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When Will Met Grace · Revisionist History

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0:57
Speaker 2: Oh wait, do we need to do this?
0:59
Speaker 3: Yeah? Put that in your left ear.
1:02
Speaker 2: Him Malcolm, You're Max, I'm Max?
1:06
Speaker 1: Max? Is Max muchnik. The other voice is that of
1:09
Speaker 1: David Cohen. They're two old friends and screenwriting partners who
1:13
Speaker 1: got on a zoom call with me with only one
1:16
Speaker 1: set of earphones between them.
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Speaker 3: Can you hear him? I'm not kidding, because where we're.
1:20
Speaker 4: Connected is it going through your ear?
1:22
Speaker 3: Wait?
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Speaker 1: Max? Can you not hear me?
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Speaker 2: I can, but I'm hearing you through the wrong channel,
1:26
Speaker 2: I believe, so hold on one second.
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Speaker 4: Okay, Hey, you'd never leave him, all right.
1:33
Speaker 1: I called them up to talk about a television show
1:35
Speaker 1: that created together almost thirty years ago, a show that
1:39
Speaker 1: over the years I've become nostalgic for by the way
1:43
Speaker 1: they finally solved the problem of the one set of
1:45
Speaker 1: earphones by sitting on top of each other. Did you
1:50
Speaker 1: have an agenda when you were conceiving of this show.
1:55
Speaker 4: I'm not saying no.
1:57
Speaker 2: We really came at this purely from a writing standpoint,
1:59
Speaker 2: and specifically Sydney Pollack, who was a mentor of David,
2:04
Speaker 2: taught us a lot about writing and writing stories. Yeah,
2:08
Speaker 2: and we were in his office one day and he
2:10
Speaker 2: knew we were writing, you know, sitcoms at this point,
2:14
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, a love story is over
2:16
Speaker 2: after the boy and the girl kiss. So if you
2:19
Speaker 2: can figure out a way to tell a love story
2:21
Speaker 2: where they don't kiss, you can have a show that
2:25
Speaker 2: would run for a very long time.
2:28
Speaker 1: Sydney Pollock was one of the greatest film directors of
2:31
Speaker 1: his generation. His point was that love stories require friction.
2:36
Speaker 4: It's only as good as the obstacles that prevent them
2:38
Speaker 4: from getting together. I remember him saying, boy, you know,
2:42
Speaker 4: race isn't the obstacle anymore. Class isn't an obstacle anymore.
2:45
Speaker 4: You know, you couldn't make a guess who's coming to dinner?
2:48
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety where are the obstacles? Max and I
2:54
Speaker 4: started to working together like I got one.
2:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, my name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History,
3:03
Speaker 1: my podcast about Things Overlooked and Misunderstood. This episode is
3:09
Speaker 1: about obstacles and their value, and about whether stories and
3:17
Speaker 1: storytellers do more good in the world when they are
3:19
Speaker 1: faced with barriers that they're forced to overcome.
3:29
Speaker 2: David really was the one who was way more comfortable
3:32
Speaker 2: with the idea of exploring the relationship that I had
3:35
Speaker 2: with my high school girlfriend.
3:38
Speaker 1: You know, quote unquote, the quote unquote girlfriend was named
3:42
Speaker 1: Janet Eisenberg.
3:44
Speaker 2: Oddly, little sidebar story, her father was the surgeon who
3:48
Speaker 2: amputated my diabetic grandfather's legs, and so we had a
3:53
Speaker 2: very bizarre connection to each other, but we were instantly friends.
3:59
Speaker 4: He would break it. He would walk into her house
4:02
Speaker 4: and say to her father, wear the legs, where do
4:04
Speaker 4: you keep? What have you done with them?
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Speaker 2: Doctor Eisenberg never liked that too much, but it was,
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Speaker 2: you know, an undeniable thing. She was very, very committed
4:14
Speaker 2: and interested in me, and I adored her, you know,
4:17
Speaker 2: and I wasn't ready to deal with my truth at
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Speaker 2: that time. It was the big secret. And in fact,
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Speaker 2: you know, in those days when you were gay and closeted,
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Speaker 2: you actually thought, Okay, how am I going to figure
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Speaker 2: this out? Where I'm going to live a double life.
4:31
Speaker 2: When I told her I was gay, she said, I've
4:34
Speaker 2: I have to rethink everything about what I have been
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Speaker 2: thinking and what I think I love and how I love.
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Speaker 1: Every Screenwtter knows that story always ends the same way
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Speaker 1: on television.
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Speaker 2: When the gay guy reveals to the female that he's
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Speaker 2: that this is what he is and he loves what
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Speaker 2: he loves. He is banished and punished and she is
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Speaker 2: the victim.
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Speaker 1: But Janet wasn't the victim. They all became best friends again,
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Speaker 1: and David and Max realized there was another way to
5:08
Speaker 1: do the story of the gay man and the straight
5:10
Speaker 1: woman who loved each other very much. The result was
5:15
Speaker 1: I'm so excited, me and you, You.
5:19
Speaker 2: And me with the perfect dame team, Will and Grace.
5:27
Speaker 4: This sounds weird, Grace and Will, Now that sounds like
5:33
Speaker 4: the thing.
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Speaker 1: Will and Grace. It ran on NBC for eleven seasons,
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Speaker 1: starting in nineteen ninety eight as part of NBC's vaunted
5:43
Speaker 1: Must See TV on Thursday nights. The character Will in
5:47
Speaker 1: Will and Grace was a lawyer. Grace was an interior designer.
5:51
Speaker 1: They shared an apartment in New York City, with constant
5:54
Speaker 1: interruptions from Grace's assistant, the irrepressible Karen.
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Speaker 5: There, what can I do?
6:00
Speaker 3: How can I help?
6:01
Speaker 6: What are we drinking?
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Speaker 1: And Will's friend Jack, who functioned as the ID to
6:06
Speaker 1: Will's super ego.
6:10
Speaker 3: Can't stay for lunch.
6:10
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna grab some money out of your wallet
6:12
Speaker 1: so I can grab a sandwich in a new sweater. Later,
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Speaker 1: together they argued, started relationships, ended relationships, kissed each other
6:20
Speaker 1: in endless comedic combinations. The whole Merry Go Round set
6:24
Speaker 1: in motion by the premise laid down in the very
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Speaker 1: first episode, Grace is about to get married and her
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Speaker 1: best friend Will talks her out of it. With her
6:33
Speaker 1: groom waiting at the altar, she and Will go to
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Speaker 1: a bar to drown her sorrows. She's still in her
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Speaker 1: wedding dress and the patrons at the bar start egging.
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Speaker 2: Them on, tell us to your lovely new bron.
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Speaker 1: Will and Grace look at each other make up, valves
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Speaker 1: in the moment and think maybe this could work. Will
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Speaker 1: gets caught up in the moment, tries kissing grace, hoping
7:01
Speaker 1: sparks will fly, Sparks do not fly, and with an
7:07
Speaker 1: obstacle like that, love story can go on forever. David
7:13
Speaker 1: Cohen came from a showbiz family. His father, Alan Buzz Cohen,
7:18
Speaker 1: was a writer and producer on The Carol Burnett Show.
7:21
Speaker 4: His metier was variety specials throughout the seventies and eighties
7:26
Speaker 4: and nineties that any variety special that was on there
7:30
Speaker 4: was a good chance he was the writer on it.
7:31
Speaker 2: But you should know the night that David and I
7:33
Speaker 2: won the Emmy for Best Show and we got on
7:37
Speaker 2: the phone with Buzz from the back of the limo,
7:41
Speaker 2: Buzz said to us, you know, all you have to
7:43
Speaker 2: do is win twenty four more and then you have
7:46
Speaker 2: my record being.
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Speaker 1: There ended up being multiple Cohens in television, including David's
7:52
Speaker 1: sister Jenji, who wrote for shows like Sex in the
7:55
Speaker 1: City and The Gilmore Girls before going on to create
7:58
Speaker 1: the Showtime series Weeds and the Netflix show Oranges and
8:02
Speaker 1: New Black.
8:04
Speaker 7: I'll goot you, Blondie, what'd you do?
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Speaker 4: Aren't you not supposed to ask that question. You read that,
8:09
Speaker 4: you're not supposed to ask that You read that.
8:13
Speaker 7: Were you studied for prison.
8:16
Speaker 1: When people refer to the current era of television as
8:19
Speaker 1: the Golden Age, they're referring to shows like Orange Is
8:22
Speaker 1: the New Black. It could only be made by streamers
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Speaker 1: like Netflix or HBO or Apple TV. It was edgy
8:29
Speaker 1: and unflinching. It had the first major transgender character on television,
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Speaker 1: played by Laverne Cox. Multiple realistic lesbian relationships.
8:39
Speaker 8: Tell us what's different about or what was different about
8:42
Speaker 8: pitching for Netflix.
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Speaker 9: What's awesome about Netflix is they not only say yes,
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Speaker 9: they say yes and shoot a whole season.
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Speaker 1: Jenji Cohen was invited to speak on a panel at
8:53
Speaker 1: a Vanity Fair conference.
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Speaker 9: They eliminate the pilot process, which is so wasteful.
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Speaker 1: Normally in television, the people with an idea for a
9:01
Speaker 1: show make a test episode first, a pilot, which is
9:04
Speaker 1: then critiqued and massaged and shown to focus groups while
9:07
Speaker 1: the network figures out whether it wants to say yes
9:10
Speaker 1: to a full season. Netflix just listened to Jeni Cohan's
9:13
Speaker 1: pitch for Orange Is the New Black and said, go
9:16
Speaker 1: for it. Give the story as much time as it needs.
9:19
Speaker 9: You're not limited to everything in the kitchen sink in
9:22
Speaker 9: one hour. And when you go into a room and say, yeah,
9:27
Speaker 9: make go make thirteen hours of that, that's a dream
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Speaker 9: come true.
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Speaker 1: Jen Cohen's show represents the new paradigm in prestige TV.
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Speaker 1: Give the creator what they want now. Compare Genji's experience
9:39
Speaker 1: with what her brother David went through back in the
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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties when the show that would become Will and
9:45
Speaker 1: Grace was still in development. In the late nineteen nineties,
9:51
Speaker 1: Netflix was just a little startup sending out DVDs by mail.
9:55
Speaker 1: Television was dominated by the old line broadcast networks NBC, ABC, CBS,
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Speaker 1: and Fox. Max and David first had to sell their
10:08
Speaker 1: show idea to Larren Littlefield, the head of the entertainment
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Speaker 1: division at NBC, and they hedge their bets.
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Speaker 7: Max and David come in with a pitch, and their
10:18
Speaker 7: pitch was a large ensemble comedy. And then at the
10:23
Speaker 7: very end there were like the Will and Grace characters
10:26
Speaker 7: over here in the corner, and I was like, stop,
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Speaker 7: wait a second, that's the show, Like, that's the core
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Speaker 7: of the show. Put that relationship front and center. That's
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Speaker 7: what I want to see of course, Max and David said, well, look,
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Speaker 7: we'd love to do that show, but are you going
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Speaker 7: to put that on television?
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Speaker 1: Good question because this was NBC, a very staid, old
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Speaker 1: school television network, and one step up from Warren Littlefield
10:59
Speaker 1: was his very staid boss, Don Olmeyer.
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Speaker 7: Then we get to Don Olmeyer going, you did what
11:13
Speaker 7: and I said, yeah, it's a script. Most scripts don't work,
11:19
Speaker 7: you know, it's just it's development. And I just brushed
11:23
Speaker 7: him off. I wouldn't engage in the discussion of the
11:27
Speaker 7: right or wrong.
11:28
Speaker 1: Did he think this is not a good idea because
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Speaker 1: it's not commercial or did he think I done all
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Speaker 1: my are heavy personal objection to that kind of a show.
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Speaker 7: I think his primary concern was we will never get
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Speaker 7: advertisers to go into this. We are a broadcast network.
11:50
Speaker 7: Our revenue is based upon advertising, and advertisers historically are
11:56
Speaker 7: not groundbreakers, and advertisers will reject this, and this is bad,
12:02
Speaker 7: a bad idea.
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Speaker 1: Don't do it. A show with a gay man at
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Speaker 1: the center on national TV. Littlefield and his screenwriters had
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Speaker 1: a big obstacle. Now they had to find a way
12:16
Speaker 1: around it. For the first several decades of its existence,
12:28
Speaker 1: American television was in the grip of what is commonly
12:31
Speaker 1: called mainstreaming. That's a term coined by the Hungarian born
12:35
Speaker 1: scholar George Gebner, who for twenty five years headed the
12:38
Speaker 1: Annenburg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Gerbner
12:44
Speaker 1: was fascinated by American television in the nineteen sixties and
12:47
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, when the limited number of options on television
12:51
Speaker 1: meant that a hit show could command huge audiences. Take
12:56
Speaker 1: the Western show Gunsmoke, which in the nineteen sixties was
13:00
Speaker 1: the most popular program on television. It would routinely be
13:04
Speaker 1: watched by forty percent of the households in America. With
13:07
Speaker 1: the TV, you could sit next to a random person
13:10
Speaker 1: on a bus the morning after Gunsmoke came on and say,
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Speaker 1: without further introduction, could you believe that part where Matt
13:17
Speaker 1: Dillon shot that guy? And the person sitting next to
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Speaker 1: you would know exactly what you were talking about. George
13:25
Speaker 1: Gubner said that kind of shared experience made television like
13:29
Speaker 1: a giant church where the same message was preached night
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Speaker 1: after night.
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Speaker 10: It is comparable to a new religion, not to another medium.
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Speaker 10: It's a total symbolic environment that includes art, science, government,
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Speaker 10: every all parts of knowledge, and that is steady, It
13:49
Speaker 10: is consistent, it is repetitive, and it is used as
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Speaker 10: a ritual.
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Speaker 1: Mainstreaming was what happened to those who worshiped in TV's
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Speaker 1: giant church. So take a hot button issue from the
14:02
Speaker 1: late seventies or early eighties, like school busing the forced
14:06
Speaker 1: integration of public schools. Conservatives hated bussing. Liberals were much
14:12
Speaker 1: more likely to be in favor of it. Moderates were
14:15
Speaker 1: in the middle, which is what you would expect. But
14:18
Speaker 1: one of Gerbner's colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Larry Gross,
14:22
Speaker 1: took polling data about bussing and broke it down according
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Speaker 1: to how much TV people watched. Gross found that among
14:29
Speaker 1: heavy TV viewers, the differences started to disappear. Conservatives became
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Speaker 1: a little more in favor of bussing, liberals a little
14:38
Speaker 1: less in favor. Television viewing brought Americans closer together over time.
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Speaker 1: That's mainstreaming.
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Speaker 3: Democrats or Republicans or people who say they're liberal, the
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Speaker 3: more television they watched, the more likely they are to
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Speaker 3: say they're moderate.
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Speaker 1: Larry Gross says, how much TV you watch says as
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Speaker 1: much about you as who you voted for.
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Speaker 3: It predicts incredibly powerfully. If you watch a lot of television,
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Speaker 3: you're mal likely to say you're moderate, whatever your other
15:06
Speaker 3: views are.
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Speaker 1: The moderating effect of TV viewing, in turn, has a
15:11
Speaker 1: moderating effect on the people making television, because if you
15:14
Speaker 1: are competing to be the show that the majority of
15:17
Speaker 1: the country is watching, you have to make a show
15:19
Speaker 1: that's acceptable to the majority of the country. So this
15:25
Speaker 1: is what was going on at NBC in the late nineties.
15:31
Speaker 1: When the network executive don Olmyer heard the pitch for
15:34
Speaker 1: Will and Grace, he heard an idea that was too
15:37
Speaker 1: far from the middle the mainstream. It was not a
15:41
Speaker 1: television show as people like him understood television to be
15:45
Speaker 1: at the time. David Cohen and Max Mutchnik would have
15:51
Speaker 1: to moderate it. They start with the casting choices for
15:54
Speaker 1: the pilot. They cast Eric McCormick. McCormick in real life
15:59
Speaker 1: is straight, conventionally handsome Will his character is a lawyer,
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Speaker 1: a corporate lawyer, not a profession according to the stereotypes
16:07
Speaker 1: of the late nineties that coded is gay.
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Speaker 2: That was also a thing that we did very deliberately
16:13
Speaker 2: was to show the world. In casting Eric, we had
16:17
Speaker 2: to do that. We had to make sure that that
16:20
Speaker 2: type of guy was playing this part that.
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Speaker 1: He could be. In other words, he was conceivable as
16:26
Speaker 1: a straight man.
16:29
Speaker 11: This is some Sorry.
16:30
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't wear my sexuality like a sash and
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Speaker 2: a tiara the way Jack does, but I am willing
16:35
Speaker 2: to put my gainness up against anybody's.
16:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, he passed to use a word of today.
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Speaker 2: You know, he was able to do that, and that
16:45
Speaker 2: just made it safe.
16:46
Speaker 1: The casting of Will was a moderating choice, and so
16:49
Speaker 1: too was the way the topic of sex was handled
16:51
Speaker 1: on the show.
16:52
Speaker 2: Am I allowed to use swear words?
16:54
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah.
16:56
Speaker 2: A very famous director, Joel Schumacher, summed it up best. Naturally,
17:02
Speaker 2: we were having dinner at the foot of Joel's bed
17:04
Speaker 2: while he brushed his hair and he was baking Batman.
17:08
Speaker 2: At the time.
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Speaker 1: Max's dinner companion mentioned the show that Max had pitched
17:12
Speaker 1: to NBC Will and Grace. Quick side note, you may
17:16
Speaker 1: have noticed an explicit label on this episode. Well, we
17:19
Speaker 1: have Joel Schumacher to thank for that. Children cover your ears.
17:27
Speaker 2: He looked up and said, just make sure whatever you do,
17:31
Speaker 2: you don't make the show too butt fucky.
17:34
Speaker 4: That's not what people want to think about.
17:36
Speaker 2: And he was really hitting something that was so real
17:42
Speaker 2: and it is so true and we kind of knew it.
17:46
Speaker 2: I'll let them suspend their beliefs while they watched this
17:50
Speaker 2: show and this fantasy, but I need them to know
17:53
Speaker 2: when that character goes off the air at eight thirty,
17:58
Speaker 2: that actor is not going home and having anal.
18:01
Speaker 1: Sex casting mainstreamed content mainstreamed. Then comes the choice of
18:08
Speaker 1: a They picked Jimmy Burrows, the famous Jimmy Burrows, who
18:13
Speaker 1: co created the show Cheers and who directed episodes of
18:17
Speaker 1: virtually every sitcom from the nineteen seventies. On Phyllis wrote
18:21
Speaker 1: a third Rock Friends Fraser Jimmy Burrows is as straight
18:25
Speaker 1: down the middle as you can get. To Warren Littlefield,
18:28
Speaker 1: he was the median strip on Hollywood Boulevard.
18:31
Speaker 7: I said to Don Olmeyer, Hey, you know that script
18:34
Speaker 7: that you know you had a problem with whatever, you know,
18:38
Speaker 7: it's really good. We love it. It's on your desk,
18:41
Speaker 7: it's in your en file. We're going to make it
18:43
Speaker 7: and Jimmy Burrows is going to direct it. And that
18:47
Speaker 7: was kind of like a wall that Don didn't quite
18:51
Speaker 7: know what to do with.
18:53
Speaker 1: So Littlefield brings in Jimmy Burrows, mister moderation, and mister
18:57
Speaker 1: Moderation naturally moderates the show still further. Here he is
19:01
Speaker 1: in an interview with the Television Academy.
19:04
Speaker 11: I know how difficult homosexuality would be, too, Eric, so
19:11
Speaker 11: I tell Max and David, I think we should try
19:13
Speaker 11: the first year to make America believe that Will's going
19:16
Speaker 11: to recant and marry Grace, because that's what the show is.
19:22
Speaker 11: The show is a relationship, a sexual relationship with any sex.
19:26
Speaker 1: They filmed the pilot. One final obstacle remains Bob Wright,
19:33
Speaker 1: head of the whole NBC network. Bob Wright is a
19:36
Speaker 1: staunch Republican. Grew up Catholic on Long Island public school kid.
19:40
Speaker 1: Started out as a lawyer at General Electric, later worked
19:43
Speaker 1: in their plastics division. He is a house in Palm Beach.
19:47
Speaker 1: He's president of the Palm Beach Civic Association. Bob Bright's
19:51
Speaker 1: idea of a radical act is doing a donut in
19:54
Speaker 1: his golf cart in the parking lot of the Palm
19:56
Speaker 1: Beach Country Club. In the end, it doesn't matter what
20:00
Speaker 1: anyone else at NBC thinks about Will and Grace. The
20:03
Speaker 1: only way to show is going to get on the
20:05
Speaker 1: air is if Bob Wright says, yes, Bob Wright is
20:10
Speaker 1: your mainstreaming test. Bob Wright hops in the company jet
20:15
Speaker 1: and flies out to Los Angeles from New York for
20:17
Speaker 1: a special screening of the Will and Grace pilot episode
20:21
Speaker 1: thirty five, forty people in the room. The show's future
20:24
Speaker 1: is in the balance.
20:25
Speaker 7: The lights come up after the screening, the room is quiet.
20:29
Speaker 7: Donald Meyer's there, and Bob Wright goes, that's the best
20:35
Speaker 7: thing we've ever had our logo on.
20:38
Speaker 1: Wait, are you kidding me? Bob Wright said that.
20:40
Speaker 7: Bob Wright said that, so, I of course was like
20:44
Speaker 7: game over, Like, Don's not going to do anything. No
20:48
Speaker 7: one's going to put up a wall. We own it,
20:51
Speaker 7: we love it. And the number one guy just put
20:56
Speaker 7: his seal of approval. I'm like, that's it. We're putting
20:59
Speaker 7: it on the air.
21:04
Speaker 1: When Will and Grace first made it on the air,
21:06
Speaker 1: it was roundly criticized by gay and lesbian groups and
21:10
Speaker 1: television critics too, all pointing out the ways in which
21:13
Speaker 1: the show's depiction of gay life was compromised in order
21:17
Speaker 1: to please the Don Ol Myers and Bob Wright's of
21:19
Speaker 1: the world, like the fact that this was a show
21:22
Speaker 1: about gay men in New York City in the late
21:24
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties and there was no mention of HIV none.
21:28
Speaker 4: We could never quite crack a story where that was
21:32
Speaker 4: going to be genuinely funny coming from these characters.
21:37
Speaker 1: Funny was their way of staying right in the middle.
21:40
Speaker 2: I always thought that we needed to approach all of
21:43
Speaker 2: the gay stuff in the same way that I approached
21:46
Speaker 2: coming out to my family, with love and with sensitivity
21:50
Speaker 2: and with caring about the way that the people that
21:53
Speaker 2: I was giving this new information to were going to
21:55
Speaker 2: receive it. This bothered a lot of people, and I
21:59
Speaker 2: understand that, but by a lot of people, meaning you know,
22:03
Speaker 2: organizations like GLAD and you know activists and act up.
22:08
Speaker 2: They just thought it was bullshit and we were soft
22:11
Speaker 2: peddling it.
22:11
Speaker 4: I think another another thing is that you know, at
22:16
Speaker 4: no point we were trying to you know, get idea
22:22
Speaker 4: or promulgate some ideology. Ever, it was always what would
22:27
Speaker 4: this person that we knew, What would Max do in
22:29
Speaker 4: this situation, what would Janet do in this situation? There
22:32
Speaker 4: was never We were never thinking in terms from the
22:36
Speaker 4: outside in.
22:37
Speaker 2: We're basically from an show business background. Our families come
22:42
Speaker 2: from this. It's a trade. It was the trade and
22:47
Speaker 2: the town that we grew up in, and we understand
22:51
Speaker 2: uh the work aspect of it, how to survive. And
22:54
Speaker 2: because of all of that, we knew our job. Our
22:58
Speaker 2: number one job was to entertain the largest number of
23:01
Speaker 2: people we could every week. That was the job.
23:06
Speaker 1: That was the job. But what about Jenji Cohen, David's sister.
23:14
Speaker 1: She never had to ask Netflix the question, are you
23:17
Speaker 1: going to put oranges in New Black on television? She
23:20
Speaker 1: never had to bring in mister moderation. She never had
23:23
Speaker 1: to avoid taboo topics. Netflix love that she explored taboo topics. Now,
23:29
Speaker 1: the obvious response here is to say, why would we
23:32
Speaker 1: want to go back from Geni's world, to her brothers,
23:35
Speaker 1: to the compromises and sacrifices. Netflix and all the other
23:39
Speaker 1: streamers have brought us an explosion of quality and choice.
23:43
Speaker 1: Television has never been better. But this is why we
23:48
Speaker 1: do thought experiments to consider the possibility that what we
23:52
Speaker 1: think of as obvious might be wrong. Television, like any medium,
24:07
Speaker 1: has a set of implicity storytelling rules.
24:10
Speaker 6: It is the case generally that television chooses to introduce
24:13
Speaker 6: controversial issues, for instance, through comedy.
24:16
Speaker 1: That's Bonnie Dow who teaches at Vanderbilt University, and too
24:20
Speaker 1: many years ago, back in the glory days of broadcast television,
24:24
Speaker 1: Dominance wrote a brilliant paper about the norms of television.
24:28
Speaker 6: The same thing is true with depictions of gay characters
24:32
Speaker 6: is that they show up in sitcoms, right, which are
24:35
Speaker 6: these thirty minute vehicles in which a problem is introduced
24:38
Speaker 6: and then the problem is solved by the end of
24:40
Speaker 6: the episode. And it's a very comforting form. It's very funny,
24:43
Speaker 6: and it allows for something to be treated lightly.
24:46
Speaker 1: Daw identified four rules, let's call them Dow's rules. Rule one,
24:52
Speaker 1: a gay character cannot be the lead in any story.
24:55
Speaker 1: They can only be secondary characters whose gayness is an
24:59
Speaker 1: issue that creates resolution.
25:01
Speaker 6: The narratives tend to be about how their revelation about
25:06
Speaker 6: their sexuality affects their relationship with straight characters, friends and family,
25:11
Speaker 6: co workers, and how they are and how they become
25:16
Speaker 6: a sort of problem that has to be solved.
25:19
Speaker 1: Rule number two, it's all about the straight people. Rule
25:23
Speaker 1: number three. Gay characters don't associate with other gay people.
25:28
Speaker 6: So they tend not to have gay friends. They tend
25:30
Speaker 6: not to go to gay events, their gayness becomes this
25:33
Speaker 6: solely personal thing.
25:36
Speaker 11: Right.
25:36
Speaker 6: And then finally, which is related to the thing that
25:39
Speaker 6: I just said, you rarely ever see or saw back
25:44
Speaker 6: in the day depictions of gay desire or gay sex.
25:48
Speaker 5: Right.
25:48
Speaker 6: So these were people for whom the whole point really
25:52
Speaker 6: was the whole point of their identity. The way it
25:55
Speaker 6: was depicted was that they were sexually interested in their
25:58
Speaker 6: same gender. But yet you actually didn't see that being enacted.
26:05
Speaker 1: In her essay, Doubt talks a lot about the sitcom
26:07
Speaker 1: Ellen starting to meeting Ellen DeGeneres. In the show's fourth season,
26:12
Speaker 1: Ellen comes out as gay, which was considered to be
26:15
Speaker 1: this epic moment in social progress.
26:18
Speaker 6: When you put one of these taboo topics on to
26:23
Speaker 6: prime time, people act as though the entire difficulty has
26:26
Speaker 6: been solved, Like, we used to be homophobic, we used
26:29
Speaker 6: to not represent GLBTQ characters. Now we have Ellen, and
26:32
Speaker 6: everything's fine. Right, It is sort of the narrative, and
26:36
Speaker 6: that's not true, right, That's just not true. There's a
26:38
Speaker 6: lot more work to be done.
26:39
Speaker 1: The film historian Vito Russo once surveyed thirty two Hollywood
26:44
Speaker 1: movies from the sixties and seventies that had major gay characters.
26:48
Speaker 1: Eighteen of those characters were murdered, thirteen committed suicide, and
26:53
Speaker 1: one was castrated. Ellen was definitely a step up from that.
26:58
Speaker 1: But Ellen left all the other rules intact, her identity
27:02
Speaker 1: a problem to be solved. I mean, just listen to
27:05
Speaker 1: Ellen's struggle as she comes out to her friend Susan.
27:08
Speaker 4: I mean, why can't I just see the truth? I mean,
27:10
Speaker 4: be who I am.
27:11
Speaker 9: I'm thirty five years old.
27:13
Speaker 1: I'm so afraid to tell people.
27:14
Speaker 6: I mean, I just.
27:17
Speaker 4: Susan, I'm gay.
27:24
Speaker 1: Ellen was just baby Steps. But do you know what
27:27
Speaker 1: show wasn't Baby Steps? Will and Grace. That's the truth
27:32
Speaker 1: that so many critics missed. Yes, Getting Will and Grace
27:35
Speaker 1: greenlit at NBC meant that the character Will had to
27:39
Speaker 1: be essentially a straight guy who just claimed to be gay,
27:43
Speaker 1: and the screenwriters had to spend a full season pretending
27:46
Speaker 1: that Will and Grace might eventually get together. Gay characters
27:50
Speaker 1: could kiss, but not much else, and HIV could never
27:53
Speaker 1: come up at all, even though HIV was the central
27:56
Speaker 1: issue in gay life in the nineteen nineties. Will and
28:00
Speaker 1: Grace drove activists crazy, but they missed the point beneath
28:05
Speaker 1: that moderate exterior, Will and Grace was deeply subversive because
28:11
Speaker 1: it broke every one of DAW's rules. Gay character is
28:17
Speaker 1: central to the narrative.
28:18
Speaker 11: Check, Fyi, folks, most people that meet me do not
28:21
Speaker 11: know that I am gay.
28:22
Speaker 4: Jack, blind and deaf people.
28:24
Speaker 11: Know you're gay.
28:27
Speaker 1: Homosexuality not a problem to be solved. Check Am I
28:32
Speaker 1: a bad gay man?
28:33
Speaker 11: Yes?
28:36
Speaker 2: How can you answer that so easily?
28:38
Speaker 11: Because yesterday when I saw that you didn't leave me
28:40
Speaker 11: any milk for my coffee, I remember saying bad gay.
28:43
Speaker 1: In gay people hanging out with other gay people.
28:50
Speaker 6: Check have you asked anyone to dance? Have you talked
28:52
Speaker 6: to anybody?
28:53
Speaker 4: Have you done anything?
28:57
Speaker 11: Yeah? Like everyone's judging me.
28:59
Speaker 5: Well, of course they are at.
29:00
Speaker 1: The gay bar acknowledgment of gay desire. Check especially when
29:05
Speaker 1: Jack gets going here he is with Grace.
29:08
Speaker 4: Oh, have be useful.
29:09
Speaker 2: Help the man standing behind him with the big package.
29:12
Speaker 8: Grace, don't tease me? Well, Gray Sadler design, I'll sign
29:19
Speaker 8: both just your names for I don't need your phone number.
29:31
Speaker 1: On the Thursday night lineup, just before Will and Grace
29:35
Speaker 1: was friends, Friends didn't break any rules, nor did another
29:39
Speaker 1: stalwart of NBC's famous Thursday Night Seinfeld. Friends in Seinfeld
29:43
Speaker 1: are just variations on the theme of eccentric young white
29:46
Speaker 1: people implausibly living in vast New York City apartments. Will
29:51
Speaker 1: and Grace had eccentric people in a New York City
29:53
Speaker 1: apartment where something radical is happening below the surface.
29:58
Speaker 2: We knew that we had a win in the fact
30:01
Speaker 2: that there was an out gay man at the center
30:04
Speaker 2: of our show, and we were going to eventually, over time,
30:10
Speaker 2: show a very, very full.
30:11
Speaker 4: Life that people were choosing to identify with.
30:15
Speaker 2: To answer your question, I mean that is how we
30:19
Speaker 2: slowly fed this gay conspiracy to the American public.
30:24
Speaker 1: Max is joking about gay conspiracy, of course, but only slightly.
30:29
Speaker 1: Because what happens during the very same period that Will
30:33
Speaker 1: and Grace is breaking all four rules, something shifts in
30:37
Speaker 1: the culture. The idea that gay people are normal and
30:41
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be afraid of them starts to spread.
30:47
Speaker 1: In the mid nineties, before Will and Grace, only a
30:49
Speaker 1: quart of Americans were in favor of gay marriage. By
30:52
Speaker 1: the time the show was over, that percentage of those
30:55
Speaker 1: in favor of gay marriage had doubled. Now it's up
30:58
Speaker 1: to more than seventy percent, and everyone moved in that direction,
31:03
Speaker 1: young and old, black and white. A shift in public
31:06
Speaker 1: opinion almost without parallel in American history. The idea of
31:11
Speaker 1: gay marriage is mainstreamed.
31:15
Speaker 12: I think Will and Grace probably did more to educate
31:17
Speaker 12: the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far.
31:22
Speaker 1: Do you remember Joe Biden's famous comment on Meet the
31:25
Speaker 1: Press back in twenty twelve when he was Vice president.
31:29
Speaker 12: And I think people fear that which is different. Now
31:32
Speaker 12: they're beginning to understand.
31:34
Speaker 1: He was right. Even people on the other side of
31:37
Speaker 1: the gay marriage issue agreed. Listen to the former Republican
31:40
Speaker 1: Senator Rick Santorum, a longtime opponent of gay rights.
31:44
Speaker 4: Politics does not shape those issues.
31:48
Speaker 3: Culture shapes those issues.
31:50
Speaker 7: Could you go.
31:51
Speaker 3: Indition of marriage?
31:52
Speaker 8: Look at the sexual Revolution caused a big change in sexual.
31:55
Speaker 3: More raising discuss but when it came to.
31:57
Speaker 2: The issue of marriage.
32:01
Speaker 8: And changing the definition of marriage, there was no change,
32:05
Speaker 8: no zero for thirty years.
32:10
Speaker 2: And then a television show came on the air called
32:14
Speaker 2: Willem Grace.
32:21
Speaker 1: Could a television show today change minds in the way
32:25
Speaker 1: that Will and Grace changed minds? No, not a chance.
32:29
Speaker 1: Will and Grace started in the late nineteen nineties, right
32:32
Speaker 1: at the tail end of the Big Church era in
32:33
Speaker 1: broadcast television. It had an audience. Will and Grace at
32:38
Speaker 1: its peak had about seventeen and a half million viewers,
32:42
Speaker 1: which translates to a rating of about twelve. I watched
32:45
Speaker 1: Will and Grace all the time, so did everyone I knew.
32:48
Speaker 1: If you were in your late twenties or thirties in
32:50
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, you could sit down next to
32:53
Speaker 1: another young stranger on a bus on a Friday morning
32:56
Speaker 1: and say, can you believe that thing that Jack said
32:59
Speaker 1: to Karen last night? That was the bargain you made
33:02
Speaker 1: in the old television paradigm. You allowed Don Olmyer to
33:06
Speaker 1: scale back your ambitions and push you into the middle,
33:09
Speaker 1: but in return, you got to change the world to
33:12
Speaker 1: reach people. I called up Brian Feuher to find out
33:16
Speaker 1: what rating for a sitcom would make a network executive
33:19
Speaker 1: happy today. Fure is a senior vice president at the
33:23
Speaker 1: Nielsen Company, which has been providing ratings for the television
33:26
Speaker 1: industry for decades.
33:29
Speaker 5: I think if you get it at anything above a
33:31
Speaker 5: five or three or four, that would be wildly successful.
33:35
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So like a network executive today. Having a
33:39
Speaker 1: conversation with a network executive in nineteen seventy five about
33:43
Speaker 1: what would make them happy, they wouldn't even be speaking
33:45
Speaker 1: the same language now totally different. There's a funny thing.
33:49
Speaker 1: The guy who creates Will and Grace his sister is
33:51
Speaker 1: the person who created Orange Is a New Black. As
33:54
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful little comparison point. So I'm curious,
33:58
Speaker 1: can we estimate the viewership of something like Orange is
34:00
Speaker 1: a New Black.
34:00
Speaker 5: It would have done about a one rating for all
34:03
Speaker 5: the episodes across Netflix, maybe across the first week after
34:09
Speaker 5: a new season was released.
34:11
Speaker 1: At best, Oranges and New Black could have had a
34:14
Speaker 1: rating of one, and that made it a hit for
34:17
Speaker 1: its time. The peak rating for Will and Grace was twelve.
34:20
Speaker 1: David got a twelve, his sister got a one. And
34:24
Speaker 1: if your Netflix and mistakes for each of your shows
34:27
Speaker 1: are so small, why bother trying to play the mainstreaming
34:30
Speaker 1: game at all? Now? There is no suit in the
34:33
Speaker 1: corporate office who pushes you to the middle, no big
34:36
Speaker 1: boss who has to fly out from New York to
34:39
Speaker 1: give the okay. Instead, you get told go and make art,
34:45
Speaker 1: and when you come back with your little bit of
34:47
Speaker 1: unfettered creative genius. Netflix rows it on their platform along
34:52
Speaker 1: with its thousands of other offerings, where it is recommended
34:55
Speaker 1: to those Netflix subscribers who, on the basis of their
34:59
Speaker 1: previous viewing choices, are guaranteed to agree with every edgy
35:03
Speaker 1: thing your show has to say. We have redeemed television's
35:07
Speaker 1: soul at the price of its impact. Do me a favor,
35:14
Speaker 1: Go back and watch a few episodes of Will and Grace.
35:17
Speaker 1: We will never see anything like that again. Revisionist History
35:30
Speaker 1: is produced by Elouise Linton, Leeman Gestu, and Jacob Smith,
35:34
Speaker 1: with Tolly Emlin and Harrison VJ. Choi. Our editor is
35:38
Speaker 1: Julia Barton. Our executive producer is miil Obel. Original scoring
35:43
Speaker 1: by Luis Garra, mastering by Flon Williams and engineering by
35:46
Speaker 1: Nina Lawrence. Fact checking by Keishaw Williams. I'm Malcolm Glawa.