I recently watched a film, The Untold Stories of Armistead Maupin (2017), at the Nashville Film Festival. Armistead Maupin was an exciting man who grew up conservative, and never had any interest in women, always trying to prove his masculinity to his father, and had a love for writing. He picked up by PBS through his articles in the newspaper that told little stories following Mary Ann Singleton. He always put himself into Mary Ann and her actions reflected much of his. He came out as gay and started adding more to the stories.
Introducing a more diverse group of characters, homosexuals and transgendered (no African American), the company started to cap him off. Armistead was not allowed to put in more than 30% "different" people than heterosexuals. So yes, Armistead was changing the TV industry with his stories, but the people in power wanted to make sure white, heterosexuals were still on top, regardless of the "revolution" occurring.
Another problem he ran into in his life was the AIDS crisis. Many of his friends passed away due to AIDS and one person in particular created an uproar. Rock Hudson, actor, began looking very sick and losing a lot of weight. The press was covering all these bizarre stories that he was anorexic or had the flu or anything else, but no one could fathom that he was a gay actor that had not come out and now had AIDS. Armistead believed that if you act gay to your group of friends and some strangers, then what is it for him to lie about another person and agree with the media lies? I believe that Armistead did the right thing. People were excited about a sexual revolution, but still scared of what might become of it. I think if the news about Rock Hudson never came out, less people of the time would have come out and accepted themselves.
Everyone should see this film at some point in their lives. Very funny and very interesting.
"I'm not a gay writer, I'm a writer that's gay." Armistead Maupin
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