Gay 90s (and 80s): The Rainbow Remix with Denise Warner & JD Danner

Welcome to eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way media network, Babes Dance, Pretty the City. I'm your producer Melissa Roth, looking back at female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties with your hosts Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert Adam. Hello, I'm Susan and I'm Sharon. Our guests today found us and invited us on their show. They're the hosts of Rainbow Remix podcast podcaster Denise Warner and South Florida singer j D.

Danner have a show which covers LGBTQ, lifestyle, news, music, arts, media, mixology and more. And for Pride Month, we decided to a deeper look at queer representation and television, particularly eighties TV. We got to sit down last episode with videoographer and podcaster and author Matt Baum to start our conversation about queer TV history, and we decided to wrap it up with j D and Denise. It's so great to have you guys here. Welcome.

We're so delighted to have you with us. Yeah, we're happy to be here, so happy to be here, and thank you for having us on your show and reaching out. We now wanted to have you on eighties TV Ladies so that we could talk more about eighties television, about you guys, and about queer representation on the TV Tube in the eighties and beyond. I was so interested in the topic when we had you guys on the show. You know, it was just something that we never really delved into, you know, or thought much about, you know, so it was really like the fact it was thought provoking, and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go to dive into this a little bit more.

And I and I really went all in and was researching all the shows of the eighties and what kind of storylines you know, ever touched on, you know, gay, lesbian, queer, trans and it was so interesting. Yeah, wow, Yeah. Were there any themes or anything that stuck out to you just sort of in a general sense as you were going through the list, you know, I saw kind of like a timeline in my head. And in the early eighties it was more about pointing out, you know, a gay character or the main lead pretending to be gay for like Three's Company, right, like Jack pretending to be gay, like to you know, riff On, mister Roper and all that. And then you know, you had other shows that it seemed like that was a thing.

Like there was a Cheers episode where Norm pretended to be gay to get an interior decorator job first, you know, and it was you know, that kind of stuff, and of course everybody was flamboyant, and it was funny because it was sitcoms, you know. And and then I saw this like trend where the dramas were picking up on it, Like I I never knew this, and I was a huge Miami Voice maan. But Miami Voice had like two or three episodes that had a gay character in it. But it was one where an old colleague of Sonny's either out in someone or you know, had some kind of like you know, hate slurs towards um some one of his colleague's sons, and and he was really bitter about it. And Tubbs kept trying to figure out why he didn't go along with this with this colleague that they were working with, and he went back and explained it, and you know, it was it was it felt deep, you know, and I was like, okay, here we go.

And then I did a little bit more and I noticed that, like other dramas started, you know, taking on you know, some some queer representation as far as like a gay character goes and then protecting that person, right, you know, right that then the trend went to like all the hospital shows that were picking up steam, like Saint Elsewhere, and you know there was um Prepper John Yes, and then and it was AIDS came into the picture, and it was a lot more about you know, the AIDS and the lack of funding and research and characters dying and you know, and I was like, well, isn't this like an interesting trend? You know where it started as being funny and flamboyant and you know, all out for the laughs and stuff, and then it got a little darker, you know, where you you know, closeted characters were outed, and then it went to the heaviness of the AIDS epidemic.

So it was really really interesting, and I was surprised at some of the shows like Hotel like that just didn't feel like a heavy drama back then to have these you know, big gay storylines on it. You know, I was all about like love boating, golden girls and you know, stuff like that. And then I'm like reading more and more and I was like whoa okay interesting. And then another one that popped up that was pretty you know, like I had to like read up on it a little bit was La Law. La Law was one of the first ones, you know, wasn't that towards the end of the eighties.

Yes, so they had the lesbian kiss episode, the first known lesbian kiss episode that I actually remember. You know, the thing about the protecting the gay character like that was like true because I clearly remember in The Golden Girls when Dorothy's friend from high school from with college was gay and she comes to visit and everyone thought that her partner who passed away, who was passed was a man, and then you know, she's afraid to let everyone know because she doesn't think that they're going to handle it, and like everyone's fine with it. And then when Blanche's brother was gay, that was another character on that show, and they brought him back quite a bit. Yeah, there's a little more red occurring.

I mean, even back into the seventies with all in the family, everyone always accepted them like there wasn't like a problem, like they weren't rejected when it finally came out. So I did notice that that there was that trend of making it like okay, like no one even on The Golden Girls, when Blanche originally didn't accept it, at the end she saw how much of a relationship and how much it meant to her brother to have his boyfriend with them and show everyone that they are loved for each other, and then she even accepted it. So that was true. It was kind of nice to see that. What they side noticed in looking at some of the list that I looked at is it seemed that most of the gay characters.

I don't think this list was completely comprehensive, but by far it seemed that most of the gay characters were men as opposed to being more even he went men and women, And I hadn't thought about in the eighties in particular, how maybe perhaps the AIDS crisis might have pushed it in that direction. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe it's because most of the writers were men and so they were Yeah, that's what they thought about. One of the things that I went back to, and I think this is going a little bit further back from the eighties, But do you remember Jamie Farr and mash Oh, yes, of course, yes, when you ever commented on that, like no one in my family ever went like, look at the queer in the dress, or he wasn't gay, though he wasn't gay, right, just a crocus you wanted to get discharged from the right.

But yeah, it was just like you know, quality any comedy that you know what, in that respect there was a purpose, you know, but yeah, like there was I noticed, you know, of course there was so much like miss labeling, you know back that, I mean even in friends, like when they started with Chandler's dad, you know dad, yes, yes, yeah, but I read that. I read the whole um article by I think it was Marta Kaufman that were like an op ed, you know, how irresponsible it was back then. It just wasn't on anybody's radar. You know. They were going for the jokes and they had no reference, you know, no reference points to it.

And then they get like a big name like Kathleen Turner to come in and play the part or whatever. But like I felt like she was genuinely remorseful for not you know, doing a little research and you know, and again I think it's more in the spotlight now, you know, people care more about their identities and how they're identifying or maybe less. She's right, It wasn't that anyone's radar, and nobody was doing it purposefully to hurt our community in any way, you know. So to me, the fact that they went and now educated themselves, learned a lot from it and then kind of integrated, isn't And correct me if I'm wrong? But isn't she one of the executive producers of Grace and Frankie Grayson Frankie, Yes, she is one of the creators, Marta Kaufman.

You take everything worn from a community that just just like you know, pointed a finger in your face and went, you didn't do everything right, and you didn't do anything. Now you know, and then you you know, you learn from it and you grow. But I think I do recall to that she made a massive donations to a lot of different like the HRC and places where we need the help well, and I think intention is really important. But before we keep going, because i'd like to introduce you guys to our listeners. So because we dived right in, which has been very exciting.

Yeah right, it's ready to go. But Denise, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and you know kind of where you come from, where you are now and a little bit about Rainbow Remix. While I am Denise. I'm a big out lesbian and I've been doing podcasts since two thousand and six, started doing them out of a little guest room in my tiny condo and turned it into a studio when I realized that we were onto something. And they've always been, you know, very queer centric, LGBT community driven, and you know, the sole goal was always and probably will always be to shine a spotlight on LGBT creatives.

You know, people that are creating content, whether books, shorts, films, concerts, music, whatever they're doing. We know how difficult it is to get some traction, to get some eyes on your project. So that was always the goal from the beginning, and always to have it be like a conversation, and that's how it began, and everything was self taught then, you know. I mean, we had a great mentor and a guy that owned pretty much an all gay mail website that took us under his wing when he knew what we were trying to do and he thought, you know, I want to reach some women too, you know, not just making about the men. And he gave us a platform, but he also taught us everything, you know, the technology he was.

He was based in Atlanta, and he literally flew down and met us and you know, gave us some contracts to sign, told us what his vision was. We were all on board. And the next time he came was a couple of weeks later and drove down from Georgia with his SUV full of equipment, you know, consoles, microphones, set up my whole guest room like a little studio, and he he was the one who like really held my producer's hand, who was a teacher, and we were doing it live at the time. We were going out live at a certain time, and then we decided to make podcasts so we could edit out some burps and uh, what what are you talking about? Nobody does that, you know.

Yeah, and then after a while we were just like, you know, it's screw it, man, like, don't even edit it out, like we're real. Like we would eat on the show. We would drink You could hear our ice clinkin. You can hear us burp. We would fall off chairs, we would you know, get a little inebriated from time to time.

But it was always a good time. And you know, I feel like we did so much good with that ran for like ten years. This is the Lesbian Lounge. Yeah, yeah, because I heard of that show. I remember hearing about that show.

Yeah, it was weird phenomenon that kind of took shape in like two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. We were kind of doing all that, trying to do live events too, and it was fun. It was really fun. And then my co host got her like dream job, like she always wanted to work for the LGBTQ community and she finally got a job, you know, and uh, and it was it was doing just that. So we had to you know, kind of bring it to a close.

And then for a while I was producing other podcasts. I sat on a panel for podcasting at Clexicon, and then JD called and it was like, you want to do this all over again, and you know, we found our footing. It took us a little while. Like we started, we were trying to think of things that we had in common to do a podcast about, and we went right to whiskey in music, sicky and music can't go wrong there. Both of us realized that LGBTQ projects just gets so neglected, you know, they really hard time, especially filmmakers, you know, to raise funds, you know, with their go fund means and their seed and sparks and all the indiego go things.

And I've seen my friends have crushing failures, but I've also seen them have like some supreme success, you know, and I just want to be able, you know, to have people have a little taste of that kind of success, whether it's like new you know, somebody new following their project, or a decent donation, or you know, just give them a shout out that they deserve. So we both kind of agreed maybe that was the way to go with the remix. I love that, I really do, and j D tell us your story. Basically, my role in the entertainment world has been being a musician a songwriter and having my own band and also writing my original music. But I also had an internet radio show, I guess it's before they called them podcast called That's Life, and I had like two people that we did it in a studio down here in Lake Worth and every week would be my co host, which was my niece.

She's a journalist, and we had a chat room, so we had people that would come in the chat room kind of like you did with the Lesbian Lounge, and so I would read what the people were asking, so they weren't really calling in, but anyway, I got a taste of that doing that. So when COVID hit and it was just sitting around with not much to do as a performer, I did go online a couple of times and I did some shows out of my studio in my house and I couldn't believe and like, you know, the first time I did it, in an hour, I was getting people from all over the world literally, and they were like two hundred and seventy people the first time I went live to do it, and I'm like, this is a great way to reach people, so why not do a podcast, And that's what I got in touch with Denise because I was getting people saying Hello from Spain, Hello from the UK.

You know, it was crazy. It was the first time I did it, and I had done some touring performing for the troops. I did some homeland tours and I got to go to Guantanamobey with my band and yeah, so I was like, it was nice to be able to even reach some of those people because of my being online. The way the world is now was when I toured. It was before we even had GPS's in the car, so it was early two thousand to have a map.

Good to get out that map. Yeah, sounds like it was so far away, but it was like two thousand and seven or something. You know, it wasn't that far away, but just getting that stuff. So yeah, so I think so this has been really great fun. I mean, when I first did my first radio show, it was really therapy for me when I was coming out of a divorce.

So I was a late bloomer coming out as lesbian. I was married for twenty five years to man. But you know, they knew, they knew, they were waiting for me to tell them. It was an exclusive for us. They always said, when you finally come out, you have to do it on our show.

Because I was denying, denying, denying, you know. But but yeah, so I ended up having this whole big thing. I won't go into the story, but I was actually cheated on and that's when ended my marriage, which was probably best that it all happened, but for my therapy, I started doing a show every Tuesday night. So yeah, so that's kind of like how I delved a little bit into this world, and I'm enjoying doing what we do every week. I think it's a lot of fun, right, Denise, It's true.

Yeah, I thought it was a way to get through COVID. You know, I've always found it kind of a really great tool, a really great escape and to be artistic another avenue. Yeah, I love that, and it's true, Like I think Sharon and I are sort of enjoying the process a lot more than we thought we would. Not that I didn't think I'd enjoy it, but it really is something that I miss. I get tired.

Wait, we don't do every week. We do every other week because we're not hardcore. But you know, at the same time, I'm really excited to keep doing it. I'm like, oh, we can do this, you know, forever, sorry, forever. Now.

It's such a great niche topic that you guys have tapped into. You're writing like it is. It is never ending. You can just go and go, and you're getting such great people. Huh.

We have been very blessed. I'm thrilled with our guests too, which are both stars and TV creators and stuff. But we're also sort of expanding yeah, uh huh. So I'm curious for you guys, what ladies driven eighties TV shows did you watch and love and what does representation mean to you now? And what did it mean to you either before you came out or for coming out.

I'll just go huge questions, like fifteen questions, but go right what I was doing the Deep Dive and I was, you know, reading through and they just give me like a little clip of like what the episode was and the character and who played it and blah blah blah. And I was reading up on the one, the La Law one that had the first lesbian kissing it and I'm thinking to myself, you know what, I remember that and I was young. I was probably like maybe twelve or thirteen, and I remember thinking this might be what, like all of a sudden, like the connectors were connecting. And you know, when I was younger, I was like a die hard Charlie's Angels fan, I mean die hard. And you know, it's funny, like especially when you've come out late in life and you go back and you and it's like in hindsight, you know, like my family would say, in hindsight, I shouldn't owned by the way you were right front of the TV watching Charlie's Angels drooling, you know, or you know that you had a pet Beta tire poster on your wall, and most people had like other people, so you know, there were a lot of little tips that people just didn't pick up on along the way.

But I do remember, like all of a sudden, I was making that connection to why I loved Charlie's Angels as much as I did to that La Law, like seeing two women kiss on TV for the first time, and then all the Cagney and Lacy that came into it too, Like I was such you know again, like a diehard Cagney and Lacey fan that my birthday cakes were decorated with the Cagney Lacey Lobo, with the blue Cagney and Lacy and the little television brown frosting, you know, like insane everybody knew. And it was just like all those things were like, you know, making the connections in my mind to think, maybe that's how you are, you know, And then now when I see it, I feel so much more relaxed, you know. Or the little kids you know that are watching something you know, that can say, hey, that's like me.

Because there's so many knees out there now, you know. There you've got like, you know, non gender conforming, non binary, and you've got transgender, and you've just got queer, you've got bisexual, and there's a little bit of that and just about everything nowadays. Not enough of it, don't get me wrong, but there's a little bit. And I think that even I think Jay when we had Katrina on who was a youth services worker from Liverpool here that does a lot with LGBTQ kids and what are those things I think we were talking about, was it how important it is to see things like that on TV or in your real life, like are you are your parents hiding it from you? Are they?

You know, are they shielding you from a gay cousin? Are they? Say? It's very things and you know, like to be able to see it represented on TV means so much to a little mind, to a young mind. Doesn't mean you're gonna be that way, right, you know, it doesn't mean that that influence all of a sudden they're going to become queer.

It just you know it just if you already are having those feelings and you see it, you won't think they're wrong, right, right, And you know what that makes me think of the show Family with Buddy and Christy Nickel and and she was so clearly the tom boy, and I think that that was someone thinking back that I could relate to because she'd had a boyfriend. She dated Willie Eames was her boyfriend, right, And so you know, for someone like me growing up and and also growing up in the seventies, that you figure that's just what you do, for what you did. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I'm just saying like they took a character who was kind of a tomboy but made her still have a boyfriend and be, you know, living like like a straight kid, where nowadays I think it hopefully would be different or they would show you that she's more of uh.

You know, I think I used to confuse myself like do I want to be like them? Or? Am I like them? Why do I want to us? Like?

Dam do I want to be like them? Like? That's where my confusion came because I Christy McNicol haircut until I was like yeah, in my graduation at sure I still looked like that, but I mean those were the yeah, those were the things that you connected with you know, like the look of somebody that wasn't wearing a dress, or that wasn't wearing like a print shirt, or you know that had bows in their hair or wearing high heels or something like. Those were the things I was connecting within characters. But I hadn't put that all together, right because they put in the box of like normal, you know, like she was putting in that box and she had a boyfriend and not a girlfriend or whatever.

That. No, it's it's true, It's like, yes, I mean even just having a tomboy character felt groundbreaking in the seventies and eighties. And I'm thinking of Joe from Facts of Life right as well, in that in that category, you couldn't go any further than that, I think, even for you know, for me as a tomboy, yeah that you know, not gay, but could have been. Certainly there was a tomboy element. So there's there's both the tomboy and then there's also the gay tomboy exact.

And we know you never got the gay tomboy in seventies or eighties television. You just got to tomboy and m But those characters clearly resonated with girls as well as I think some guys, right, we're like, Joe's my favorite, right right, and Darlene on on on Roseanne. Looking back, it's like, how can anybody believe that she was with David? Like you No, Like, how did anyone buy that? Right?

I don't know. Yeah, but you know, I, as someone who was not a regular Roseanne watcher, I don't know. I think that you can look at it both ways. I had no problem believing that Darlene and David were a couple, but she was straight. But you could certainly read it a totally different way up her more with just like a like a moody, miserable teenager.

Pretty much everybody what did that engsty period? Yeah? But um, and this is so funny, like I was trying to think of how I, oh, I would spend um a day off from school, like a snow day or a sick day or whatever, and all that was on television during the day, where daytime talk shows like Sally Jesse, Rappael and filled because I was thinking soap operas. But forgetting that you are younger than I am. So yeah, definitely because when that was happening, staying home from school or whatever, it was soap operas that run.

This was in the or game shows. It was. It predated all of the daytime talk shows for me, so totally so anyway, sorry, but I would always get like sucked into like a daytime talk show that would have something on about like a wife that was leaving her husband because the husband she found out the husband was gay or something. I'd be like, you know, like really, you know, like there's a word again, because I think you know, I grew up in Niagara Falls in New York, you know, on the American side, but right right there, you know, it could much walked to Canada, you know, no big deal, but um it was. It was a town where you know, like even now when I go back, like I can look at women that are wearing jeans and that play in a softball league and you know, got their hair and a pony, wearing flannel shirts, you know, and I'm like, they could be gay.

They looked like they could be, and yet they're not. So it was so weird you know for me, you know, is that there was no gay bars. There were no there wasn't a lot of talk of it. I had one cousin my mother's he was like my godfather actually, and he lived in Las Vegas. He was a hairdresser and he he was Lolapalana's hairdresser, not just any addresser.

Well um, but yeah, he moved and he moved back home, and he and a friend of his opened up a hair salum. And the thing I loved about him was that, like he was not flamboyant at all. I mean a little bit. You know, he had the lisp or whatever, Like I mean, you knew, but nobody made a big deal out of it in my family, you know, and you know, like right like, nobody made a big deal out of it. He was just he was just pat, you know, like go get your hair cut, you know, like that's coming to the house, Go wash your hair, He's gonna cut your hair.

That kind of thing was nothing major. And then as I got a little bit older, I had another cousin who came out and she's a lesbian, really successful chiropractor, like massive business, like, very well known and well respected in the community. So I guess like I didn't see a lot of it growing up yet what I did see was completely normal, but I was still too young to like ask questions about it or whatever. So everything I was getting was from TV, right, you know, I didn't want to just like you know, bombard my cousins with all kinds of questions and then have them go, well do you think you are? And then have to answer that, So, you know, it was more or like I just want to see someone like me on television like that.

That's you know, it's what I want to see. And there was so little of it. It was really really difficult. You know. The older I got, I guess, the busier you get, you know, and then you're not thinking about those things.

Like nothing in Friends ever offended me, you know about that? Even even now I look back and I go, man, it's like I don't know, I just I did. I wasn't offended by it. But then again, I'm not transgendered or I'm not you know, well so, but in let's talk about friends. I remember the lesbian couple getting married right from Channing uh Ross's ex Ross's Yeah, that was pretty huge.

Like I don't remember there being a lesbian wedding on screen. There might have been, I don't, I can't or was that the first lesbian wedding in a like primetime TV show? It might have been I feel like it might be almost has to be. And it was treated so well, I mean, the whole idea of it, like Ross was disappointed and Ross was annoyed, and it was played for comedy. But at the same time, their relationship and her lesbianism was not made fun of, right, you know, it was sold accepted by all of them like it's funny, like everyways goes.

I hated Ross, like my wife hated Ross, and I'm like, I know why, I know why. You all know a guy like off winning, I get it, But in that instant, like didn't he step up and end up walking yes, yes, down the aisle or one of them down the ail and the parent didn't show up, So yeah, like I thought, you know, he had a few redeeming qualities where he could have really, you know, bet a jerk. He wasn't. Like I was a lot older watching friends and thinking yay them for doing it, Like that was the feeling and anytime I would see something after that, and that was why, like in the nineties and then going into two thousand and those characters started becoming more prevalent, you know, like a Jack McFarland and you know that kind of stuff I would just will and grace in general.

You know, I was just like, oh my god, thank god, you know, we're finally getting there, because it felt like it was really bad towards the end of the eighties, in the very beginning of the nineties, you know, like where it took like a lot of guts, I think, and I hate to say it, but I think there was a lot of network executives, you know, that we're protecting their advertising dollars, right, you know, and they were not going to step on anything any landmines whatsoever. And that was you know, the feeling for the longest time, you know, and even now I watched things, so yeah, I think we've bought such a long way to go. But I see it more and I do credit streamers. You know, original content on streamers seemed to have less restrictions, you know, And I always think to myself, good because I'm paying a membership fee for these things, you know, whereas I could disconnect from regular cable, I care about what they're doing on ABC and NBC and all that stuff, you know anymore, because I'll find what I'm looking for on streamers.

Now, you know, I'm happy to give my money for that. Okay, this is probably a good time to take a break, but we'll be back with more. Hey, movie lovers, it's Jackson here from the Back to the Blockbuster podcast. If you've ever wanted to hear an amateur cinephile and an industry professional chat about film and television, then look no further because every week my co host gay Us and I we bring you the latest industry news, break down the most recent trailers, try to be the box office with our weekly predictions and dive into our favorite movies on their anniversaries. And every second Friday you can look forward to the Back to the Blockbuster spinoff Deep Dives with Owen and gay Us with the duodissex and movie of their own choice.

All this and more. Wherever you get your podcasts, welcome back. If you don't want to listen to those ads anymore, go on over to patreon dot com slash eighties TV Ladies and you can get a mad free Anyway. Where were we? So?

I just wanted to bring this article that when I was doing a little bit of research. That's from February twenty twenty two NBC News. For the first time that season, Lesbian's outnumber game Men among broadcast television LGBTQ characters, according to a report released from GLAD, which I thought was interesting given how little lesbian representation there was in the seventies and eighties, right, and then all of a sudden and then moving, we're more likable. And according to Wikipedia, Carol and Susan's ceremony was the first lesbian wedding on network television are on television the US, so which makes sense. I couldn't I couldn't think of anybody else.

One of the things we're doing is we're looking back from a modern lens on these elements in the eighties and in this episode, nineties and beyond, because is you know, of what we got right and what we got wrong, And so you can argue that Friends kind of got the lesbian character right exactly. And I think being able to say, yeah, we got it wrong is a really big step, right, And I felt like it was genuine, Like I didn't feel like lip service in a programmed kind of press release. I was actually really impressed with what she had to say and what she learned from it. And you know, because those are the people that are still making things today, you know, and here are the ones that I mean, that's a huge lesson.

When society is pushing back at you to be canceled because of your mistakes in the eighties. You know, what if to come forward and say, yeah, we we did get that horrifically, Yeah we apoplogize, you know, we didn't know what we were doing. Then here's some money. Here's the money, and these are my newest shows. I'm trying to get things right, you know, and I think that's how it's gonna be done.

We have a friend Jay Jill Bennett, right, she has made two quality sitcoms that you will never see. They just can't get the funding and they can't get eyes on them, they can't get them to the right people, and they are it's just quality work. And it's so heartbreaking that they're doing like contests and fundraising and all this stuff, and it's all for what, you know what I mean, Like there's always going to be some executive that's not quite comfortable making that decision or relighting that project for whatever reasons. And that's what they're up against all the time. And it you know, when you see that kind of talent getting wasted working in a day job that they're so unhappy doing to pay the bills when they've got this project sitting on a shelf.

It's just gut wrenching, you know. And there is this Jill, what are the films? And then came Lola. The show was called Second Shot Okay great. It was about an ex famous soccer star that has to come home and work again because soccer never really took off, and all the characters and it were great and it had like their cheers vibe feel to it, you know, but all made and written by lesbians, and the funding was raised by them and everything, and it was like a really quick, like blink if you miss it kind of thing, like on video or something like that.

We had Haviland Stillwell on the show, who was working with Jill on this called Bad Habits, about two women have to pretend to be nuns for obvious reasons and they're both like, you know, criminals. But the concept and everything was great and there's absolutely no reason that these things aren't on TV, you know. And that's what like a podcast like ours is trying to do, is to get people interested in get them talking, and get them pushing and pushing for it, you know, that's the only way that these things are going to get done. I think when you say about that, a lot of the characters that were gay characters on the earlier sitcoms in the eighties and the seventies, they were mostly met. That is really true.

And I think that even like when Queer as Folk came out, you know, there was one lesbian couple and all of these guys, and they didn't even see them with once in a couple of episodes. You would see them with friends, but you know, they're women, they're gay friends, but mostly and it was so it was really hard within as a person who was, you know, closeted but wanted to see that on TV. I didn't really see the women except for when l Ward came out, obviously, but you know, like Queer as Folk, it was just always men, and it was just really I don't know why that was. I always wondered, why don't the women get the representation even with that that the men got. I guess it's kind of consistent across television exactly.

And yet there's an audience. There's an audience. If podcasting has taught us anything, there's an audience for everything, And I think that's the same that is being found and streaming, and that in some ways it is the perfect place to speak to a particular audience. Yeah. Absolutely always amazes me, doesn't it amaze you?

Ja, Like when you had how many straight people come over to tell you that they watched The L Word or they watch something, you know, like like, well, what did Judy and her husband come over and watch with you? Oh, we watched Tammy and George. Oh, never mind that it is straight. But I used to I remember, like when I had a day job and I would come into work and there were so many straight people that we'd sit around at lunchtime and talk about, you know, the L Word, and they would all have like straight crushes on Shane and Jennifer Beale's and and it was so they were so open about talking about it, you know, like it was no big deal. And I always thought to myself, sheer, I thought it was only lesbians watching it, But it's not, you know, it's lesbians and straight men.

No. Um, But yeah, I do think that, you know, there is an audience for that kind of thing. I was really sad when the new queers folk didn't get a second chance. They only end in season. But I do think they were trying to take too many boxes off, you know, like you hate when someone I said, scrap a dream or put their passion aside and try something else, you know.

And I have a lot of friends that are doing that now. And it's like, if they could just go down the street that they're supposed to be on, you know, we would all get access to that kind of like good quality programming and witty writing and sharp you know, good laughs, like you know, like nothing offensive to us, you know. But again, I always feel like it comes down to some you know, rich conservative white male saying no, you know, and it's really it's hard not to recognize that the gatekeepers, say, I don't know ahead of NBC, yeah right, who got kicked out because of inappropriate relationships with female employee of the company. So like you're like when the gatekeeper is that right? They're not interested in true female representation.

They're not interested in something that isn't hot to them, right, right, And that is not about money, That is not about advertisers. That is about being at the whim of man's opinion. Yeah, power, which anymore, speaking of that, let's talk about Ellen. Yeah, oh god, and the puppy episode. I can remember vividly sitting there watching that my green leather couch, and you know it was coming.

We knew it was coming, right, it had been that it was coming. Yeah, and I'll tell you you know, like I remember watching when Rosie o'donald had a talk show. Yeah, yeah, she had Ellen on and they were discussing how they were both lebanties. It was a great way of getting around it, you know. It was like fantastic was I think maybe I Lebanese too.

So for our listeners that don't remember or weren't around, Ellen was a TV show story Ellen DeGeneres. It actually started as a different title and Friends of Mind, and it was more ensemble, and then Ellen was the breakout star of that. So the second season it came back basically as Ellen and Ellen ran a bookstore and had a bunch of crazy friends. Are very When it started out, it wasn't supposed to be about what it ended up being, right Ellen, I mean it's a character comedy. Yeah, yeah, that became very successful.

I think ABC was trying to create their version of Friends. Perhaps, Yes, the very the opening of the first season is very much, oh We're trying to do friends. It was a little blatant. Yeah, I think they're holding umbrellas in the opening a group of friends. They can get away with that, but they can't say like piss oh good.

And then Ellen DeGeneres was a known comic when that went on, and a lesbian, A known lesbian in the entertainment story. I don't know if it was known out Okay, So I went to high school with the Indigo Girls Amen, so you know. Anyway, I was at a concert after a show of theirs out here and a friend of mine, who was gay, was like, oh, we have to go to the after party. And again I'm not quite cool enough to be fully gay, so I but I got to. I got to get a pass every once in a while to go to the after party, and so I got to go.

And it was at Ellen DeGeneres's apartment. Oh my cow. And so but before Ellen was on the air, it was just I think they had shot it but it hadn't aired. But my friend was like, that's Ellen de Generes, she's in the kitchen. We gotta go say hello.

So we went to say hello to Ellen de Generes before and I that was the first time I had met her. So I guess in that moment, I'm like, everyone else in this room is lesbian. I am officially at a lesbian party. I am officially at a lesbian party because Indigo girls, Hey, my friend and Ellen degeneress the lesbian party and you know, all women. So I guess in my mind I was just like, oh, she's a known lesbian comic who wasn't out the way you might be out now, right, but certainly wasn't hiding it right.

And yet it took many years, and so there was a moment season five where were we I think, so yeah, where they go to the network and they're like, we're going to we need to make a shift for the character. Ratings are dropping, we need to do something, and Ellen herself, they star of the show, wants to stop coding everything. Yeah, I mean I think it was everybody on the show agreed, it's time. Yeah, let's just make this happen. And apparently at the network they were like, well, you know, if you want her to have a life change, maybe she can get a puppy.

That's how this episode became known that I didn't know that a network executive suggested that instead of coming out as game maybe the Ellen character kicking a puppy below. Wow. But leading up to it, I do remember there was a lot of a lot of hype. I mean, right, Melissa Ethridge had signed on, Laura Dern was was the object of interest, right, Oprah Oprah in the episode, that's right, playing Ellen's therapist. Yes, so yeah, I mean the build up was just incredible.

I feel like every lesbian was just like this, you know, like game time, and you know, and in my opinion, I thought the episode was so well done, you know, I mean it was. It was comedy, you know, saying it into the speaker at the at the airport, you know, it was. It was absolutely perfect. And to know how it imploded everything from the show to her life to even Oprah talking about it, you know recently, about how much hate that she got for being on the episode, and Laura Dern saying the same thing, like, I don't know that any of us knew how deep it went. It wasn't just that the show got canceled.

It was the horrific hatefulness that came you know afterwards, that that almost like sank her entire career. She was like she sacrificed it for the show, like sacrificed herself for the show, thinking it was going to be this, you know, great idea, and I don't think our country was ready for it, or certainly that network wasn't ready for it, even though they invested so much, you know, into it obviously to get these blow didn't Melissa ethers like sign up or a toaster, So I said a toaster or something to her, But like they just had all these great little nuances that they put into it. You seem like so much work went into it, only for it to just backfire so spectacle, I mean, really lost everything for a while, Like people didn't know if she was going to be coming back.

I remember when that book came out, which she was doing a tour with she wrote her book. She had an interview with Barbara Walters after she lost the show and everything about how she lost everything. And I wrote a song called come Out and Dance just watching that episode. The whole thing was kind of the whole song was coming to me, and I tried so hard to get that song to her, and I just never could get it to her. And I even gave a copy to her mom when I bought the book and her mom, I'm why could you please give this Ellen number number ten as far?

And I never did get it to her, but it just always is really it really that hurt to see that happen to someone who had built so much and was so loved by fans, and to have everything turned against her. Yeah, it felt personal, like not not even a joke. It felt personal, like all of a sudden, it felt really really personal, like how awful it was. And I think it's something that's it's a reminder, you know, it's a reminder that you know, just when you think you're onto something really good and everything is copasatic and you're being accepted, and you know, there's a lot of gay stuff on TV now and there's a lot of lesbians out on the forefront and blah blah blah, it's like PTSD, like there's still this thought that it could all be taken away.

Then you have this stuff that's actually happening in the country, so it's not fat. You know. Many years later, did it happened that she got her talk show and then did so amazingly well with was there a lot of time between that, I don't remember now she had a one season or even half a season of The Ellen Show a year or two after and then I think it was a couple of years. It was interesting because it's also what you're saying, a little bit of hate and vitriol is very powerful. Yeah, when it's coming at you.

Yeah, right, because it's not a little bit right, like when I say a little bit. But the number of people who were like great or fine, whatever much higher than the number of people who are hateful about what happened. But you're going to hear from them. They were louder. They're going to hear from them, and they're going to be so hateful that they're going to write racist, hateful letters to Oprah.

Yeah for being in a scene of that show. I mean, think of how much you have to care, I know about something that if you don't like, you could just not have watched. Yeah. By the way, we haven't picked up a pen or a pencil unless I'm writing my wife a note like don't forget lettuce, you know, or something like. I mean, like I can't imagine and even on Twitter, I mean, like you only get one hundred and forty characters.

How much crap can you spill? You know. But yeah, there are people out there that it's not about one hundred and forty characters. It's how many times a day using those hundred and forty characters and spinning it out, you know, like it's it's awful, such a it's such a cesspool Twitter. But um, that's just it is that the louder ones are the ones that get the file.

And again we're seeing it right now, like there's a absolutely huge backlash. Two all these advances have been made for lg B two Q equality. Yeah, and it is horrific and terrifying. It is designed to hurt people, Yeah, it is designed to wreck havoc on people's lives. Yeah.

And it is personal, literally it really. You know. The thing is, like I was just thinking about this today, like sometimes I feel like all that hate that's out there, right, and laws and legislation it's trying to get pushed through and all that kind of stuff, that's that's over here, you know. And then you have the abortion stuff and that's over here on the side, and that's huge and overwhelming. And I'm watching Grey's Anatomy and I see that their storyline is about abortions and the hate that's going at abortion clinics, and all of a sudden, you're like, I don't even think there's enough television to spotlight all the things.

There's so many things like wow, you know, like it's just it's just it's it's mind blowing. But I think the thing of it is is to me, when I see something on TV, it gets my attention. You know, when I see something on social media, I'll just scroll past it right right, No, unless unless it's something that's like positive, like donate to this cause of whatever or make a donation. Whereas if I see something on TV, it totally garners my attention, you know, like one percent of it. I don't know if that's like shallow or wrong or well, no, that's the visceral, like like that is the power and impact of television, and particularly for those of us who grew up with it as our internet, right with our source of information, right yeah, And that's just it.

I mean, those were the things that helped me figure out what was going on in me, you know, because I didn't have any other references, you know, I didn't have any resources. So that was the things that helps me until I could until I was old enough, you know, to see a therapist and say, this has been going on. It's been going on since this and you know, these are the things that I figured out. And does this make me a lesbian intuit? Yes, Now we just have to tell your husband, so you know, yeah, it was.

It was a long might a brave thing for you to do, you know, thinking as a person who was also married to a man for many years, more years than you are, that was a brave thing for you to recognize that in yourself and actually go do something about it. It's just weird when you're sitting there, you know, purging your guts to somebody. I can vividly recall it was just like so many times saying and then I saw Christy McNichol, and then I saw Joe I'm back, and then there you know, and then I and then there was like this Cagney obsession, and then there was like it was just like so many things that you know, like all of a sudden, everything was going back to TV. And I think that was another. If it wasn't for that, I don't know what I have ever figured it out.

I don't know, you know, like it's just maybe because of the Internet. But you know, eventually the Internet comes up into our lives. And that's the interesting thing because again you and your wife met with you doing a podcast, yeah, and her reaching out to you. I mean yeah, think about like again, an element of media that did not exist when we were growing up. Radio did.

But you wouldn't have had a radio show about lesbians at the time of exactly. It seems strange. And do you remember when we had you on our show and we were talking about designing women and we were I was saying, how all along I thought Anthony was gay and then he wasn't You pointed out the wedding and all that. There was an episode where a gay guy who was dying of AIDS wanted them to do his funeral. Yeah, yeah, and that was that was a very There was an Emmy winning episode of renowned episode killing the Right Right Feeling all the right people.

And it's a line that the creator writer heard in the hospital while her mother was dying of AIDS from a blood transfusion. Yea, And within less than a year she wrote that episode after her mother had passed. And yeah, and that was again like an Emmy winning episode. It was like and that was I think, I want to say, like eighty six or eighty seven, maybe around then, Yeah, and I think that it was starting to be a little bit more recognized how powerful you know, that words were, you know, whether they were about and when gay, whether they were about someone with AIDS or whatever. And I just I just remember, you know, reading that about that writer, hearing that at a hospital and naming the episode you know, back, and it was just like, man, you know, like what an impact?

Again? What an impact? Yeah? October seventh, nineteen eighty seven, Season two, episode four, Early, you know, early Linda Bloodworth Thompson, And yeah, what an incredible and again very sophisticated in some ways, you know, because it's like, how am I going to work this into an episode? Oh, A guy's going to show up and say, design my funeral because I am dying.

Yeah, And I want it to be a celebration and I want it to be reflective of who I am. And and there's a b story happening for Annie Pott's character about having condoms available and sex education available for their high school kids. Yea, and it sort of combines and it says, I don't want my kids to be facing a death sentence for experimenting with sex, So can we just give them some condoms and tell them about sex? And so controversial though both those I'm putting both of those in, you know, just very very controversial, but also imparting information that people across the country didn't have and didn't have arguments against, like well, no, we shouldn't, like you know, it's like you're gonna tell kids about sex, you want them to have sex.

It's like, no, here's an argument that just says, here's the reality. Kids are gonna have sex, and we can make sure that they have the information they need. People kind of thought they should be but yeah, they forget it, you know, like they get now they think that everything that an eld GBTQ person, everything about them is about grooming a child to be gay or grooming that sex or you know, something perverted about it, and that's what they're they're pushing now and it just has nothing to do with education, resources, information, truth, fact, you know, and never it's just this weird thing that they have that they associated with that kind of pervertedness, you know, and it's so offensive you know, as a you know, again, as we find out from the people that the loudest.

It's often projection. It's so is, and it is I am inappropriate with my coworkers, my whatever, like the loudest people right now that are going after the groomers. You have an awful lot of people who are inappropriate with children and teenagers in their ks, and so it's a very weird way to, I think, throw up a lot of noise. But it's also it's also designed to be right now, this is about I truly believe it's designed to be hurtful. There's not a lot of true believers.

There's a lot of people performing and trying to hurt people in order to distract them for whatever their other goal is. Yeah, say there are and then and they're bringing the true believers with them and giving them rage and vitriol and guns. And Yeah, it's really deeply upsetting right now how much things are worse in many ways than they were in the eighties, even as there's more visibility. But I think it's in some ways the fear of that visibility and the fear that people will be allowed to sort of declare who they are and be who they are and have those freedoms of choice in both who they are and what they do with their body. Yeah, that is most fearful to the controlling factors of But then you might not think the way I think or do what I want you to do, and I want to control that.

Yeah, it's just yeah. And speaking of the eighties, it's like, think about who we were most entertained by, you know, um television aside, right boy, George Prince, Grace Jones, you know what I mean, like the weirdest people ever that were just entertaining us, and nobody went, oh my god, you know, like who wants to look like that? No, we were dressing up like them for Alloween. I mean I remember growing my mom loved Liberaci. Oh yes, I was like like I'm as a kid, you know, seeing Abracchi.

But I'm like, did people think did they know he was gay? Did women not know that? Or did they know it and they just didn't say it? Or I'm like, mom, did you know did anybody realize that he was gay? Like nobody really thought about it?

Yeah, I don't know, it's I don't know. And Paul Lynde that was another fallow Yeah, right, he was so like the Center Square every night, how he was you were so entertained by these people. Your is it now? Now you have a problem? Well, and again I think I think for a lot of people, it was well, don't don't talk about it.

Right, you were fine unless you started declaring and why and owning it right? Didn't There's this part of me that wants to feel like people know the difference between right and wrong. That feeling that you got in your stomach, wing or saying something wrong. You know it, you know it. You know.

Why doesn't that feeling and that why doesn't that matter anymore? You know, like all of a sudden it doesn't matter. I gotta believe that there are more people that know right from wrong and feel it in their gut and do the right thing. But I'm telling you, I'm struggling. Yes.

And a word I learned in the last month was stochastic terrorism. Nice. Stochastic means basically just scattershot. It's like a biology term. I believe.

It's basically the use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random, so perpetuating that fear and that sort of rage, and they like, how dare you force me to feel uncomfortable? That a feeling of uncomfortableness, right because I don't understand who you are or who you want to be, and that makes me uncomfortable. And that feeling gets turned into disgust and rage and anger and insights violence right now through the Fox newses and the you know, dark media and things. And then it's like, oh, and then let's give everybody guns and you don't need a license for it.

It'll be fine, Like what a solution. We know that there are people purposely feeding this rage, right, because it then creates people who respond, because people like because somebody just loses their crape and then they have been pointed to a target, and that target is those people who are different from you, and those people who are different from you, and those women who want to have control over their bodies and those like And it's really hard. Many people who are reasonable just hide, like I don't want to be around that. I don't want to I don't want to I don't want to argue with the people. I don't want to have somebody turn their anger on me, right, right, And so it's really hard to stand up and go hold on, ye right.

I think it's hard for people to stay engaged in the process of defending our rights and our civil rights and our human rights. Exhausting. And because it's exhausting, you feel like there's no way and they're counting on that. So we have to keep getting the love and the support and staying prideful. Yes so so, but do so JD Is I know you're in Florida, Yes, yes, a favorite state of the terrorists.

What can we do? How can we help what's happening with Pride? I know you just had a Pride event that you played me and yeah, let's talk about that. I had every intention of going to Pride, right, And then a couple of days before I had a friend tell me, did you hear that the Santis is whipping up protesters to come to Pride? You know, like nobody knows what's gonna go down or you know, if, if, how it's going to be.

And so all of a sudden, I was like what So I text Jay and I'm like, I'm feeling a little nervous about going to Pride because I don't want to get you know, I don't want to get blown off for going to a Pride festival, and so I said, I'm gonna do a little research or whatever, and I like scoured the internet and I could find nothing, nothing, And I had really heard of that that. She was like, I don't know, I didn't hear anything about that. She was like, but if you don't feel comfortable by all means like I won't be upset, don't you know? Done, don't go. And I thought, you know, I sat back and I thought like, this is so stupid.

So I go back to the person that told me, and I'm like, where did you hear this? Because I'm not talking anything about it, and it's really messing me up because I don't not want to go, like I want to go, and I don't want to be fearful and I don't want to be nervous and anxious. And so I think she was like, I think somebody in the office like mentioned it. And I'm like, so you're just repeating something without like he just sat around or checking on it or anything, you know. So I just said, you know what, I've had it.

I'm going. Yeah. There was absolutely not one protester there. It was a lovely day. At no point did I ever feel unsafe, So I was like, I was really relieved and happy that we went, and Jay like knocked it out of the park.

You have to follow so many drag queens and the crowd is so high between. Like the Taylor Dane queen was insane. She was so good, but always had to share dressing rooms with the drag queens. When I do Pride events, it's so funny, like I can't whether she's gonna come out with like bigay. Their hair is all bigger than yours.

I'm looking from the makeup tips from them, like what do you use that? What does that think about? How do you and how are you not sweating out here? Like to answer the question, like, I think we just have to keep on doing our thing, like showing up at Pride, not canceling things, and and just keeping on being who we are. Like sometimes it's daunting to think what can you do except show up like we did?

Okay, that's the It's the smallest thing and yet it's biggest. Yeah, it's not nothing. You know, support other like support the drag queens and support your trans friends and you know, and you know, like you you have to know that they're going through something that's just like horrific, you know, like knowing that their healthcare and their and their rights are being you know, could be stripped away at any moment, and are in other states or whatever. I mean, what you can do is just be there for them, be supportive for them. You know, find groups and organizations that are you know, the need volunteers and need help, and that's you know, that's the way to go.

When Denise told me about the this thing about maybe there was some problem with security or some protesters, I'm like, but I had bracelets made. I have a fifty Rainbow Remix bralet. Yes, not going. Yeah, she honored that commitment. She honored it.

Ard Man, awesome. All right, So where can people find you? We've got a YouTube channel. They can just search the Rainbow Remix podcast. You can actually watch our shows and them.

We're also on podbeing and you can go to my lesbian radio feed there and all our shows are there. We have a website, it's the Rainbow Remix dot com and Rainbow Remixes on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all the all the socials. Fantastic we really having us on today. This is so much fun. First of all, just eighties television alone is the greatest topic ever.

But I think it's it's amazing that you're, you know, really spotlighting the lack of representation back then and how things were we're being done back then. Like it's just something I don't think we think enough about, you know, and uh when we see where we're at now and we look back then, like, I know, I learned a few things. Ye. Yeah, So thank you for what you're doing. Thank you, Thank you for coming on the show.

It's been delightful. Okay, you guys take care. Thank you by for our audioography. Today. You can find Rainbow Remix at the Rainbow Remix dot com, check out their YouTube channel and their podcast on all your favorite players.

You can also donate in support of LGBTQ Youth at the Trevor prece Object dot com. We hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century city and so pretty to the city. Ladies