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Early reality television aimed to be simply a ‘ slice of life’ , depicting the every-day lives of
the day-to-day public. But our appetite for so-called ‘ fly on the wall’ documentaries was
limited. We wanted to be entertained with glamour, not challenged by real topics.
But when TV producers became faced with more and more channels to fill, there came
a need for cheaper, quickly produced shows. And what could be better than to get the
audience to produce their own entertainment with the only payment being the promise
of fame? With new technology meaning it was easier to produce and edit vast amounts of
material, producers found ever more innovative ways to bend our taste and bring reality
to the fore.
And if you are going to capture reality as it is, then LGBTs can’ t be ignored. From the
earliest reality shows, whether explicitly said or not, LGBTs have been a feature. And it all
started with a rather eccentric American teenager!
TV producers Alan and Susan Raymond planned to do a
show which was to capture family life in 1970s America.
The plan was to choose four normal families from the North,
South, East and West and film their lives for several months.
The first family that the Raymonds came across was the
Louds, an upper-middle class family from Santa Barbara.
They started filming and soon realised that with a marriage
on the rocks and a gay son, this family was more than enough
to fill the whole series. The idea of another three families was
dropped.
During the series, Lance, the eldest son, came out to his
family. His father found it hard to deal with and the series followed the precocious Lance as
he planned a future as a musician and an out gay man in what was still a very homophobic
country. He was a dramatic, charismatic over-thinker who spent a lot of time contemplating
the bigger things in life but for the viewing public, he was the first ever ‘real’ gay man many
of them had seen. His passion and lust for life endeared him to many and gay rights groups
were generally happy with the portrayal, even though it sparked outrage and controversy
among viewers. At least, at last, the country was discussing gay issues.
Lance attempted a career in music, but it was hard to become famous for anything other than
the show. He eventually settled as a journalist and sadly his drug use lead to Loud contracting
hepatitis C and HIV. When he entered a hospice, he called the Raymonds and asked if they
wanted to do a follow-up to The American Family and film his last few days. They agreed and
the follow-up documentary received a large and on the whole, sympathetic audience.
An American Family – 1973
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