Out of the Closet

The diabetic patient entered the office of TV's Dr. Marcus Welby last week with a raft of problems: dizzy spells, headaches, a surge of excessive drinking, irritability and the impending breakup of his marriage. The diagnosis: not another run-of-the-medical-show rare disease, but an inability to cope with a confused sexual identity. Welby thus became at least the fourth show this season to deal with the once-closeted subject of homosexuality.

Last fall, in ABC's award-winning TV movie That Certain Summer, a divorced father was forced to explain his homosexuality to his shocked son. In the same week, NBC's The Bold Ones dealt explicitly with a young girl who was torn between her old boy friend and her new-found lesbian lover. ABC's Lawyer Owen Marshall put a girl on the witness stand in order to clear her of a charge of lesbianism. "It may just be for rating purposes," says Welby Producer David O'Connell, "but many producers feel homosexuality is a facet of life--and we should depict it."

The subject has been explored by talk shows and documentaries for years, and even a few regular series have gingerly touched on it. CBS's Medical Center once featured a scientist discriminated against because of his sexual tendencies, and ABC's Room 222 portrayed a high school boy accused of being gay. But the real breakthrough probably was made, as in so many other areas, by All in the Family. Last season Archie Bunker discovered that one of his buddies at Kelsey's Bar, a tough ex-football star, was "one of those."

TV's treatment of homosexuality is still skittish. Homosexual characters hardly even touch one another. It is as if the networks were earnestly trying to be adult--but not too adult. Some homosexuals, like Novelist Merle Miller (What Happened), applaud a show like That Certain Summer--a good drama by any standards--for its realistic and compassionate approach. Gay activists, however, complain that even Summer did not go far enough.

Last week the activists picketed ABC's New York offices, charging that the Welby episode treated homosexuality as a disease. The network did delete several lines of dialogue in deference to this charge. The general viewing public, for its part, seems unconcerned by the new frankness, proof perhaps that the networks' worry about airing the subject may be only another example of TV's unnecessary condescension toward its audience.

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