In 1994, HBO made More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, an episode of “Lifestories: Families in Crisis,” a series which was HBO’s answer to the afterschool special. Mostly based on true stories, each episode tackled a new “issue” such as AIDS, bulimia or sexual abuse. In one episode, Ben Affleck plays a football player addicted to steroids.
In More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, Sabrina Llyod plays Heidi Leiter, a nice teenage girl with a girlfriend named Missy, played by Kate Anthony. In the first scene, the two girls play basketball and smile at each other like people in love. They’re both very fresh-faced, with shiny hair and sanitized smiles. Heidi’s younger sister is played by Claire Danes, who is, incidentally, basically playing Danielle Chase in this film.
Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
It’s supposed to be a story of triumph because they go to prom together and nobody dies or punches them in the face (in that scene). But they don’t really seem to be having fun, you know? Maybe that was the thing — you were allowed to be gay and go to things, but you weren’t necessarily allowed to be happy about it.
The first kiss between two women on television happened in 1991 on LA Law and the first kiss between two lesbian characters happened in 1996 on the short-lived drama Relativity. There were some more made-for-tv movies around this time, like about lesbian serial killer Aileen Wournos, lesbian supermodel drug addict Gia, and a lesbian who got kicked out of the army and then sued to get back in named Margarethe Cammermeyer. Glen Close played Margarethe Cammermeyer, and the movie was a big deal.
In 2000, Lifetime made The Truth About Jane. Lifetime movies are like after-school specials for adults.
Like all the other after-school specials here, Jane is white, smart and well-behaved. She’s played by Ellen Muth and her Mom Janice is played by Stockard Channing, bless her heart. Even RuPaul was involved, as Janice’s gay friend Jimmy.
Jane leads the story via voiceover, which maybe serves to put you on her team from the start. You can watch the entire movie online if you haven’t already seen it. The movie is really suburban and it was that part of fashion history where everybody was sort of just wearing their pajamas.
Jane’s outed when her brother catches her kissing this girl Taylor that she’s really into. The girl is into her too, but it fades. When Janice confronts Jane, Jane deflects because she knows it’s what her mother wanted to hear.
Jane voiceovers: “When I said it was a phase, it wasn’t, I was gay, with or without Taylor. I knew it deep down the whole time but what my Mom didn’t know was that I was exactly as I was meant to be, whether she liked it or not.”
In the clip below, Jane “comes out” and her mother isn’t happy about it:
Janice goes batshit for the rest of the episode, while others try to talk her down. Jane engages in risky behavior, cries, wears overalls, and eventually bonds with a lesbian teacher played by Kirsten from The O.C. When shit hits the fan, Mom is forced to change, not Jane, and in the final scene Janice shows up at a Pride Rally sponsored by PFLAG — a move that’s almost a trope, now, as it’s since been done by Spencer’s Mom on South of Nowhere and Justin’s Mom in Queer as Folk.
So here we are, we’ve come full circle from The Truth About Alex to The Truth About Jane. Our truths have changed, some things are changing and getting better. It is the year 2000. We have Willow & Tara on Buffy, and that woman on ER, and Queer as Folk starts on Showtime. HBO airs If These Walls Could Talk 2 and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her.
The Truth About Jane ends like it began, with a voiceover: “The amazing thing about change is that everyone can do it, even the people you least expect it from My mother was finally exactly the person she was meant to be, I was so proud of how well she had grown.”
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We watched two things in my health class, “Emergency Paramedic” and “Life stories: Families in Crisis”. I actually remember seeing the Heidi Leiter episode, it was the source of much amusement to the boys in the class…throwback!
ha! it was really weird at the end when The Real heidi Leiter showed up
Wow Riese, This was really great. I missed out on a lot of TV in the nineties because my parents didn’t like it and refused to own one and yet, I’ve still seen enough awful, cliched or downright offensive portrayals to last a lifetime. Things definitely have gotten better. I appreciate the research you had to do for this but I don’t think I’ll be watching those any time soon.
I’m curious, is there going to be any coverage of the new season of Pretty Little Liars on here? I know plot developments coming to light are really pissing people off (me included).
lizz will be doing fashioncaps when she gets back from europe, she’s been gone for the last two weeks and is still gone. nothing lez has happened, however!
my parents were super-strict about tv, and when shit got crazy and my mom kinda gave up regulating our television consumption, i became obsessed with television for like three years, wanting to catch up on everything i’d missed. which had to be done by carefully taping syndicated reruns, etc., and started reading a lot about television too. i do find it fascinating in ways, still
Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed watching the clips. I know they’re dark, and more than once, I felt so bad so the characters, I wanted to look away, but that discrimination is a part of our history, right?
indeed it is
I am viscerally inclined to like everything Stockard Channing does, so maybe I should watch The truth about Jane?
That being said, I feel like the after school special had a purpose in normalizing and suggesting topics of conversation, as dark as they may make them appear. We watched a Barbara Walters special on trans* kids in my health class once upon a time, and it was the first time most people had even heard of preferred pronouns. I had a point but I lost it, or I may have made it?
you made a point! the point is that it started a conversation, and that’s always good.
Yes, that’s a great point.
Stockard Channing rocks, of course, but it takes a while for her character to get with the rainbow. But, I guess, that’s the point.
My gf (a confirmed Stockard freak) and I really enjoyed the movie, and particularly liked the snarky young eponymous lesbian. Give it a try!
i saw “the truth about jane” when i was 14 and it made me realize i was a gaymo, so i can’t ever not love stockard channing (also because rizzo)
I have a friend who actually gas a bunch of these after school specisls on tape. We watch them when we’re bored and a sharp blow to the head just isn’t enough. The Truth About Alex pissed me off in so many ways. He’s actually “outed” when a random trucker tries to pick him up in a bathroom and then beats the Hell out of him when he doesn’t comply. Wonder how much therapy gay kids needed on that alone! Ah well, I’m sure there’s an After School Specisl that tackled that. Or better yet: “Next…On a very special Blossom…”
were these really watched, or looked to? I’m not trying to bait anybody, I’m genuinely curious – what I do recall of them is that as I was grabbing my bike or going outside to play with the neighborhood kids (outdoor play, another lost art) they’d flash the promo and we’d snicker and go outside. I think I saw a few, all in school, and the only one I remember even remotely was “The Wave” and its “surprise you’re all Hitler youth” ending.
But yeah, they were barely noticed in my childhood. I think they disappeared at some point altogether, so I wasn’t hurt by them.
You’ve given me a nice YouTube hole to fall down into, though, and I will be having a look.
i didn’t watch them at the time they came out ’cause that was before i was allowed to watch tv, but i remember seeing one about eating disorders that was out in the mid-90s that really affected me and i still remember it to this day! and me and my friend called each other right afterwards to talk about it, and she had an eating disorder at the time.
i think like most things, if you were gay and didn’t know other kids like you, if you saw a preview or heard about a gay episode coming on, you’d go see it, you know? like we do now, still! but more extreme. it set the tone when nothing else did.
they weren’t big where i lived, but friends and family i knew in more rural areas talked about after school specials a lot, and I’ve read quite a bit from gay people for whom this was their first intro to the issue.
i do think that these kinds of shows, and the ones that are on today, did a lot of damage by thoroughly normalizing the insane reaction to somebody coming out. in all of these movies, even the truth about jane, the cruel classmates, furious parents and disgusted friends aren’t even condemned for their condemnation, it’s painted like a perfectly normal reaction that the gay person deserves or should’ve expected.
I know that’s realistic, unfortunately, but I think that TV could’ve stepped up a little sooner to provide new models not just for the gay kids, but for their friends/families. the first time i saw a calm measured reaction to a teenage “coming out” scene on TV was Kurt in Glee and the second time was Fiona on Degrassi. LAST YEAR! that’s why i really appreciated the episode where Kurt’s male buddies go to bat for him when he’s bullied rather than the traditional reaction which is to be lemmings. i’d never seen that happen on tv before.
I think that’s the scary thing about entertainment — that it sets the boundaries of the expected so much more than people think. But being a business it’s cautious and falls behind reality and trends. There were plenty of people becoming comfortable and supportive with/to gay kids even as these films were being broadcast in the 80’s, so I definetly don’t think what you’re saying is unrealistic — it’s another avenue that could have been taken, if these networks had decided to be bolder. Yeah, there could have been angry letters or a threatened boycott, but it could have been done anyway.
that’s good though, that one of these specials helped your friend. too bad it couldn’t be the same for everybody.
yes, this, exactly: here were plenty of people becoming comfortable and supportive with/to gay kids even as these films were being broadcast in the 80′s, so I definetly don’t think what you’re saying is unrealistic — it’s another avenue that could have been taken, if these networks had decided to be bolder. Yeah, there could have been angry letters or a threatened boycott, but it could have been done anyway.
(also the After School Special on eating disorders didn’t help her, it just amped up her romantic obsession with eating disorders and inspired her to pair up with another friend of ours to motivate each other to stick with their “diets” — the special was about two friends who were ED’ed together, one was anorexic and the other was bulimic. the idea of an eating disorder being a social contract was new, it’d always been portrayed and experienced as such an isolating experience. i ended up in a situation like the one in the special a few years later.)
oh yeah, you’re right ! (re: truck stop). I will go change that. marni and i watched it again the other night and i felt like so profoundly depressed and sad afterwards, like its one of the most subtly depressing things i’ve ever seen.
I LOVED VERY SPECIAL EPISODES OF BLOSSOM
“Whoa!”
This actually made me really sad. I think I just realized that things seem to be improving for us in the rest of the country, but where I’m from (Idaho) and where I live now (Utah) there’s either an uneasy tolerance or no tolerance at all. I live in Salt Lake City, and the gay community is amazing, the gay supportive community is amazing (including some Mormons, even), but the people who are homophobic are SO SO SO homophobic. It wears me down.
Yes! HBO! I’ve seen them all. I learned about eating disorders, teen pregnancy, date rape, homosexuality,not playing with guns,gangs, steroids, abortion etc. We got cable when I was 7 and while we were instructed to only watch Disney and Nickelodeon we watched whatever we wanted because my parents were pretty much never home. Initially I think watching all the LifeStories allowed me to understand how other people manage to live life since nobody ever talked about it. I think it is probably why I love watching Intervention now.
For me, when I was a little kid it was kind of like people have this option of being different if they are white, or boys, or play sports, or girls, or white, or have attentive parents, but that it would most likely be difficult and other people wont like them, will be stressed out by their honesty, but will say they still love them because thats how it works on tv. So for a very long time I just decided to try and avoid at all costs any issues that might render us a family in crisis. My mother is also a social worker, so a lot of her work issues really drove home the point that people have problems, are complicated, can still be loved.
Lol I know this is laced with sarcasm, but it’s kind of true, no?
“That’s how boys get outed — by their insatiable sex drives. Girls get outed when they fall in love with their best friend, or get married and have babies.”
I don’t remember many of them after about 1978 or 1979 (yeah, I’m old)…not that any of them could have remotely made a difference on me coming out or having influenced my life direction :) The ‘edgy’ ones when I was a kid always seemed to be the blending of families when one divorced parent decided to remarry. On rare occasion, they would get into alcohol use or MAYBE the teen pregnancy thing. And yes, they were just as cheesy in the 70’s as it sounds like they got later in life.
The adult version of a cheezy after-school special would probably be ‘Doing Time on Maple Drive’ which was early 90’s and actually had Jim Carrey in a dramatic role as the alcoholic adult son. Forget who played the gay son who tried to kill himself rather than tell his mother the marriage wouldn’t take place…and too lazy to google it.
“Postcards from Buster” (spin-off of Arthur. My godsons and I loved it) had an episode in the early 2000s where Buster visited a whole group of kids who lived in Vermont and had sets of lesbian moms who taught him about maple trees and other wholesome Vermont-y things. They never said that these characters were gay, though, just “Boy, that’s a lot of Moms!”
I work at a daycamp, and the other day my supervisor came up to me apologetically after I had spent a huge chunk of the morning working with a kid who had been acting out all summer. “Oh, you know, she has two daddies”. Like any kid with two dads is doomed to steal juiceboxes at daycamp and grow up to sing “On My Own” alone on a dark stage while Idina Menzel broods in the shadows.
I should have said: “Golly, that’s a lot of Dads!”
“Then there’s this heavily-made-up woman in an assertive pink blazer”
I almost bought a pink blazer today and now I’m quite glad I didn’t.
Oh my god I totally watched The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter when I was 14 and coming out to myself in small-town Wyoming. What a blast from the past. It meant something to me at the time, definitely wouldn’t be interested in it now other than nostalgia. At the time, it was important for me to see “gay” on my TV because I sure wasn’t seeing it anywhere else.
Thanks for this post.
Taking a quick break from reading to note: “Scott Baio co-stars Alex’s tough-guy best friend Brad Stevens, who also plays football.”
Scott Baio as a football player! Ha ha. He was a skinny little dude.
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