Via Frontiers:
Rosie O'Donnell spent nearly the entire six years of her syndicated daytime show as "The Queen of Nice," emerging from the closet only in the final two months of its run in 2002. But by the time Rosie returned to daily daytime TV as moderator of The View in 2006, she was well-known as a lesbian activist and regularly talked about then-partner Kelli Carpenter and their four kids.
By the time The Ellen DeGeneres Show debuted in 2003, its host was already one of the most famous lesbians in America having come out six years earlier on her ABC sitcom and on the cover of Time magazine. Her 2008 wedding to Portia DeRossi was the focus of an entire episode of the syndicated talk show and made the cover of People magazine.
So it seems natural that in the fall of 2010, the road having been paved, that two new out talk show hosts, Nate Berkus and Sara Gilbert, would no longer have to dance around the gay thing for fear of turning off sponsors and viewers.
But neither seem very eager to wrap themselves up in a rainbow flag just yet.
If you watch the promos trumpeting the Sept. 13 launch of The Nate Berkus Show, they feature various women fawning the handsome design expert who made a name for himself during eight years of appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. There is no mention of the fact that history is being made here as The Nate Berkus Show will be the first nationally syndicated daytime talk show to be hosted by an openly gay man.
“I’ve never defined myself by being gay, I’ve defined myself by being me,” Berkus said during a recent interview with Frontiers. “I’m a son, I’m a brother, I’m an uncle, I’m a gay man. Everybody has lots of different sides to them.”
Berkus isn't alone in his attitude of sexuality not being placed front-and-center. Actress Gilbert, executive producer and co-host of The Talk—a daily CBS chatfest being compared to ABC's The View—signed off on the initial press release announcing the show which mentioned the husbands of co-hosts Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remni and Marissa Jaret Winokur, but no mention of Gilbert’s partner Allison Adler.
That came from me,” Gilbert explained to reporters at the TV Critics Assn. Summer Press Tour this month. “CBS would have written whatever I wanted. I’ve been acting my whole life, and I’ve never really discussed my personal life. This is a talk show. so obviously I’m going to be discussing my life more and I felt that the first place that I wanted to do it wasn’t in a CBS press release. It just seemed impersonal, and I felt like I’d rather come in person and talk to you about all that stuff here [at press tour].”
But the Roseanne alum has always been private and her discomfort at being more open was palpable. She was asked if she thought it would be easier to succeed as a lesbian in daytime television thanks to the road paved by Ellen DeGeneres.
“I don’t really ever think of things as out or in," she said. "I just think I am who I am and when topics come up that are appropriate, I’ll talk about them, share when it seems right.”
It was up to Chen to say the word "lesbian."
“You probably don’t know the answer to that right now," said the Big Brother host. "Because once we get on the air, you’re probably going to see how much press there is about ‘Sara Gilbert is a lesbian.’ And then you probably can answer that a little more accurately I would think. It’s a whole new journey.”
After the session, Osbourne—a staunch LGBT supporter—said the questions about Sara’s sexuality “really pissed me off. Whose business is it? Why does it matter?”
It would seem to matter because Gilbert isn't playing a role on The Talk, she's sitting at the table with her co-hosts as herself, a lesbian and the mother of two children.
In a one-on-one interview, Frontiers asked Gilbert if she would take a cue from Rosie O’Donnell when she was on The View and talk often about then-wife Kelli Carpenter and their kids.
"I don’t know,” she said. “I’m naturally kind of a private person. I’m at a place in my life where I’m excited about this project and I want to share more. How much that is I guess I’ll get to find as the show goes. I’m not someone who’s been a talk show host before so I’m going to follow the lead of people like Sharon and Julie who have a lot more experience than I do and try and find the right zone for myself and my family.”
So how was for her to, for the first time, talk a little bit about her girlfriend in front of the media?
“It feels fine,” she said. “It’s a change for me and I’m excited. That’s one of the things I love about life is changing and growing and having new experiences because if I didn’t then it would be the same thing over and over again. I feel happy about where I am in my life right now.”
Berkus talked about his personal life for the first time publicly in far more dramatic circumstances. In December 2004, he and his partner, photographer Fernando Bengoechea were vacationing at a beach resort in Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean tsunami hit. While Berkus survived, Bengoechea is missing and presumed dead.
Berkus appeared on Oprah on Jan. 17, 2005, to talk about his ordeal and the loss of his love.
“But what was really interesting to me was that after I survived the tsunami and lost my partner in 2004, I got so many letters from kids around the country who decided to come out watching what a relationship that they wanted to have for themselves could be like," he told Frontiers. "I was so grateful to Oprah for telling that story not as a gay couple that went through a tragedy but as a couple that went through a tragedy. I do feel a responsibility, but it’s not a responsibility because I’m a gay man and on daytime television. It’s a responsibility to the people who are giving me an hour of their day and I want to set the best example that I can.”
Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), expressed optimism this week about the suddenly gayer daytime television landscape.
"Our community has made great strides in daytime television and it's thrilling to see talent like Sara Gilbert and Nate Berkus in the fall lineup," he said. "Both Sara and Nate will now be able to share their stories with millions of Americans who will see that LGBT people and our families aren't different from their own families. And as talks show hosts like Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell have demonstrated, more and more Americans want to hear from our community."
No comments:
Post a Comment