A look back at several prime-time moments from American network television over the past 25 years reflecting changes in portrayal of gay male characters in prime-time soaps.

It would be interesting to look at which has portrayed the lgbt community better–primetime soaps or daytime soaps. If Young and the Restless is any indication, I’m going with the former.

Anyone watch the Amazing Race? I’ve been following it this season mainly ’cause of the gay brothers Sam & Dan, and I was soooo glad when Lance and Keri left last week. I also kind of have a crush on Miss USA Erica’s husband Brian, but that’s another story.

But I could not BELIEVE that Mika threw away $1 milion because the bitch did not want to go down a simple water slide WITH FLOATIES!!! If I were her husband I would’ve been crying in frustration.

Some of you may remember Jack Mackenroth as a former contestant on Bravo’s Project Runway (now on Lifetime).

He ended up having to leave the competition early because of a staph infection but he’s still kept a relatively high profile compared to other past contestants.

Now he’s upset with Oprah because of a show she recently did on HIV.  He’s written an open letter to her, blasting the show for it’s irresponsible take on the virus.

His first grievance was with the fact that some of the HIV positive women who appeared on the program chose to wear disguises.

I understand that there is a huge stigma about being HIV positive but if they wanted to remain anonymous then they should not have gone on national television! By appearing in disguise they only reaffirmed the idea that being honest and open about having HIV is NOT OK. That was a huge disservice to the HIV community. By not being open and honest they sent the message that people with HIV should hide and keep it a secret, which only adds to the stigma of living with the disease. Would someone with cancer wear a disguise? If we are taught that HIV is shameful then how can we expect people to willingly go get tested?

He also took issue with HIV positive individuals being referred to as a “loaded gun”.

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Chocolate hottie Mehcad Brooks whom you may recognize from HBO’s True Blood or from season two of Desperate Housewives reveals in an interview with Honey Magazine that he refuses to get married until gay people have the same right.

Do you consider yourself the marrying kind? Do you want that?
I haven’t even gotten that far. But yeah, I want a wife, I want kids. The whole thing. But I’m also not even concerned with marrying somebody until it’s legal for everybody to get married. And what I mean by that is the whole Prop 8 thing.

Why is that cause so important to you?
I find it really offensive. I just find it really problematic when you start throwing people’s rights away. Until we get our gay brothers and sisters back into a realm of consciousness that everyone else is in, it’s just not right. A woman who’s getting married — it’s probably going to be a gay man who made her dress, and a gay man who’s doing her hair and makeup, but he can’t get married. How messed up is that?

His next project is a film by X-Files creator Chris Carter called Fencewalkers, which for whatever reason still has no plot description listed.

Now I’m off to finally watch the True Blood finale!

69 year old Kathryn Joosten of Desperate Housewives has been diagnosed with lung cancer.  You’ll know her as Mrs. McCluskey, or as Mrs. Landingham from The West Wing.  This is a recurrence of cancer she battled back in 2001.

She tells EW:

“I’ve got a little hang up here,” she said of the battle she faces. “But we’re going to handle it and move forward. I’m doing great.” The 69-year-old, who also played Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, says her treatment may disrupt shooting on the ABC series.

And People:

The actress broke the news to her Housewives producers Monday morning as she expects her shooting schedule could be interrupted for treatment. “They’re totally supportive,” she says. “I said, ‘If you want to put it in the story line, do it! Tell anybody you want, because the public’s going to know.’ “

Joosten has won two Primetime Emmy awards for her work on Desperate Housewives and is beloved by the devoted fans of the program as the pesky, outspoken but lovable neighbor who feuded with Lynette back in season one.  I know the statistics for lung cancer aren’t very good, but I hope she can pull through.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes with Lynette and Mrs. McCluskey.

A male reporter embarrassed himself and George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival when he removed his shirt and proclaimed he wanted George to “take him now”.

Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh talk more about “The Informant”, the film where Damon had to gain 30 lbs to play a man who blows the whistle on his company’s price-fixing scheme.

A gay man in Thunder Bay, Canada was brutally beaten by six to eight men with bricks, and will now require reconstructive surgery to deal with the damage done to his face.

Openly gay Representative Barney Frank is eyeing a position in the Obama cabinet.  I doubt it will happen, but if it did he’d be the first gay person ever in the Presidential cabinet.

Ntozake Shange was slated to write and direct the film adaptation of her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, but now Tyler Perry has stolen the entire film from her.

Female UK prison officer wins case against correctional facility she claims treated her unfairly for being young, female, and pretty.

More tour dates have been canceled for homophobic Jamaican singer Buju Banton.  One of his most popular songs talks about shooting gays and burning their bodies.

Proud, admitted homophobe Tim Hardaway is now working hard to save gay lives.  He says “we don’t have to accept the act, but we have to accept them as people.” How generous of you.

Gay screenwriter/director Mike White is at the helm of a new HBO comedy pilot starring the fabulous Laura Dern, who caught HBO’s attention with her priceless portrayal of Katherine Harris in the movie Recount.

The Hollywood Reporter scoops:

Mike White and Laura Dern’s comedy project at HBO is moving forward with a pilot order from the network.

The single-camera comedy, tentatively titled “Enlightened,” stars Dern as a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and becomes determined to live an enlightened life, creating havoc at home and work.

“The only thing I can think of cooler than making a show at HBO is doing it with Laura Dern,” White said. “I am totally stoked.”

I’m a huge fan of Mike’s because of his films The Good Girl (one of my favorites of all time) and Chuck and Buck.  Not so into School of Rock, Nacho Libre, and Year of the Dog, but hey, at least we have a gay screenwriter out there that’s making movies that appeal to mainstream audiences.

I’m falling madly in love with this segment. The commentary on gay representation in the media is always on point and hilarious.

I too, am sick of seeing gay characters (specifically gay men) fluttering about trying to solve straight people’s problems. We have plenty of our own.

Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus 8 fame did an interview with Good Morning America to set the record straight and let his voice be heard about the saga with his wife Kate post their high profile break-up.  I haven’t read all the details about what ended their relationship but as someone who used to be a loyal viewer of the program I have to say the reason I stopped watching it was because I couldn’t stand how Kate treated Jon in most episodes.

She was a serious control freak and constantly dominating him all the time, and as he says, she verbally abused him and even slapped him on the face on numerous occasions (and actually thought it was cute and funny), as shown by the clip.  I don’t like seeing people being treated unfairly or taken advantage of by their partners regardless of their sex. 

A lot of attention is paid to the diversity displayed on the small screen but Entertainment Weekly has an interesting piece discussing the race and gender of the people behind the scenes in the world of television. They mention some of our most successful and celebrated television show creators and producers like J.J. Abrams, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, Aaron Spelling, David E. Kelley, and the list goes on. Forces to be reckoned with in the television industry who have had a number of successes. But where are the people of color? Where are the women?

Even the shows that are female-centric like The Closer, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, –they’re all created by white men. EW cites Shonda Rhimes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice as well as Silvio Horta of Ugly Betty as some examples of non-white and non-male entities but Horta’s only success thus far has been Ugly Betty and Rhimes’ Private Practice’s long term success has yet to be seen.

But there are some up and coming women whose careers seem promising.

There are, certainly, a few up and coming female executive producers these days: Rebecca Sinclair (an alum of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls), who turned The CW’s 90210 remake around; Stephanie Savage, who’s given both The O.C. and Gossip Girl bite (even though she takes second billing to the more auteur-ish Josh Schwartz);

The L Word’s Ilene Chaiken; and Weeds’ Jenji Kohan. Tina Fey’s one of the few female voices on the Big Four — and she’s clearly one of the most unique (not to mention critically drooled-over). But none of those ladies has gotten the chance to prove she’s more than a one-hit wonder.

Tyler Perry has had much success with his multi-camera sitcom House of Payne on CBS, and as everyone knows, has had enormous success with his feature films, but again, Payne is his only television success and we still have no examples of television giants like the aforementioned who don’t have white skin or a penis.  A few more examples of creative forces of color:

Larry Wilmore won accolades (and an Emmy) for The Bernie Mac Show, but he’s now taken to more freelance work — appearing on The Daily Show, writing for/appearing on The Office, and authoring books.

And in perhaps the ultimate statement on the fate of female and minority would-be auteurs, Mara Brock Akil — who created the long-running UPN/CW sitcoms Girlfriends and The Game, some of the last vestiges of African-American-targeted programming — has joined the writing staff of ABC’s Cougar Town (created by Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence) to make the jokes on the Courteney Cox vehicle more organically female.

This information is troubling but not shocking, as the most recent report on the demographic breakdown of writers in Hollywood was quite bleak for women. According to the Hollywood Writers Report done by the Writers Guild of America, only 28% of the writers for television were female. Does that really make sense to you when more than 50% of the U.S. population is made up of women?