Walks Through Sodom and Gomorrah"

------------------------------

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