Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television

Actor Wilson Cruz (whose breakthrough role was as Rickie the gay teenager in the cult classic TV show ‘My So-Called Life’) is stepping behind the camera for once and is the Executive Producer of a new documentary currently being planned called ‘Playing Gay: How America Came Out on Television’. Written and directed by activist and talk show host David Bender, the movie will argue that LGBT rights milestones like the passage of marriage equality “didn’t happen in a vacuum – it happened on television.”  Bender says he will show how TV series that were both critical and commercial successes like Ellen, Will & Grace, The L Word, and Modern Family helped move the cultural needle toward broader acceptance of the LGBT community.

A new Kickstarter Fund has been launched https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playinggay/playing-gay and the Team have set themselves a target of $137,500 to raise by August 18th 2015 to get the movie underway. In an emotional plea for donations for them to be able to make what he calls is ‘passionate project’ Cruz says in their pitch video  “We’ve never had an opportunity to really tell the history of LGBT people on television, and it’s important to remember where we’ve come from if we expect to be able to continue to tell our stories in a real way.”

They have already interviewed Michael Douglas, Norman Lear, Martin Sheen, Hal Holbrook, Sheila Kuehl, Wilson Cruz and Dannielle Owens-Reid, and are about to interview Rachel Maddow very soon. They need the funds to be able to film many more exciting artists who ready to participate and be able to access all the archives of LGBT television to date.