Rating TV ratings.

Will the new television broadcast standards be used to censor gay and lesbian characters and content?

For several seasons on network television, we've seen more and better lesbian and gay characters. But will the television ratings system implemented on January 1 send us back to the prime-time closet? Members of the committee responsible for the ratings say no. Gay groups aren't so sure.

"Even if the system doesn't last, it will have an impact," says Richard Jennings, executive director of Hollywood Supports, a clearinghouse for gay issues in the entertainment industry. "Unspoken rules, such as the one that has kept producers from depicting intimacy between two men, are likely to be enshrined by this new system."

But since the ratings began, one lesbian kiss has made it onto the air. In the January 11 episode of ABC's Relativity, actor Lisa Edelstein delivered a ten-second kiss to her new girlfriend [see story on page 30]. "It's the most romantic lesbian kiss ever broadcast," says openly lesbian writer Jan Oxenberg, who penned the scene. "The kiss was edited from its original length, but it's still in the episode. That's proof that no ratings system is going to change what we can show."

Oxenberg also believes the ratings may provide even more opportunities for viewers. "I'm hoping that, as in the movies, an adult rating on a program will give us more freedom to depict adult situations," she says. "So this may be a good thing."

Approved by the Federal Communications Commission and President Clinton, the ratings are separated into six categories. Shows considered suitable for all children are rated TV-Y; those rated TV-Y7 are deemed appropriate for children over age 7. Other ratings include TV-G ("general audiences"); TV-PG ("parental guidance suggested"); TV-14 ("parents strongly cautioned"), the rating Relativity's lesbian-kiss episode received; and TV-M ("for mature audiences only"). The rating appears briefly in the upper left-hand corner of the television screen at the beginning of each program.

The codes are meant to address what some say is the advent of more violence and sexual content in television programs. Gay activists fear that this system will try to distinguish between gay and straight sex in determining what's appropriate viewing for young audiences. "We're taking a wait-and-see position," says Alan Klein, a spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog group. "But we are concerned that this system will help conservative groups influence programmers to freeze out gay images from the nation's TV screens."

In fact, according to GLAAD managing director William Waybourn, before the system was even implemented, Christian-right groups had already issued a model for the ratings in meetings with Jack Valenti, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and head of the committee that developed the ratings. "But," Waybourn adds, "Valenti has assured us that this model was not accepted."

Waybourn notes that several obstacles to airing controversial material remain intact. "The final say still goes to local programmers," he says. "An affiliate station can choose not to air a program that has an adult rating."

This sort of selective broadcasting leads to the regionalization of gay images, says Hilary Rosen, one of two openly gay members of the Television Ratings Implementation Group. "A Midwest broadcaster has a different sensibility about what's appropriate to air than a New York broadcaster," she says. And the result, she adds, is "fewer gay images in conservative parts of the country, where they're needed most."

According to an ABC spokeswoman, no affiliates pulled Relativity's lesbian-kiss episode from its schedule. But that may have less to do with its content than with the show's low ratings for the season--for the week ending January 5, it ranked 84th. Klein notes that if the same kiss occurred on a top-rated show such as Seinfeld, "the networks might be more squeamish," simply because the show reaches so many more people. But, he adds, "despite Relativity's low ratings, ABC did market this episode quite heavily. And the lack of negative response to the show is clearly a sign that times are changing."