Jodie Dallas | |
---|---|
Soap character | |
First appearance | Episode 1.1 |
Last appearance | Episode 4.16 |
Created by | Susan Harris |
Portrayed by | Billy Crystal |
In-universe information | |
Occupation | Television commercial director |
Family | Johnny Dallas (father, deceased) Mary Campbell (mother) Burt Campbell (step-father) Danny Dallas (half-brother) Scott Campbell (half-brother) Chuck Campbell (step-brother) Peter Campbell (step-brother) |
Significant other | Dennis Phillips Carol David Alice Maggie Chandler |
Children | Wendy |
Relatives | The Major (grandfather) Randolph Gatling (uncle) Jessica Tate (aunt) Chester Tate (uncle by marriage) Corinne Tate Flotsky (cousin) Eunice Tate Leitner (cousin) Billy Tate (cousin) Timmy Flotsky (first cousin once removed) |
Jodie Dallas is a fictional character from the 1977 American sitcom Soap . He was played by Billy Crystal. The son of central character Mary Campbell, Jodie works as a television commercial director. Jodie was among the first gay characters on American television. Despite being gay, Jodie fathered a child through a one-night stand, and many of his storylines throughout the series centered on his involvement with women. Jodie had relationships with two other women but maintained throughout the series that he was still gay. The series ended with Jodie, as the result of hypnotherapy, believing he was an elderly Jewish man.
Jodie Dallas was a source of controversy for the series. Religious organizations disapproved of his sexual orientation, while gay rights groups worried that his portrayal would be stereotypical.
Jodie Dallas is a young gay man living in his mother's home. He makes his living directing television commercials. He is in a romantic relationship with Dennis Phillips (Bob Seagren), a professional football player. Jodie enters the hospital to have sex reassignment surgery so that he and Dennis can legally marry. However, Dennis breaks up with him out of fear of exposure. Jodie attempts suicide by overdose but survives, although he remains depressed. He meets Carol David (Rebecca Balding), the assistant to the lawyer defending his Aunt Jessica on murder charges. Carol convinces him to go away with her for the weekend and, despite his being gay, they have a one-night stand. The two move in together and shortly thereafter Carol tells Jodie she is pregnant. Despite Dennis's pleas to take him back, Jodie decides to stay with the mother of his child. They plan to marry but Carol leaves Jodie at the altar.
Carol returns to tell Jodie that she does not want him to be a part of her baby's life. A depressed Jodie meets Alice (Randee Heller), an equally depressed lesbian, and they become roommates, eventually briefly trying to date. Carol's mother (Peggy Pope) shows up with his infant daughter, Wendy (Jenna Kay Starr). She offers him custody but only if he agrees to make Alice move out. Jodie chooses his daughter over his friend.
Carol returns again and sues Jodie for custody. Despite Carol and her mother's lying about him under oath, Jodie wins custody; Carol vows revenge. She kidnaps Wendy and Jodie hires private investigator Maggie Chandler (Barbara Rhoades) to find them. After tracking them across the country they rescue Wendy and Jodie proposes to Maggie. However, to be sure that his relationship with Maggie is real, Jodie decides to see a therapist. He emerges from a hypnotherapy session believing that he is a 90-year-old Jewish man named Julius Kassendorf.
Jodie Dallas was one of the first regular gay characters on American television. Sources frequently identify him as the first, but that distinction actually belongs to Peter Panama of the short-lived 1972 series The Corner Bar . [1] Religious organizations were appalled by Soap before it aired based on reports of its contents, including its gay character and also its treatment of such subjects as adultery and impotence. Donald Wildmon of the National Federation for Decency mounted a letter-writing campaign, [2] which in conjunction with similar campaigns mounted by more mainstream religious organization like the National Council of Churches, the United States Catholic Conference, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Life Conference of the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church, [3] generated an estimated 20,000 [4] to 32,000 [2] pieces of mail before the series ever aired.
Gay groups were concerned about the character's portrayal as an apparent conflation of a gay man, a transvestite and a transsexual. They also criticized how Jodie's brother Danny continually denied Jodie's homosexuality, dismissing his declarations of it as jokes. Activists had mounted several large-scale demonstrations against individual episodes of the series Marcus Welby, M.D. ("The Other Martin Loring" in 1973 [5] and "The Outrage" in 1974 [6] ) and Police Woman ("Flowers of Evil", also in 1974 [7] ). Newton Dieter of the Gay Media Task Force (GMTF), who had been consulting with the networks on LGBT characterizations for several years, reviewed the scripts for the first two episodes. He wrote to Tom Kersey, the head of ABC's Los Angeles Standards and Practices office, suggesting that the sex-change aspect of the character be dropped in favor of making Jodie a committed gay liberationist. Although not directly threatening action, Dieter advised Kersey that Welby/Police Woman-style demonstrations were possible should the character remain as portrayed in the first two episodes. [8] In July 1977, representatives of GMTF, the National Gay Task Force and a hitherto unknown organization called the International Union of Gay Athletes [9] [note 1] met with the network and came away reassured that the character would develop beyond stereotypes, that his brother Danny would become more understanding of Jodie's sexuality and that the sex change storyline would be dropped. [10]
ABC's Standards and Practices department advised that Jodie should not be portrayed in a stereotypical fashion. At the same time it mandated that his relationship with Dennis could not be portrayed as either "explicit" or "intimate". In other words, they were not allowed to touch. [11]
Soap premiered September 17, 1977. As the network had advised the gay groups, Danny's attitude toward Jodie's sexual orientation changed and the sex change storyline was wrapped up within the first several episodes. [10] [note 2] There were no known protests from the LGBT community. Although after his breakup with Dennis, Jodie became involved romantically with several women and his same-sex relationship activity was limited to a single date in one episode, the character maintained that he was gay throughout the complete run of the series.
Soap is an American sitcom television series that originally ran on ABC from September 13, 1977, until April 20, 1981. The show was created as a nighttime parody of daytime soap operas, presented as a weekly half-hour prime time comedy. Similar to a soap opera, the show's story was presented in a serial format, and featured melodramatic plotlines including alien abduction, demonic possession, extramarital affairs, murder, kidnapping, unknown diseases, amnesia, cults, organized crime warfare, a communist revolution and teacher-student relationships. In 2007, it was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME", and in 2010, the Tates and the Campbells ranked at number 17 in TV Guide's list of "TV's Top Families".
Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television series that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to May 4, 1976. It starred Robert Young as the title character, a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, who made house calls and was on a first-name basis with many of his patients; James Brolin as his partner Steven Kiley, a younger doctor; and Elena Verdugo as Consuelo Lopez, Welby and Kiley's dedicated and caring nurse/office manager.
Lena Kundera and Bianca Montgomery are fictional characters from the American daytime drama All My Children. Commonly referred to by the portmanteau "Lianca", they were the first lesbian couple on an American soap opera. Lena was portrayed by Olga Sosnovska, and Bianca was portrayed by Eden Riegel. Lena and Bianca's romance "quickly became a hit with viewers" and regularly surpassed older more established heterosexual couples for the number 1 spot on Internet and soap opera magazine readers' polls. The characters are the first to share a same-sex kiss in American soap opera history.
"The Homosexuals" is a 1967 episode of the documentary television series CBS Reports. The hour-long broadcast featured a discussion of a number of topics related to homosexuality and homosexuals. Mike Wallace anchored the episode, which aired on March 7, 1967. Although this was the first network documentary dealing with the topic of homosexuality, it was not the first televised in the United States. That was The Rejected, produced and aired in 1961 on KQED, a public television station in San Francisco.
The "lesbian kiss episode" is a subgenre of the media portrayal of lesbianism in American television media, created in the 1990s. Beginning in February 1991 with a kiss on the American L.A. Law series' episode "He's a Crowd" between C.J. Lamb and Abby Perkins, David E. Kelley, who wrote the episode in question, went on to use the trope in at least two of his other shows. Subsequent television series included an episode in which a seemingly heterosexual female character engages in a kiss with a possibly lesbian or bisexual character. In most instances, the potential of a relationship between the women does not survive past the episode and the lesbian or suspected lesbian never appears again.
The Rejected is a made-for-television documentary film about homosexuality, produced for KQED in San Francisco by John W. Reavis. Notable as the first documentary program on homosexuality broadcast on American television, KQED first aired the film on September 11, 1961. Later syndicated to National Educational Television (NET) stations across the United States, it received positive critical reviews.
"The Outrage" is a 1974 episode of Marcus Welby, M.D., a long-running American medical drama on ABC. The episode tells the story of a teenage boy who is raped by his male teacher. The episode, which originally aired October 8, 1974, sparked controversy and anger for its equation of homosexuality to pedophilia. "The Outrage" was targeted for protests by LGBT rights groups and several network affiliates refused to broadcast it.
"The Other Martin Loring" is a 1973 episode of Marcus Welby, M.D., an American medical drama that aired on ABC. It tells the story of a middle-aged man facing several health issues, which seem to stem from his repression of his homosexuality. The episode aired on February 20, 1973, and was met with concern and protests from LGBT rights activists for its equating of homosexuality and illness.
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"Flowers of Evil" is a 1974 episode of the American police procedural television series Police Woman. The episode features Sgt. Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson going undercover at a nursing home to investigate a murder. She uncovers a trio of lesbians who are robbing and murdering their elderly residents. The episode, the eighth of the first season, originally aired on November 8, 1974.
"He's a Crowd" is a 1991 episode of the American legal drama L.A. Law. In it, attorney Michael Kuzak defends a man with multiple personalities accused of murder, attorney Rosalind Shays helps her lover Leland McKenzie help a client, attorney Arnie Becker's divorce proceeds and attorneys Abby Perkins and C.J. Lamb work together to raise Abby's profile at the firm and find themselves sharing an intimate moment. It is the 12th episode of season 5 and was written by David E. Kelley.
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