On March 9, 1995, three days after appearing on an episode of The Jenny Jones Show that was secretly entitled "Secret Same-Sex Crushes," Jonathan Schmitz, a 24-year-old heterosexual, arrived at the mobile home of 32-year-old homosexual Scott Amedure. Within a matter of minutes, Schmitz shot Amedure twice at close range and killed him. Schmitz contended that the show had lied to him about the sex of his secret admirer, and the humiliation was so great when it was revealed that Amedure was the admirer that he was driven to kill.

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Representing Schmitz in the wrongful death suit brought by Amedure's family, attorney Geoffrey Fieger argued that the motive for Amedure's murder was a case of homosexual panic and alleged that The Jenny Jones Show was at least partially responsible for the killing.

Although there was no scientific basis for this disturbing argument, psychologist Robert Cabaj has stated that many people find it understandable that a man would kill another man who professes a sexual attraction to him. Indeed, as Gamson has noted, what upset the public was not Amedure's death but, rather, his homosexuality.

Talking Backlash

In the wake of Amedure's murder and the subsequent $25 million award against The Jenny Jones Show, other purveyors of trash television have severely curtailed the appearances of glbt people on their daytime talk shows.

The wildly popular Jerry Springer Show currently traffics almost exclusively in heterosexual relationships gone horribly awry. When Springer first appeared in 1991, however, his guest rosters routinely featured drag queens, drag kings, gay teenagers, lesbians, and club kids (young queers who frequent dance clubs and dress outrageously both in and out of the clubs).

Although Springer shares with his talk show kin a semblance of tolerance towards sexual non-conformists, he has frequently wondered aloud why queers so often seem to flaunt their sexuality, almost to the point of exaggeration.

This sentiment is an accurate insight into the thinking of what Springer terms polite society. Indeed talk shows are significant because they at once make sexual and gender nonconformity public and visible and also provide venues for the societal anxieties and hostilities that sexual and gender nonconformists evoke.

As gay men and lesbians have increasingly been accepted as part of mainstream society, however, the need for talk shows overtly to emphasize queer presences has decreased significantly. In fact, glbt people have moved from talk show audience members and participants and become hosts of their own shows.

Talking Queerly

Following the meteoric rise in the popularity of such shows as The Jerry Springer Show and The Ricki Lake Show, which debuted in 1993, network television executives began creating talk shows for numerous celebrities and television personalities. Show hosts included Tempestt Bledsoe, who played Vanessa Huxtable on the hit NBC comedy The Cosby Show, and Danny Bonaduce, former kid star on the 1970s sitcom The Partridge Family.

Among this spate of celebrities, however, were two notable gay personalities, Jim J. Bullock, who rose to fame as Monroe Ficus on ABC's Too Close For Comfort (1980-1985), and Charles Perez, who co-anchored the entertainment news show American Journal from 1993 to 1998. In addition, a newer celebrity, drag star RuPaul also debuted a talk show in the late 1990s.

Perez's show, which aired from 1994 to 1996, was known mostly for its catchy theme song, "You Got It Goin On." His show was indistinguishable from those of Springer and Lake and featured the same variety of dysfunctional heterosexuals and raucous queer characters, such as, for example, Consuela Cosmetica, a black drag queen dominatrix.

Bullock's show, however, was particularly notable because of its flamboyantly out host, as well as his choice for co-host, Tammy Faye Messner, former wife of televangelist Jim Bakker and former co-host of the PTL Club. The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show had a short four-month run in 1996, but it differed from other talk shows, relying on light, non-controversial topics, and a relentlessly happy atmosphere. Tammy Faye, however, left the show after three months, citing health reasons, and the show was cancelled soon afterwards.