Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Visible: Out On Television’ On Apple TV+, A Docuseries About TV’s Checkered History Of LGBTQIA+ Representation

If you’re watching a show like Pose or Special or perhaps even an episode of the close-to-ending Modern Family, it is likely a shock to you at how different LGBTQIA+ representation on TV was, even into the late-’90s and early-’00s. Visible: Out On Television documents how the community was represented on the tube, from its very beginnings until now. And the first episode discusses how little representation there was in the ’50s and ’60s.

VISIBLE: OUT ON TELEVISION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The look of an old-fashioned TV being turned on or tuned. Then we hear Ellen DeGeneres talk about how, at the height of her sitcom career, she had a dream about having a pet bird that she had to keep putting back in its cage; Mj Rodriguez talks about never being able to find work; Billy Porter talks about being called “too flamboyant.”

The Gist: Visible: Out On Television is a five-part docuseries, directed by Ryan White (Ask Dr. Ruth) about the history of LGBTQIA+ representation on TV, from the medium’s beginnings over 70 years ago to now (White is an executive producer, along with Jessica Hargrave, Wanda Sykes and Wilson Cruz; Janet Mock narrates). The first part of the series, which covers TV’s beginnings through the emergence of An American Family‘s Lance Loud as the medium’s first openly-gay star, shows that representation was basically non-existent through the medium’s first twenty-plus years.

Through archival footage and interviews with an impressive array of stars, most of whom are in the LGBTQIA+ community, we see how that lack of representation was seen by those who couldn’t find people that were like them on the most popular shows of the era. During those first decades, gays were either shown in fiction as mentally ill or as murderous villains, if they were shown at all. Trans representation was even worse, as there were ether hetero cisgender actors in drag (think Milton Berle in a dress) to generate guffaws, or they were portrayed as “transvestites” that were — you guessed it — mentally ill or murderous villains.

We hear the story of Sheila James, who played the tomboyish Zelda Gilroy in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, who was set to star in a spin-off until the top programming executive at CBS told her that he was spiking the pilot because she was “too butch,” which led her to retire from acting and pursue a political career. We also hear about how carefully film studios and CBS shielded the fact that Raymond Burr was gay from the public — they apparently did such a good job, both Laverne Cox and Tim Gunn were surprised to learn that he was gay, even though Burr died 27 years ago. The McCarthy hearings in the ’50s went after as many suspected gays as it did suspected communists. Michael Douglas, who played Liberace in Beyond The Candelabra, and others discuss the flamboyant pianist whom everyone’s mothers thought was so dreamy and talented when he had his ’50s variety show.

As we get into the late-’60s and early-’70s, we see a little more representation, though we still have documentaries like The Homosexuals on CBS (there’s that network again), who gave credence to experts that said being gay was a mental illness that could be “cured.” The Stonewall riots aren’t covered by network news broadcasts, and gay rights issues are rarely if ever covered. But gay and trans characters were popping up here and there and treated with more respect, like on Norman Lear’s shows All In The Family and The Jeffersons. But the person that the doc really thinks broke things open was Lance Loud, who was open about his sexuality and never shied away from it, despite being a part of what is now dubbed “the original reality show.”

Our Take: What we found most impressive about Visible: Out On Television is the roster of people that White, Sykes, Hargrave and Cruz were able to get to sit down and talk about how their experiences with TV were a bit different than others, simply because they were gay or trans. Gunn’s story about how virulently anti-gay his father was, and how they watched the Army-McCarthy hearings in different ways was compelling. Trans activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was also fascinating, as she strongly lamented how whatever trans representation there was on TV in the ’60s was in the form of cross-dressers. “I’m not a drag queen; I live in this role, you know what I mean?” she says. James’ story was a heartbreaker, despite the fact that she landed on her feet in politics.

The first part of the documentary doesn’t particularly cover any new ground, if you know the history of LGBTQIA+ representation on TV, but we think of this series as more of a repository of how being “out on television” has changed drastically, especially since DeGeneres faced backlash when she and her character on Ellen came out a mere 23 years ago.

What will be interesting to watch going forward is the reactions we get from the interviewees about the stops and starts that defined LGBTQIA+ representation during the intervening 25 years between Lance Loud and Ellen. While there were some advances, like Billy Crystal’s character on Soap, there were a lot of steps back, like how being gay (or pretending to be, as John Ritter’s character was) was played for laughs on sitcoms like Three’s Company, or the general gay panic that permeated sitcom plots into the early 2000s. Other episodes will discuss how TV covered the AIDS epidemic — including Aidan Quinn’s groundbreaking performance in An Early Frost, as well as people like Lena Waithe, who is considered part of a “new guard” that can be creatively free because they can be themselves.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: After the discussion of Lance Loud’s death in 2001, Pat Loud talks about how she’ll remember her son riding his bike and singing at the top of his lungs, living his life the way he wanted to.

Sleeper Star: Richard Socarides, who worked in the Clinton Administration, was fascinating to listen to, given that he was the son of Charles Socarides, a psychiatrist who went on that CBS documentary to say that gays have a mental disorder. Hearing about how Richard came out to his anti-gay father, which was recreated in the miniseries When We Rise, was one of the more riveting parts of the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: We get White’s desire to play to a broad age range, but there seemed to be a lot of overexplaining in the first episode, like when we hear Rob Reiner give a Wikipedia-like explanation of AITF, including talking about the disclaimer CBS (that network… again!) aired in front of its early episodes. A lot of that is pop-culture common knowledge, or something easily researched by those who are curious.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While it feels like a 101-level course in LGBTQIA+ representation in TV, Visible: Out On Television is still a good overview of just how far the medium has come in this regard, and how far it has to go.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Visible: Out On Television On Apple TV+