Badpuppy Gay Today

Tuesday, 27 May 1997

The May 19 re-run episode of Sesame Street featured a guest spot by Ellen Degeneres, who had made other appearances on the children's show throughout the past season. In upcoming months, Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the show's producers, plans to re-run five more of the episodes in which she is featured. When the repeat broadcast was aired on the 19th, following Degeneres' highly publicized coming out, a number of people contacted CTW, criticizing them for including an openly lesbian celebrity as a role model in a children's show. CTW responded in a statement, saying that "although we respect the rights of parents who differ with us, Children's Television Workshop believes that all the celebrities we have on Sesame Street are appropriate role models. Their function is to both educate and give children a positive self-image. For 29 years, Children's Television Workshop has believed in the inclusion of all different people on our show. We continue to believe in and support that."

By continuing to air Degeneres' skits and publicly support her as a role model for youngsters everywhere, Children's Television Workshop is telling parents and children that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are part of the fabric of our diverse society and that we are as deserving of respect and admiration as our heterosexual counterparts.

In another development highlighting Anne Heche's budding relationship with Ellen Degeneres, a film company, Nulmage, is reissuing an obscure movie in which Heche enjoys a lesbian relationship. This film, Wild Side, stars Heche playing a role that surfaced early in her career, and includes Joan Chen and Christopher Walken. Wild Side was never shown in theaters, though Nulmage spent $3.5 million in production costs. The company refused to release a full-length version Wide Side. Sex scenes in the film made it seem certain that it would get an NC-17 rating.``The moment you go with an unrated version or NC-17, you eliminate a lot of potential sales,'' says Avi Lerner, says Nulmage's CEO.

A censored version of the film was shown on HBO in February 1996. Nulmage is now re-editing the film for video, hoping to take advantage of the new "lesbian" notoriety of Heche, who has sex scenes with Walken, Chen and Steven Bauer.``This picture is really something you haven't seen before on any screen,'' Lerner said. ``Every man will have something to keep in his home, and it's something every woman would like to see.''

________________________________________________________________________________ To thank Children's Television Workshop and PBS for their support of Ellen Degeneres and of our communities, and for their continued inclusion of a diverse array of people in their programming, GLAAD suggests contacting: Kathy Quattrone, Programming Vice President, PBS, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, VA 22314-1698, FAX: 703.739.5295, WWW: www.pbs.org; David Britt, President, Children's Television Workshop, 1 Lincoln Plaza, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10023, fax: 212.875.6104, e-mail: ctw-comments@ctw.org ________________________________________________________________________________