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Seen and Heard at GLAAD at 25 event

Steven Weber

Chaz Bono

Steven Weber, Jean Smart, Wilson Cruz, Doris Roberts, Chaz Bono, Amanda Heard, Michael Kearns, Holly Robinson Peete, Michelle Clunie, and Jai Rodruguez were among the stars who turned up art Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood on Friday night to celebrate the 25th anniversary of GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

GLAAD was first formed in 1985 in New York to protest the New York Post’s coverage of AIDS. In the decades since, the organization went on to push for several changes throughout the media by working with newsrooms and television and film studios.

Presenter Holly Robinson Peete talked about GLAAD’s meeting with Mel Gibson over homophobic scenes in Braveheart (the actor-director’s name drew hisses from the crowd as did Anita Bryant’s).

“After Bird on a Wire, Man Without a Face and Braveheart, Gibson finally agreed to meet with GLAAD and nine young LGBT filmmakers,” Robinson Peete said. “A lot of good that did. … Braveheart won the Academy Award for best picture of the year , GLAAD protested it. … Mel Gibson finally proves the world right [about' what we were talking about years ago."

Wilson Cruz

Presenter Wilson Cruz, whose character of Ricky Vasquez on ABC's My So-Called Life was the first gay teen on network prime time TV, reflected on the early days of GLAAD: "It was astonishing how much education about LGBT issues they had to do. Once at a meeting when mentioning that Michaelangelo and Da Vinci were gay, one executive thought that we were referring to the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Cruz added that there was "massive misinformation, stereotyping and just plain defamation. ...  Even well-meaning executives needed to have it explained that there was no one gay lifestyle or that it was a sexual preference and that the only choice we were making was whether to be closeted or out."

Presenter Michael Kearns, who has been an out actor for 35 years, told the audience:  "It was lonely at the beginning. But you have to understand that people were scared to come out, they felt that they would be ending their careers by being stigmatized and never cast. But for many actors, it was hard to speak up. Then all of a sudden, there was a movement speaking up on their behalf.."

Kearns talked about GLAAD's work going into workplaces and having meetings with development people about homophobia and gay and lesbian stereotypes and images. Talking about the richness of the community. Working on educating media, newsrooms, the production houses, TV and radio stations.

http://www.insidesocal.com/outinhollywood/jeansmart.jpgActress Jean Smart, a three-time Emmy winner, told the crowd inside Harmony Gold:  I was a lesbian since before GLAAD was born. At least on the stage. [In the LA and New York productions of Last Summer At Bluefish Cove in 1980 and 1981] When there was almost no, no positive gay images of any kind in the media so the play really struck a nerve with the audiences, you could see a real hunger for people to see themselves and their lives being reflected. It was an exhilarating run and I still consider it one of the highlights of my career.”

Smart, currently a regular on CBS’s Hawaii Five-O, had her first experience with GLAAD while playing the role of Charlene on the classic sitcom Designing Women.

Designing Women got a GLAAD Media Award for best comedy episode called “Suzanne Goes Looking For a Friend,” Smart recalled. “Suzanne Sugarbaker, played by the imitable Delta Burke, mistakes her friend’s coming out as her emergence into society at a debutant ball. It was a very funny episode and it used humor to spotlight what it meant to be a lesbian in this country at that time. There were not that many LGBT images in television or film. So any positive or balanced character was cause for celebration.”

It was given during the very first GLAAD Media Awards ceremony in Los Angeles: “I’m very happy to have been part of something historic at this event,” Smart said.

Jarret Barrios

GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios talked about “25 years of watchdog work against homophobic images in the media from Bob Hope and Andy Rooney to Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly. From Andrew Dice Clay to 50 Cent. … We believe that a world that respects LGBT people, doesn’t have room for stereotyped images and insulting humor that degrades us.”

He added: “Who would have imagined so many people would go online for their news, that television would include hundreds of stations and blogs and Facebook would have so much power. Who would have imagined this technological evolution would leave GLAAD to give up its phone trees and the fax machines in favor of email and Twitter to call our members to action.”

Steven Weber had one of the funnier lines of the night when talking about the annual GLAAD Media Awards when positive LGBT portrayals and coverage in the media are honored. He referred to the event as “the gayer Oscars.”

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The first Executive Director of GLAAD’s LA chapter, Richard Jennings, was presented with the GLAAD Founders Award. He had left his job at Paramount in the mid-80s and lived off his savings to help form GLAAD.

He called Friday night’s event “really like the greatest high school reunion ever” as it was attended by many former board members and featured video montages of moments from the organization’s first quarter-century.

Jennings said: “The steady stream of negative portrayals and censorship of gay and lesbian lives on film and in television has given way to much more realistic and life-affirming depictions, such as this year’s The Kids Are All Right and TV’s Glee.”

Jonathan Murray, co-creator of MTV’s The Real World, received the Pioneer Award. From the first of what is now 25 seasons of the show, he made sure it regularly included gay and lesbian cast members.

“I think it’s because it was real,” he said on stage. “How can you argue with something that’s real?”

Coming this week: Interviews with Steven Weber, Doris Roberts, Wilson Cruz, Jonathan Murray, Jai Rodriguez and Michelle Clunie!

FILE UNDER: Benefits, GLAAD

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