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Expanding TV's Idea of Family Guralnick From previous page TV lot of times there might be an hour preamble, which was always fascinating, in which Expanding TV’s Idea of Family he kind of mapped out the From Queer as Folk to The Fosters, Peter Paige philosophical territory. But is making prime time more inclusive | !" #$%& !'$() everything was fair game. Did you ever stop being the reporter or would you call &' ()' ( *+,-'./ +0- ABC Family’s The Fosters, an people occasionally showed your relationship with Phillips sessed with our own re1 ec- award-winning series about up on talk shows like Ricki a true friendship? tion, says Peter Paige, “only an interracial lesbian couple Lake and Donahue, gay As Sam said to me more than the mirror we are looking in and their blended family. characters on scripted series once, “My son Knox loved is the 42-inch plasma in our “As a kid I was so desper- tended to serve as either you from the time he % rst living rooms. We all want to ate to be a part of some- comic relief with obvious— met you. But I didn’t.” His be re1 ected there, and when thing, to feel validated by but unacknowledged—sex- view was, don’t let people get we don’t see ourselves, we companionship,” says Paige uality (Paul Lynde, Dom too close. Sometimes people feel invisible.” (CFA’91). “I was an only DeLuise) or as guest stars portray this as a 24-year For much of his Hollywood child and we moved a lot, so in “message episodes,” friendship, but it wasn’t. career, the actor, writer, and I never had that sort of privi- such as Archie Bunker’s Basically I came originally to director has striven to make lege of regional or ethnic linebacker friend Steve talk to him about the music, gay people more visible on identity that a lot of people on All in the Family. but Sam laid out a vision of television. He played Em- cling to. Being gay gave me a Paige knew he was part of freedom and nonconformity mett Honeycutt on Show- little bit of that, but it wasn’t a paradigm shift when, as a and individualism in the time’s groundbreaking Queer something I saw re1 ected young actor in Hollywood, extreme—I’m sure he would as Folk and is now a creator in the world.” he auditioned for the out, be saying it even more loudly and executive producer of Or on TV. Although gay proud, and often sexually today. This book is not a record of friendship, though over the years I would say our friendship grew. But it was a wonderful opportunity to observe and portray this person who had not only ac- complished so much but was a truly remarkable man in his own right. He might tell you about the eight electro- shock treatments he had in 1951, because he thought mental illness was nothing Peter Paige to be ashamed of. And yet he (far left) is the was the most positive person cocreator and I ever met. I’ve never inter- executive producer of the ABC Family viewed anyone with the idea drama The Fosters, of getting something out which follows an interracial lesbian of them they didn’t want to couple as they raise tell. And I try never to forget their family. that I’m there for subjects, they’re not there for me. Do you think Phillips would like the book? I think he’d love the book. I don’t mean that immod- estly. I tried to write a book that was sort of like a great epic novel—intimate, comic, and tragic. 54 !"#$"%&' Winter–Spring !"#$ 52-59_Bostonia_WS16.indd 54 1/28/16 12:38 PM Gallery explicit Queer as Folk. Based on a British series, the show followed the lives of a group of gay men in Pittsburgh. It presented a rounded portrait of a gay peer group, drama- tizing their romances, dis- putes, and bedroom behavior as matter-of-factly as if they were the Carringtons or the “Friends.” Paige’s character, Emmett, was funny, & amboyant, and highly sexual, with a turn as a porn actor and an a' air with a closeted pro quar- terback among his story- lines. Queer as Folk, which ran from 2000 to 2005, was part of a TV continuum from Ellen to Will & Grace to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that Paige believes helped shape audiences’ evolving attitudes toward the LGBTQ community. Paige had change in mind when he and writing partner Brad Bredeweg created The Fosters. The show follows police o( cer Stef Foster (Teri Polo) and school administrator Lena Adams (Sherri Saum) as they raise their brood of biological, adopted, and fos- ter children, mostly teenag- ers whose romances, identity issues, and acting out pro- vide the drama. While the show doesn’t feature the sex romps that made Queer as Folk a sensation, the mild- ↑ er domestic drama may NEW WORK FROM PAINTER etching, was “a way for me to Studio XXXVII have an even more signifi- PERI SCHWARTZ get out of my studio and work 52” x 44” cant impact on viewers, in techniques that are not as Oil on canvas " Paige says. Peri Schwartz (CFA’73), whose natural and direct as drawing 2015 “When fans of Queer as primary subject is the interior and painting,” says Schwartz, Folk see me, they feel like of her studio in New Rochelle, who has a Bachelor of Fine FACING PAGE FACING ! they know me, like I was N.Y., will show her work in the Arts from Boston University how I think of color when I at the gay bar with them solo exhibition Constructing and a Master of Fine Arts return to painting. I am also just last week,” Paige says. from Life March 4 to 26, 2016, from Queens College. “The keenly aware of the tradition “Now, with The Fosters, we at the Page Bond Gallery in immediacy is substituted with of painters who make prints, get stopped by moms saying, Richmond, Va. Last fall, she a more analytical process. A and would like to be a part ‘Thank you, I never thought collaborated with Manhattan print goes through different of it.” See more of Schwartz’s I’d see my family on TV,’ master printer Gregory Burnet states, and there is a clear art, and watch a video of her and 13-year-old kids saying, on a color etching that was record of how it develops. collaboration with Burnet ‘I never thought I’d see my based on one of Schwartz’s Color is much different in an on the color etching, at COURTESY OF ABC FAMILY/ERIC MCCANDLESS MCCANDLESS ABC FAMILY/ERIC OF COURTESY parents on TV.’” monotypes. Creating the etching, and that informs perischwartz.com. Winter–Spring !"#$ !"#$"%&' 55 52-59_Bostonia_WS16.indd 55 1/28/16 12:39 PM.
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