[ASST. EDITOR'S NOTE: We're happy to tell you the Kickstarter goal for the film has been met!--LD]
We've
all had someone or something that greatly influenced our lives while we were growing toward adulthood. Sometimes that may have been a parent, a teacher, or maybe a friend’s parent. For lots of us, it was someone on TV.
Lucky me to have had loving friends and family surround and inspire me. But what I really wanted was The Brady Bunch house. When the show first aired in 1969, I wanted to live in a house with a staircase like that (below left), maybe with a “prince” who would be an architect like Mr. Brady. A sure path to that groovy pad. Not until much later did I realize those TV idols were a lot like me.
It surely must have been much more difficult for people who didn't find TV characters they could easily relate to. LGBT characters, for instance. Where do young gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people see themselves, living healthy, loving lives on television?
In the 1970s all that began to change, and television has been making strides since, providing role models for LGBT youth and inspiring tolerance and compassion. That progress is continuing.
A new documentary called Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television inspired these thoughts. We believe in the project and want to bring it to your attention. Produced by actor Wilson Cruz (My So-Called Life, Red Band Society) and directed by activist David Bender, the film interviews members of the television community who have contributed in some way to this forward movement.
Unfortunately, the documentary is not yet complete and is trying to continue production through a Kickstarter campaign.
This is not the first time we’ve written about LGBT topics. It’s important to us at TVWW for many reasons, but for two in particular today.
The subject of LGBT characters on television is part of David Bianculli’s next book, which he is frantically trying to complete.
Secondly, we believe in this project. We have only supported two Kickstarter campaigns in the history of TVWW. The first was for Reading Rainbow whose campaign was the most successful so far of all those launched on the Kickstarter site. The second was for the Kurt Vonnegut documentary, which raised far more funds than the filmmaker dreamed he could collect. Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television is now our third.
Please visit their page, read about the film, watch the videos, and decide for yourself. We feel it’s a film that deserves to be seen.