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Bonus video! Television's long, mostly-awful history of gay teens (Patreon)

Published:
2024-09-15 16:00:12
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hello there!

For today's bonus video, we're taking a look at the history of gay teens on TV -- going alllllll the way back to Dobie Gillis in the early 1960s, then wandering through the groovy vibes of Richard Dreyfuss into the 1970s with lesbian-teacher scares. And of course, who can forget young Ryan Phillippe as a troubled soap opera youth? And that's just to name a few.

I'm sure there are a bunch I've left out in this video, so let me know if there are others I should've mentioned!

Files

Bonus video! Television's long, mostly-awful history of gay teens

Hello there! For today's bonus video, we're taking a look at the history of gay teens on TV -- going alllllll the way back to Dobie Gillis in the early 1960s, then wandering through the groovy vibes of Richard Dreyfuss into the 1970s with lesbian-teacher scares. And of course, who can forget young Ryan Phillippe as a troubled soap opera youth? And that's just to name a few. I'm sure there are a bunch I've left out in this video, so let me know if there are others I should've mentioned!

Comments

Avi Lichtenstein

Oh Lance Loud. I was really into an American Family for a while even before Cinema Verite came out on HBO. Did you see Lance Loud! a Death in an American Family? I found it really moving. And tie-in, Lance was one of the A Gays in the original Tales of the City alongside Ian McKellan, Paul Bartel, and Bob Mackie.

UK Fan

Thanks for the full ending! I appreciate it!

Jim

Also, the character of Maynard on Dobie Gillis, was very averse to girls and could have been construed to be gay. Shiela Keuhl was the president of the Student Body when I went to UCLA in the 70's. And Dave Johnson, the son of Gilligan's Island Professor actor, Russell Johnson was the President of the Gay Student Union at UCLA. Dave Johnson later became the Los Angeles City Aids Czar, as appointed by Mayor Bradley. Unfortunately, Dave eventually died of AIDS. Also, the actress who played the older sister on Family, Meredith Baxter, later came out.

David Kirk

Loved the ending. You briefly mentioned reality TV starting on PBS. I think in Britain reality TV starts off equally high mined with stuff like the famous 7 Up series or The Family. Even in the first series of Big Brother they had anthropologists and psychologists analysing the contestants. Big brother was important for LGBT representation in the early days. Brian Dowling an out gay man an early series and Nadia a trans woman won a few seasons later. However fell incredibly fast to the point were those shows actually became extremely harmful to this contests. Even now there’s stuff coming out about Strictly Come Dancing. The bbc did this radio history of the genre from the late 90s onwards that includes some American shows too. https://open.spotify.com/show/4yvxBOJz7NREUoFqkCdg1P?si=_z4TMg4DTsC60q-xFIPZwA

Donald Stalknecht

Matt, good video, but take a breath and slow down !

Darren Simon

I was in middle school when Family was on...I recall at least the teacher ep. My grandmother liked that show but I do recall my grandfather got up and changed the channel once, a rare thing, I had to ask my brother why he did that.

AtomicDwarf

Thanks for the video, Matt. I remember the CBS Schoolbreak Special "What If I'm Gay?". I think you got the year wrong though. It was 1987. 1987 was the years I came out to myself, so it was part of my coming out process. I was 25 at the time. It was instrumental in confirming my feelings about my sexuality.

Trevor MacIsaac

i don't think that any discussion of gay teens in the 90s would be complete without mentioning Jack on Dawson's creek in 1999. A hugly pivotal character that I think really portended a new era of gay teens on T.V. that took us through the 2000s. Jack was a little after my time though. For me, the first time I saw a gay teen on T.V. as a gay teen myself was on ER. It's a T.V. show that I don't think a lot of people consider when talking about gay media in the 1990s, but there was actually a lot of representation on that show. Early in that show's run, they had an openly lesbian young Dr. (Maggie Doyle), an openly gay nurse (Yosh) and a lot of Queer patient storylines. The specific episode I'm talking about was in 1996 , during the show's second season. Dr. Doug Ross (played by the ever so dreamy George Clooney) is treating a closeted gay teen who is under tremendous stress, and he is kind, caring and most of all, accepting of him. It was amazing to see that storyline as a Queer teen myself, and really made me fall in love with the show (and with Doug Ross in particular....)

Johnny Townsend

Consenting Adult was written by the same author who wrote Gentleman's Agreement, Laura Z. Hobson, about antisemitism. On another note, have you done a video on queer actors who took on queer roles despite the risk? For instance, I remember Robert Reed of The Brady Bunch playing a transgender doctor on Medical Center (1975?).

Zardogs! Zardogs!

I grew up in Santa Barbara where American Family was shot. It was legendary, but I didn't get to see clips of it until it started showing up on the Internet. The fact that there was a gay son almost always got mentioned, also the divorce. That letter nearly made me cry. Wow.