CBS Reports: The Homosexuals
| "The Homosexuals" | |
|---|---|
| CBS Reports episode | |
Mike Wallace interviews a homosexual whose identity is concealed in shadow.
|
|
| Written by |
Mike Wallace William Peters Harry Morgan |
| Original air date | March 7, 1967 |
"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.
Three years in the making, The Homosexuals went through two producers and multiple revisions. The episode included interviews with several gay men, psychiatrists, legal experts and cultural critics, interspersed with footage of a gay bar and a police sex sting. The Homosexuals garnered mixed critical response. The network received praise from some quarters and criticism from others for even airing the program.
The program was initially proposed in 1964. The first version was produced by William Peters, with production supervised by executive producer Fred W. Friendly. Upon accepting the assignment, Peters began his research by reading books and consulting with experts in the field. Peters suggested that the program focus exclusively on gay men and that he cover lesbians in a second program, and Friendly agreed. Principal filming took place starting in the fall of 1964 and continued through early 1965. Peters interviewed men in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Charlotte and New York City, accumulating 30 hours of footage. The identities of several of the men were obscured in some fashion, either in shadow or, in one instance, behind a large potted palm tree. Also interviewed were psychiatrist Charles Socarides, who strongly advocated the position that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and fellow psychiatrist Irving Bieber, who shared Socarides' opinion of homosexuality as pathology. Interspersed with these interview segments was footage, described as being in the cinéma vérité style, of the inside of a gay bar along with shots of hustlers working a street corner and a teenager being arrested in a public sex sting.
...
Wikipedia