The Rejected
Encyclopedia
The Rejected is a documentary film
about homosexuality
, produced for KQED in San Francisco by John W. Reavis,
The Rejected was the first documentary program on homosexuality broadcast on American television. It initially ran on September 11, 1961, and was later syndicated to National Educational Television
(NET) stations across the country. The Rejected received positive critical reviews upon airing.
movement, wrote up his idea for The Rejected in 1960. Reavis originally titled the documentary The Gay Ones. He explained his goals for the program in his proposal:
Thus, Reavis approached the topic from the standpoint of homosexuality being a social problem akin to alcoholism
or prostitution
. This echoed how many earlier programs, often produced as episodes of local talk shows, addressed homosexuality with shows bearing such titles as "Homosexuals and the Problems They Present" and "Homosexuality: A Psychological Approach". The Rejected focused exclusively on gay men, with no representation of lesbian
s. Reavis expressed his reluctance to include lesbians in his proposal: Commercial stations turned down the program, as did sponsors. KQED bought the project in early 1961 under the new title. The documentary was shot entirely in the KQED studio except for one segment on location at the Black Cat Bar
, a San Francisco gay bar
that had been fighting state and police harassment since 1948. Reavis and co-producer Irving Saraf filmed The Rejected on a budget of less than $100.
Reavis and director Richard Christian utilized the talk show
format, breaking down the subject matter into a series of smaller topics. Each segment included one or more subject matter experts discussing homosexuality from a different perspective. Within each segment, Reavis presented a stereotype about homosexuality and then challenged the validity of that stereotype through the expert interviews. His goal, as he noted in his original proposal, was to give the viewer "a feeling he is confused and that society as a whole is confused about homosexuality". Experts interviewed for the program included:
KQED station manager James Day
opened the documentary by reading a statement from California
's then-Attorney General Stanley Mosk
:
described it as handling the topic in a "matter-of-fact down-the-middle manner, covering it quite thoroughly and, for the most part, interestingly". Terrence O'Flaherty, critic for the San Francisco Chronicle
, concurred, praising KQED for its courage in addressing the subject matter, as did the San Francisco Examiner, which said the program "handled [the topic] soberly, calmly and in great depth". Of the letters KQED received, which numbered in the hundreds, 97% were positive and many of the writers encouraged the station to make more programs like it. Dorian Book Service out of San Francisco published a transcript of The Rejected, and close to 400 people ordered copies. KQED syndicated The Rejected to NET channels across the country; it aired on as many of 40 of the 55 NET stations and was repeated on educational stations in 1963 and 1964. Conservative members of the gay community were pleased with how the Mattachine members presented themselves as ordinary people, an image that differed from the perception held by many outside the community. Some more radical activists, including Frank Kameny and Randy Wicker
, found the program wanting for the apologetic tone it took toward homosexuality.
In 2002, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
presented KQED with the first Pioneer Award
, in recognition of its production of The Rejected as the beginning of a long history of LGBT-related programming.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, produced for KQED in San Francisco by John W. Reavis,
The Rejected was the first documentary program on homosexuality broadcast on American television. It initially ran on September 11, 1961, and was later syndicated to National Educational Television
National Educational Television
National Educational Television was an American non-commercial educational public television network in the United States from May 16, 1954 to October 4, 1970...
(NET) stations across the country. The Rejected received positive critical reviews upon airing.
Production
Reavis, an independent producer who was apparently unconnected to the homophileHomophile
The word homophile is an alternative to the word for homosexual or gay. The homophile movement also refers to the gay rights movement of the 1950s and '60s....
movement, wrote up his idea for The Rejected in 1960. Reavis originally titled the documentary The Gay Ones. He explained his goals for the program in his proposal:
Thus, Reavis approached the topic from the standpoint of homosexuality being a social problem akin to alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
or prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. This echoed how many earlier programs, often produced as episodes of local talk shows, addressed homosexuality with shows bearing such titles as "Homosexuals and the Problems They Present" and "Homosexuality: A Psychological Approach". The Rejected focused exclusively on gay men, with no representation of lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s. Reavis expressed his reluctance to include lesbians in his proposal: Commercial stations turned down the program, as did sponsors. KQED bought the project in early 1961 under the new title. The documentary was shot entirely in the KQED studio except for one segment on location at the Black Cat Bar
Black Cat Bar
The Black Cat Bar or Black Cat Café was a bar in San Francisco, California. It opened in 1906 and closed in 1921. The Black Cat re-opened in 1933 and operated for another 30 years...
, a San Francisco gay bar
Gay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities...
that had been fighting state and police harassment since 1948. Reavis and co-producer Irving Saraf filmed The Rejected on a budget of less than $100.
Reavis and director Richard Christian utilized the talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
format, breaking down the subject matter into a series of smaller topics. Each segment included one or more subject matter experts discussing homosexuality from a different perspective. Within each segment, Reavis presented a stereotype about homosexuality and then challenged the validity of that stereotype through the expert interviews. His goal, as he noted in his original proposal, was to give the viewer "a feeling he is confused and that society as a whole is confused about homosexuality". Experts interviewed for the program included:
- Margaret MeadMargaret MeadMargaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
speaking from an anthropologicalAnthropologyAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
standpoint. Mead spoke of the positive roles that homosexuality had played in the cultures of Ancient GreeceAncient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and the South Sea Islands and in InuitInuitThe Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
and Native AmericanIndigenous peoples of the AmericasThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
societies. Mead noted that it is society and not the individual that determines how homosexuality and homosexual behaviour are viewed. - Psychiatrist Karl BowmanKarl BowmanKarl Murdock Bowman, MD was a pioneer in the study of psychiatry. From 1944 to 1946 he was the president of the American Psychiatric Association. His work in alcoholism, schizophrenia, and homosexuality is particularly often cited.-Family and Education:Bowman was born in Topeka, Kansas, and...
of the Langley Porter Psychiatric InstituteLangley Porter Psychiatric InstituteThe Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute is part of the Psychiatry Department at UCSF, one of the most highly regarded medical universities in the United States. Langley Porter is the oldest facility in the Psychiatry Department, and was the first psychiatric institute in California.It was...
, who explained the Kinsey scaleKinsey scaleThe Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of his or her sexual activity at a given time. It uses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual...
of human sexuality and who spoke against a punitive approach to treating homosexual patients. Medical doctor Erwin Braff also addressed medical issues. - EpiscopalEpiscopal Church (United States)The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
Bishop of San Francisco James PikeJames PikeJames Albert Pike was an American Episcopal bishop, prolific writer, and one of the first mainline religious figures to appear regularly on television....
and rabbiRabbiIn Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Alvin Fine addressed religious topics. Each man espoused his belief that sodomy lawsSodomy laws in the United StatesSodomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety of sexual acts, were historically universal. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes as well,...
should be repealed because in his opinion homosexuality was a mental illnessMental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
. Pike specifically compared homosexuality to chronic alcoholismAlcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, but called for homosexuals to be treated with "love and concern and interest" and for not condemning them as "evil". - The city's district attorney, Thomas C. LynchThomas C. LynchThomas Conner Lynch was an American lawyer who served as District Attorney in San Francisco and then as Attorney-General of California from 1964 to 1971. He was appointed to the post by Governor Edmund G. Brown in 1964 to replace Stanley Mosk, whom Brown had appointed to the state Supreme Court...
, covered legal issues along with lawyers J. Albert Hutchinson, Al Bendich, and Morris Lowenthal (who had previously defended the Black Cat Bar during its 15-year legal battle against police and government harassment). - Openly gay Mattachine SocietyMattachine SocietyThe Mattachine Society, founded in 1950, was one of the earliest homophile organizations in the United States, probably second only to Chicago’s Society for Human Rights . Harry Hay and a group of Los Angeles male friends formed the group to protect and improve the rights of homosexuals...
president Hal CallHal CallHarold Leland "Hal" Call was an American businessman and LGBT rights activist. Born and raised in Grundy County, Missouri, Call enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1935 on a scholarship. He studied journalism. Call enlisted in the United States Army in June 1941 as a private...
, Mattachine executive secretary Donald Lucas and Mattachine treasurer Les Fisher spoke for gay men. The Rejected was unusual for its time in that it included actual gay people as opposed to only presenting ostensibly heterosexual experts.
KQED station manager James Day
James Day (journalist)
James Day was an American public television station and network executive and on-air interviewer, and professor of television broadcasting.- References :...
opened the documentary by reading a statement from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's then-Attorney General Stanley Mosk
Stanley Mosk
Stanley Mosk was an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years , and holds the record for the longest-serving justice on that court. Before sitting on the Supreme Court, he served as Attorney General of California and as a trial court judge, among other governmental positions...
:
Critical and popular response
The Rejected was critically and popularly well-received upon its initial airing. VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
described it as handling the topic in a "matter-of-fact down-the-middle manner, covering it quite thoroughly and, for the most part, interestingly". Terrence O'Flaherty, critic for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, concurred, praising KQED for its courage in addressing the subject matter, as did the San Francisco Examiner, which said the program "handled [the topic] soberly, calmly and in great depth". Of the letters KQED received, which numbered in the hundreds, 97% were positive and many of the writers encouraged the station to make more programs like it. Dorian Book Service out of San Francisco published a transcript of The Rejected, and close to 400 people ordered copies. KQED syndicated The Rejected to NET channels across the country; it aired on as many of 40 of the 55 NET stations and was repeated on educational stations in 1963 and 1964. Conservative members of the gay community were pleased with how the Mattachine members presented themselves as ordinary people, an image that differed from the perception held by many outside the community. Some more radical activists, including Frank Kameny and Randy Wicker
Randy Wicker
Randolfe Hayden "Randy" Wicker is an American author, activist and blogger. After involvement in the early homophile and gay liberation movements, Wicker became active around the issue of human cloning....
, found the program wanting for the apologetic tone it took toward homosexuality.
In 2002, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is a non-governmental media monitoring organization which promotes the image of LGBT people in the media...
presented KQED with the first Pioneer Award
GLAAD Media Awards
The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives...
, in recognition of its production of The Rejected as the beginning of a long history of LGBT-related programming.
See also
- Lists of American television episodes with LGBT themes
- CBS Reports: The HomosexualsCBS Reports: The Homosexuals"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...
(1967)