Season 5 Ep 1: Sitcoms and LGBTQ History

Hear from author and podcaster Matt Baume who discusses his book, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! Sitcoms, Specials, and The Queering of American Culture. As Matt unpacks the history, you will hear a few clips from the groundbreaking sitcoms in his book - and the messages are as profound and relevant today as they were decades ago!

History UnErased is putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place — the classroom — and uniting all "We the People" with a more complete story of America. UnErased.org

Transcript

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Deb Fowler: Hello, and welcome to UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities, a podcast. I'm Deb Fowler, co-founder of History UnErased. Groundbreaking sitcoms have made us laugh while also prompting us to explore some profound questions about life. And this episode will do the same. Take it away, Kathleen!

Kathleen Barker: Do you remember the first time you saw an example of queer representation on television? For many viewers in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it was American sitcoms that introduced queer characters and plot lines through comedy. More than just eliciting laughs, many sitcom creators, writers, producers, and actors use their platform to bring attention to the growing LGBTQ Rights Movement. Some shows explored queer themes through the metaphor of difference, while other shows actually included queer characters and their stories in the show. For most viewers, just seeing a queer person depicted in a positive way in a mainstream television show was a new experience. Of course, for some homophobic viewers, such characters or storylines or a cause for concern and outrage, the history race staff had the opportunity to sit down with author and podcaster Matt Baum to speak about his book. Hi Honey, I'm Homo Sitcoms Specials and the Queering of American Culture, and to learn more about the history, significance, and evolution of queer representation on television, stay tuned for examples from groundbreaking sitcoms and connections to important moments in LGBTQ history.

Welcome Matt. Please tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your book.

Matt Baume: Yeah, well thanks so much for having me on the show. So I'm a writer. I cover LGBTQ history and pop culture. I write in particular about the making of iconic beloved movies and television shows and the fascinating people who made them from a queer perspective. So it really ranges from like Rock Hudson and some like it hot all the way up to the 1970s with shows like soap and then to the eighties with Golden Girls and up to the almost present with Modern Family. So really spanning the gamut of the back half of the 20th century. And in particular focusing on the struggles to get LGBTQ content on the air or on screens and the people who fought to make that possible.

KB: And you provide so many amazing and fun examples of the different shows and different plot lines and stories, but you start the book by recognizing a show that was really important to you as a young person and that was soap. Will you tell our listeners a little bit more about that show and what it meant to you?

MB: Yeah, in my book, Hi Honey, I'm Homo, I talk about the show Soap. It was on in the latter half of the 1970s. It was an amazing program. It was created co-created by Susan Harris who went on to do the Golden Girls. And it's sort of a sitcom parity of soap operas where there's these convoluted plot lines and stories about amnesia and alien abduction and possessions. It's like one of those shows where just every plot twist that could possibly be thrown at these characters is thrown at them. And as part of that, they had a character on from the very beginning, played by Billy Crystal, a character named Jodi who was, and you can interpret this character in a lot of different ways. One of the ways that the character can be interpreted, one of the ways that the characters presented is as a gay man who is struggling to understand himself and his identity and his role.

Jodie: Danny, it's no joke, I'm gay.

Danny: You can never quit, do you? Hey,

Jodie: Hey, face facts, will you Danny? I'm a homosexual. It's the truth. I'm gay.

Danny: Hand me those pants,

Jodie: Danny. Don't make this difficult for me. I mean, what you're doing is saying that you can't accept me if I'm Gay.

Danny: You're not gay. 

Jodie: I am. 

Danny: That's ridiculous. How can you be gay? I mean, we're brothers and I'm not gay, so you're not gay anyway. You're too good in sports,

Jodie: Danny. That has nothing to do with it.

Danny: You’re not gay.

Jodie: Danny, have you ever seen me out with a girl? Have you?

Danny: You're not gay, you're shy. Dad said you're shy. Now hand me those shirts. You are not gay. You are not gay. I don't want you to be gay and you're not. So shut up and hand me those shirts.

Matt Baum: There are some stumbles, I would say early on in the show because it's a little inconsistent. Whether Jodi is a trans woman, I think that's an equally valid reading of the character. The character might be bisexual because they have relationships with both men and women. The word bisexual is never used. Terminology like transgender really wasn't uncommon usage at that time. So there's some ambiguity and I think some maybe misunderstanding on the part of the show about the difference between gender identity and sexuality. But the long and short of it is, is that it was a really groundbreaking character and Billy Crystal really fought to give the character a lot of depth on the show to improve the character's depiction as time went on. And for me personally, this was a show that I caught in reruns on Comedy Central. Seeing this funny, attractive character who was really running circles around all the others who was really smart and got a lot of the good punchlines was really aspirational.

So it really meant a lot for me to see this character on television. And the show was very controversial when it was on the 1970s. And I remember my parents being a little concerned that I was watching the show, even in the a little concerned that this controversial show that had so many, I don't know, sensitive plot lines, that this was something that was just on in the afternoon because when it was originally aired, it was one of those late at night 11:00 PM kind of programs. And it wasn't just because of the queer content. There was a lot of really, I would say confrontational subjects like priests having sex, that sort of thing. But to have that available to be able to see a gay man in my estimation, a gay man who was so, I dunno so positively portrayed, really meant a lot to me.

Jodie: Why? I don't know why. I just am.

Danny; Well maybe you're not. How can you be sure?

Jodie: I'm in love with Dennis Phillips, the quarterback.

Danny: Is that it? Is that the proof? For God's sake, Jodie, I'm crazy about Joe Namath. I idolize Mean Joe Green. I'd give anything to...

Jodie: Lovers, Danny.

Danny: Dennis Phillips is gay!?

KB: You write in your introduction to your book that sitcoms use comedy to explore a lot of provocative ideas. So you mentioned some of them in soap, but do you have another example, a favorite example or a favorite character, favorite show?

MB: Yeah, so Norman Lear actually talks a lot about the value of comedy. Norman was a show runner and writer and director. He did a million things and he created a ton of great shows all in the family, the Jeffersons, all the way up to, he died at a hundred or 101 just very recently. And it was still working up until just the last moment. Anyway, so he has this great quote and I'm going to m it just a little bit about how comedy can be sort of an intravenous, it's a way of getting a message in front of an audience or into a conversation without people having to maybe necessarily eat their vegetables. But if people are laughing, then they're more receptive to something controversial. So early in the run of the show, all in the Family, this is the early 1970s, they had a character named Beverly LaSalle.

Beverly: It was foolish of me to work three shows a night for 10 weeks straight without a night off. 

Edith: Are you in show business?

Beverly: Yes, I'm a female impersonator.

Edith: Ain't that interesting? You know, that's smart too. I mean, who can imitate a female better than a lady?

Beverly: I'm afraid you don't understand Mrs. Bunker. I'm a transvestite.

Edith: You sure fooled me. I mean, you ain't got no accent at all.

MB: Beverly is another character who can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. Beverly arrives in the Bunker home as a drag performer. Someone who Archie the patriarch of the family does not realize at first is variously described Beverly identifies herself as a transvestite or a female impersonator. Archie doesn't realize that this is the case with this character. And there's a very funny mistaken identity sort of plot line that runs through the episode. And this is a character who might have engendered a lot of hostility from the audience, but because they are welcome so warmly they're treated so humanely and that they get so many funny laugh lines, I think the audience is a lot more open to accepting Beverly as someone that they might want to get along with. Early in her introduction, she's trying to explain herself to Edith Bunker and Beverly has the line you don't understand. She says, you don't understand. I'm a transvestite, which obviously terminology that we might not use today, but she says, you don't understand. I'm a transvestite and Edith looks a little perplexed. And she says, well, you could have fooled me. You don't have an accent at all. It's just such a funny misunderstanding, such a funny line. It makes us a lot more, I think, as an audience comfortable with the character that a lot of people might've had some unease about.

KB: That is a great example. I think that idea of acceptance, so many of these sitcoms had advocates and allies either in the cast or as creators on the writing team. And you mentioned in addition to Norman Lee or Susan Harris, can you share an example of someone who really helped raise the bar for queer visibility on a sitcom?

MB: Oh yeah, there's a ton. And I really have to pay tribute to all of the women on the Golden Girls, especially Estelle Getty, who is so active with HIV and causes raising money. She opened a hospice for people with HIV. Those were folks who, those women had lots of queer people in their lives and they were not shy about advocating for equality and for civil rights and just basic humanity of folks who were really looked down upon. Golden Girls had a bunch of queer themed episodes, very brave thing to do at the time when there was a lot of anxiety, not just about HIV, but about a lot of causes, marriage and civil rights, and they have a whole episode about how to respond when a lesbian character is attracted to Rose and starts to fall in love with Rose. Rose responds with a lot of compassion to that instead of it's not played for laughs that isn't it outrageous? Isn't it disgusting? Isn't it terrifying that a queer person might attracted to you? So all of the women on the Golden Girls, especially Style, Getty did a lot of really fantastic work. B Arthur left a lot of money to the Ali Forney Center in New York so they could open a residence and supportive housing for LGBTQ youth. Just astonishing how generous those women were. And then also people, Ellen DeGeneres had a platform and really made great use of it to shatter a lot of barriers for queer people on television. Max Munic with Will and Grace once again, putting queer people on television in a way that was really profound proving that even after the Ellen Show kind of stumbled after her coming out, will and Grace became such a juggernaut that you could not argue, audiences won't accept a queer person on television. And all of those people, especially many of the actors who were appearing on television in queer roles at that time were not themselves queer.

They were straight or straight identified. And it was very, I think, brave for them to do that today. A lot of those roles would go to queer people playing the kind of character that they're depicting, but at a time when it was very difficult for that to happen when opportunities were not available to queer people on television for straight actors to take the career risk of making sure that those characters could get onto the screen and also open up more doors for minorities for sexual and gender minorities to play themselves, I think is really bold of them

KB: Here at History UnErased, we love your book Hi Honey, I'm Homo because it's full of so many of those examples of shows and you really help illuminate how those shows came together, the people behind them, the people who made them work and made them happen. So it's just phenomenal in that aspect. It really personalizes the story of a lot of these shows that we've been watching. There's so much behind the story, right? So you include a lot of stories about great shows, but we were wondering are there any stories about particular shows or people or sitcoms that you had to leave out of your book other than obviously for page limit reasons?

MB: Yeah, there's a lot more that I wish I could have had in there. I mean, for one thing, the book is very focused on sitcoms and the power of comedy, but if I was to expand that just a little bit more there shows, for example, my So-called Life. I have a podcast about the show, my soul called Life called Matt's SoCast pod, where I talk about the incredible value of that show and having Wilson Cruz playing Ricky a gay teenager at a time when the industry, the entertainment industry really was not nurturing young queer people of color in playing authentic roles. So there's shows like that. And then also I wish that there had been a little bit more room for me to talk about Jim Neighbors, for example, who played Gomer Pile. This was a closeted to the public, but out to his family and friends actor who from the fifties all the way up until the, he died quite recently.

He passed away I think 2013 or so, 20 13, 20 14. So just in the last 10 years. And so he's somebody who navigated the industry very cautiously, but was able to be very successful as a queer person and was able to come out towards the end of his life. He was working at a time when it simply was not possible. He could not have a career as an actor if you were openly anything really. And so he wasn't able to do that for a lot of his career. But towards the end of his life, he was able to get married, he was still respected, he was still invited back to participate in projects. So Jim's a person that I think really deserves a lot of respect and to be honored.

KB: I hear another book Project, Podcast project. So in reading your book, we at History UnErased have talked a lot about the fact that some of the controversial topics in the sitcoms that you talk about in your book are still controversial today. With so many viewing options available today though between cable and streaming and even TikTok, we don't seem to have those same moments where millions of viewers are tuned in to a regularly scheduled sitcom. Given this fact, how do you see the role of sitcoms today? Do they have the same impact? Is it just different?

MB: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the sitcom as we tend to think of the classic sitcom, the I love Lucy sitcom of three cameras, three walls and audience studio audience sitting on bleachers, like a little one act play with three scene breaks. That classic structure, I think that is maybe on vacation right now at this point in media history, we don't really have a lot of shows like that. Sitcoms have evolved. There was a period where there was sort of the mockumentary style with the office and Parks and Rec and Modern Family. There's shows, there's single-camera shows like Schitt's Creek for example. And I think, look, people's appetite for comedy is never going to go away. And the talent, the ability to make comedy is never going to go away. It's not like people have lost that ability. I think right now the entertainment industry is in a point of, I think there's a bit of a shakeup going on.I think there's a lot of questioning about what the future, just the commercial future, what the structure of the industry, how are we going to make and get these things to audiences. I think it's all getting kind of jumbled up right now, I think in the next few years, hopefully. Fingers crossed, I think that's going to get resolved. But I think that classic style of the sitcom on break, I think it will come back. I think there will be something like that in the future. Might not look exactly the same, but I don't think people are ever going to lose their appetite for laughing for heaven's sake. And I think that the power of comedy to bring those messages to people, that's never going to be diluted. That's never going to go away. It will remain as vital as it's always been. We got to figure out the economics and then we're going to get back to work.

KB; I like that. And speaking of economics, we were also wondering about reality television. So we have a colleague here at History Erased, Danny Roberts, who appeared on the Real World New Orleans in the early two thousands. How do you think reality television has shaped access to LGBTQ inclusive storylines? Does it have the same impact, those kind of reality based shows?

Matt Baume: Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought up the Real world because what an important, incredible show. So formative, especially daylighting, real life stories, dating and health and legal concerns and military issues, all that stuff. Especially going back even a few years before New Orleans to Pedro on Real World San Francisco, what an incredibly powerful season that was to meet a intelligent and very attractive, which certainly helps in presenting a case to an audience, but a smart, compassionate, sympathetic character like Pedro and getting him in front of audiences to talk about the realities of living with HIV. So and going back even further to shows like an American family in the 1970s presenting real life, people like Lance Loud, a really groundbreaking person who was in front of an unabashed gay person in front of television audiences on PBS, of all things that PBS could invent.

The modern reality show is so mind blowing, but shows like that, in addition to reaching a lot of people and being really popular form, especially at this point in history, provide an opportunity to explore lives and people. And whether it's socioeconomic classes or genders or sexualities or people with disabilities, whatever it happens to be, it's a reason to explore stuff that you just might not otherwise come in contact with. So yeah, I think reality television is extremely important. Obviously these shows are not actual reality. Obviously these shows are very scripted and they're very formula, not formulaic, but there's a formula that is used to present a compelling narrative. When you go back and you look at the early shows like an American family, when it's much more a verite, it's much more of just a fly on the wall camera, you realize, well, real life is actually kind of boring. So things need to be structured, things need to have a little bit of mediation and intervention. I would say that there's a balance of course, between reality and production, that having been said, seeing stuff like for example, Richard Hatch on Survivor, that a gay man can be so compelling for American audiences. Once again, this is a real person. It's not a hypothetical. Wouldn't it be interesting in this scripted show if this was to happen? No, this is a real person. These are real people, these realities as close as we could get to it on television of their lives.

KB: I like it. One version of reality.

MB: Yes, exactly.

KB: One version. Another question kind of in a similar vein is related to streaming services and how the ever-growing number of streaming services affect our viewing possibilities. So we know that algorithms often shape what shows are recommended to us on different services and platforms. Do you have any thoughts on how we could use those streaming services to our advantage to promote more LGBTQ-inclusive content?

MB: Yeah, it is really challenging. On one hand it's a mixed bag because it is great that we have so many more options and that a lot of voices that never could have gained much prominence or never could have been heard now have opportunities to appear on social media, for example, or just on the millions of shows that are streaming between Paramount and HBO and whatever else is out Amazon. And there's so many different services, so many different shows. There's so many that I haven't heard of. There's a lot more opportunity. However, there is that problem. There's so many, like I just said that I haven't heard of. There's just so much and we don't have, as we had in the 19, let's say eighties, that crossroads effect of having three major networks. You got A, B, C, C, B, S and NBC, maybe PBS if you're so inclined, maybe Fox if you're getting towards the end of the eighties.

But even though that limited what was available, it also meant that limiting had a silver lining in that a lot of people were guaranteed, like I said, a crossroads. You're guaranteed a lot of people were going to see whatever happened to be on the air. So if a gay character popped up on let's say even an unpopular show, many millions of people were going to see that character. We simply don't have that anymore to go back to a very dated metaphor. But if we think of the internet as being a information superhigh, we've got a lot of suburbs now. There used to be three metropolises of CBS, NB, C and A B, C, and you are guaranteed to bump into something new and unfamiliar to you. And now the information superhighway, even though we really don't call it that anymore, but all of those different channels have brought people out to their little suburban islands and it is very difficult to reach outside of your island.

And I think there's maybe a suggestion of how the algorithms can be, I wouldn't say manipulated, but how we could take advantage of the technology and the way that people use it now. And there's a little hint of how we might do that in the show Will and Grace, I think one of the most important things about the show Will and Grace is that ampersand, it's Will and Grace, and there's a blending of two different kinds of audience members you might identify with Will, you might identify with Grace, the relationship might be familiar to you. You might even identify with some of the side characters like Jack and Karen. But having an essentially equal balance between the will character and the Grace character made it a very welcoming show to people who might not be inclined to log on, might be not inclined to tune in if it was just Will or just Grace.

So if there is a way to have more of a mutual sharing of storylines, I guess you might see on a show like Lee, for example, where there's a little bit of a curd episode, a little bit of a Rachel episode, and showing characters interacting and bumping into each other, different types of people bumping into each other and finding what they have in common and what makes them unique. I think that is a way to, that creators of content, creators of shows can take advantage of the way that algorithms tend to tailor themselves to particular niches.

KB; We have the age-old question to ask you, does art imitate life or does life imitate art? And we were thinking in particular about Schitt's Creek, which you mentioned, and the fact that Schitt's Creek was noted for how it portrayed LGBTQ+ characters and relationships, thinking about whether or not the character of David could live and thrive in that kind of rural setting without really encountering much prejudice or discrimination. And Dan Levy, the creator and the individual who played David, has repeatedly commented that such prejudice really shouldn't exist in the world and therefore did not exist in the series that he created. So just thinking about that, we like to take that as a hopeful sign, but do you think we can take that as a hopeful sign that we're kind of trending toward a world either absent of prejudice against queer people or at least a better world?

MB: Oh, for sure. Yeah. Trending toward, I think is the best way to describe it. And I think what's important to note is that it doesn't happen by itself and that I don't think there is ever going to be such thing as a world without prejudice and a world that needs no improvement at all. I think that as long as there are going to be sexual and gender minorities, I think there is always going to be a temptation among certain people to scapegoat and demonize and use minorities as a convenient target. So I think it's really important to always be vigilant and to appreciate the value of not just comedy, but because it's the focus of my book, I'm very aware of it, to be aware of the value of comedy as a tool, maybe a weapon against people's worst instincts, worst natures, I think that something that is actually lacking in entertainment today is depictions of prejudice and bigotry.

And I'm not saying Schitt's Creek was the right place for that. I think it's appropriate that Schitt's Creek didn't have that. I think it's great that it didn't. I think what's wonderful to have shows where that just simply doesn't exist, but I think that there has been a decrease in storylines about just in entertainment in general, storylines about bigotry and prejudice. It used to be all over the place. It used to be what every story was about and that was too much. But I also think it's important to have some entertainment with that stuff so that we can see an effective model for how to combat it, how to answer it. It's not going to go away. So I don't think it should go away from our entertainment. There's a great episode of The Golden Girls, it's about HIV, where Rose is afraid that from a blood transfusion, she might be HIV positive and she expresses some, I wouldn't say hostile, but I would say ignorant suppositions about that.

AIDS is something that is for bad people and obviously that needs to be countered. And Blanche's character has a really effective response that this is not a bad person's disease, that people don't deserve to become sick. It's not something that you earn. It's not like good people don't become sick and what an important thing to say. And if we hadn't had a character who expressed a regressive point of view, there wouldn't have been an opportunity to provide that response that a lot of people in the audience needed to hear. So I do think that there is a need for entertainment. This is going to sound dark, but I think there is a need for entertainment to sometimes contain some bigotry and some prejudice and some intolerance so that we can see it being countered. And it doesn't have to be harsh, it can be funny. A lot of sitcoms found great ways to tackle this. The Golden Girls is just one of them. So yeah, I don't think every show needs it, but I think some shows do. And I think that it is valuable. In fact, I think it is necessary for some shows to tackle the darker elements, the realities of life.

Blanche: What is going on? 

Bea Arthur: Nothing. 

Blanche: Come on. Now, I heard you laughing. What is so funny? 

Bea Arthur: For starters, Gina's a lesbian. 

Blanche: What's funny about that? 

Bea Arthur: You aren't surprised? 

Blanche: Of course not. I mean, I've never known any personally, but isn't Danny Thomas one?

Bea Arthur: Not Lebanese, Blanche, Lesbian.

Blanche: Lesbian. Lesbian, lesbian, lesbian?

KB: And when you have a show that was as wonderful as the Golden Girls who could tackle it in a sensitive way and still make it sort of a little learning moment, it's even better.

MB: Absolutely. Yeah.

KB: Well, one sitcom that we have talked a lot about at History UnErased, one example that you mentioned that really resonated with us was in the show Alice, when she learns that another character Jack is gay and then decides to renege on having her son go on a fishing trip with Jack and Mel, and she eventually changes her mind.

Alice: Nothing happened, nothing's going to happen. Jack's gay. I went out with a guy I really dug and he turned out to be gay.

Flo: Jack New House? You gone cuckoo. He told you himself just like that. He said, Alice pass that onion dip. And by the way, I'm gay. Yes. Are you sure? He didn't say gray, you know, he colors his hair. 

Alice: My goodnes Flo, he said, Gay. 

Flo: Alice, Jack Newhouse is a football player, honey, he's big and strong. Any woman would die to take that hunk of candy home while he spends half his life surrounded by big bold men in locker rooms, in showers, being tackled by other football players, jumping up and down and hugging each other, patting each other's butts.

KB: Can you speak a little bit about this episode and Alice's shifting perception and maybe how that connects to today?

MB: Yeah, what a great episode. So that episode is so much about prejudice in the most literal sense. She is really pre-judged a person. She's assumed that this person is gay, therefore is unsafe and she just hasn't examined that. What's wonderful about that show and that episode, and this is something that I was just talking about, is how she's given an opportunity to examine that prejudice, realize that she's harboring something that benefits from some examination and she gets over it. She is helped to move beyond that. She isn't forced, she's just guided towards it and she's given an opportunity to ask herself, is there a reason for this? And I think it's very timely, it's very relevant today. We see particularly with trans material in school and trans people in school, but also with queer stuff in general and other minorities in general, whether it's people who are ethnic minorities, racial people from other countries, people who have disabilities, people from different socioeconomic classes, people, whatever it happens to be.

I think that there is a human tendency sometimes to carry assumptions about people who seem unfamiliar with us and to sometimes not realize that there's an opportunity to re-examine what we think about them. That episode of Alice demonstrates it so nicely, and I would hope that it is still that somebody could watch it today and say maybe I'm holding onto something that I don't need to hold onto about any number of people who seem like other groups they belong to and other group. But actually we have a lot in common actually. We get along great actually. We could be friends and that other is not so much an other as they're like me in ways that I just didn't appreciate. So yeah, I think it is very timely when we look at the moral panics that are happening now about queer friendly material in schools and oh no, it's got to be purged.

Oh no, protect the Children. Oh boy, that rallying Cry, protect the Children has been around for so long. But really I think the best way to protect children, the greatest way to protect children is to prepare them for the world, to prepare them to be good people. And you do that by introducing them to diverse folks who they will encounter when they go out into the world to prepare them to appreciate the value of other people in so doing. They will be appreciated by the people around them. So that I think making information and culture available to children is the way to protect them.

KB: Well, is there anything else that we didn't ask you that you would like to share with us about your book or your work in general?

MB: Oh gosh, no. We touched on so many great things. I would just say that if you're looking for something good to watch, I flipped through the book and there's so many, I really intentionally wrote the book so that you would get, hopefully as a reader, a lot of viewing ideas, a lot of things to add to your two watch list. So if you're sitting down in front of the TV or you're getting together with friends and you just want to veg out and watch something, there's so much stuff in that book. And so I would encourage people to flip through. And also I would say to watch with friends. TV guide used to have a slogan, don't watch TV in the Dark. And I think it's a wonderful slogan. I think it great way to consume this culture is with friends. Everything that we do is so remote and isolated and kind of lonely today because the internet has made it so easy to do things digitally. We're recording this from opposite ends of the country, but when there's an opportunity to watch TV with friends, it is so much fun to get together with people and consume media with people, even if it's a reading group. Again, just a great way to consume stuff. So watch with Friends I think would be one of my pieces of advice, one of my big takeaways from writing about this stuff as much as I have.

KB: Well, thank you. And we really encourage all of our readers to find a copy of Hi Honey, I'm Homo! and either reminisce about things that they have already watched or as you said, find some amazing new content to watch. So thank you very much, Matt. It was a pleasure to meet you and hear about your book and we look forward to talking to you again someday.

MB: Fabulous. Thank you again so much for having me. Thanks so much for having me and always happy to talk about this stuff. So folks who want to find me online, just look me up, Matt Baume, and always happy to continue the conversation there.

KB: Thank you.

DF: Special thanks to Matt for talking with us about his recent book, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture. Be sure to get your copy at an independent bookstore near you. And check out Matt’s YouTube channel @MattBaume for some fun and fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about movies and TV shows that changed the world.

Kathleen Barker is History UnErased’s program director and is a library and information specialist and public historian with more than 20 years of experience as a museum and library educator. 

This podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack, our youth equity program director and podcaster. 

Please rate this podcast and share! And visit UnErased.org to learn how History UnErased is putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place - the classroom.

I’m Deb Fowler. Thanks for listening!

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