For example, the 1988 episode of 21 Jump Street, "A Big Disease with a Little Name," shows Officer Tom Hanson (Johnny Depp) assigned to guard from peer harassment an AIDS-stricken hemophiliac male teenager. This Ryan White-type AIDS-scare scenario alters when Hanson discovers that the teen is not hemophiliac. Instead, the teen reveals to Hanson that he is gay and refers obliquely to the "real reason" he has AIDS: unsafe sex.

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Although TV movies such as PBS's Andre's Mother (1990), HBO's And the Band Played On (1990), and ABC's Our Sons (1991) attempted to cast AIDS sufferers as noble victims, the connection between gay men and their sexual practices nevertheless remained firmly in place.

Andre's Mother, the Emmy-Award-winning adaptation of gay playwright Terrence McNally's drama, aired in 1990 as part of the American Playhouse series. The show's conflict revolved around the refusal of the eponymous Andre's mother (Sada Thompson) to accept her late son's sexual identity, even as Andre's lover Cal (Richard Thomas) battles continually for this acceptance.

Andre's Mother is particularly important because it shifted the "AIDS outsider" dynamic away from the deceased Andre, who is reverently remembered by friends and Cal alike. Instead, Andre's mother becomes the outsider, shut out by both her son's gayness and his disease, before reluctantly moving towards acceptance as the movie ends.

It remains unclear how much these televised depictions of AIDS resulted in an increase in AIDS awareness and in greater compassion and understanding for those most affected by the epidemic. However, as a result of increased AIDS awareness and a shift in AIDS demographics away from gay men, television portrayals of homosexuals began to break new representational ground.

Gays Enter the Television Mainstream

But even before the specter of AIDS rose in media prominence, another landmark event occurred on a prime time series. In 1981 television audiences for the wildly popular ABC show Dynasty were introduced to Steven Carrington (Al Corley from 1981 to 1982 and again in 1991 and Jack Coleman from 1982 to 1989), the first openly bisexual, and later gay, recurring character in a dramatic television series.

Steven weathered traumas typical of a nighttime soap opera: bisexual liaisons resulting in an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, widely circulated rumors about his homosexuality, and gay lovers murdered by his outraged father, oil baron Blake Carrington. Although deeply conflicted at the outset, Blake finally recognized and supported Steven. In 1991's Dynasty Reunion, the father embraced Steven and his partner, telling his son that "I am so glad to see that you have someone who loves you as much as I do."

Steven Carrington notwithstanding, Dynasty long maintained a marked queer appeal. The show effortlessly combined the trappings of glamorous opulence with scheming, backstabbing characters who exuded an appealing amorality.

Dynasty episodes were further highlighted with moments of gloriously high camp, particularly in the memorable "catfights" between the two leading ladies, Krystle (Linda Evans), Blake's present wife, and Alexis (Joan Collins), Blake's former wife. Both straight and queer TV audiences quickly came to expect, if not demand, a weekly hair-pulling, furniture-throwing, name-calling, and dress-shredding showdown between the two otherwise impeccably dressed and well-mannered (if not always well-behaved) society scions.

Following the demise of Dynasty, producer Aaron Spelling (who had created and produced Dynasty) debuted Melrose Place in 1992. Melrose Place began as a spin-off from another popular Spelling production, Beverly Hills 90210, a teen-oriented show that featured many different, though incidental, gay characters during its ten-year network run (1990-2000).

Departing from its teen cousin, Melrose Place focused on the lives of a group of young professionals who all shared the same Los Angeles apartment complex. The series also featured a recurring gay male character, Matt Fielding (Doug Savant), who was alternately praised as a revolutionary step forward for gay men on television or reviled as a representational nobody.