Gay lifestyle show planned for TV
If the glut of lifestyle shows on TV at the moment all seem somewhat irrelevant to the average queer viewer, Kirk Goodsell and Serena Ryan have the answer. The enterprising pair are currently in pre-production for The Weekly G, a gay-themed lifestyle show they hope to have on air by summer.
The duo’s enthusiasm about their ambitious project is contagious.
We have very high goals, conceded Ryan, before Goodsell joked, We have our Logies acceptance speeches figured out already!
Ryan and Goodsell are busily fostering community support and interest in The Weekly G. They’ll shoot the pilot in May, before pitching it to the networks in June.
Last year, both were involved in Channel 31 lifestyle show The Red Room, which whet their appetites for the format, as well as earning them a Channel 31 Antennae Award for Most Outstanding Personal Development Program.
Channel 31 was a bit of a dry run for us, explained Ryan.
When the dust from The Red Room settled, we decided we wanted to do it again, but we wanted to take it up a notch, and make it gay. We liked the genre we were working in, but we also like the idea of doing something for our community.
The Red Room was the first project we were involved in from A to Z, and we really got into the whole concept of the show, Goodsell said.
Channel 31 is one thing, but there’s one question that needs to be asked, even in 2009: are the commercial networks ready for a gay-themed lifestyle show? The recent -˜furore’ over a rather chaste lesbian storyline on Home and Away showed that TV bigwigs still get nervous when it comes to representations of homosexuality on screen.
We know there’s not much gay content on TV, and that which is around tends to be a bit cliched and stereotyped, Ryan said.
With the introduction of freeview and digital channels, we think there’s an opportunity for networks to give us a place in their roster on one of those channels.
It’s a lifestyle show that’s made for the gay community, but it’s watchable for both the gay and the straight community, Goodsell continued.
It’s a lifestyle show; it’s not a sex show. We’re delivering a show that’s familiar in its genre, we’re just stretching the boundaries a bit more.
Their plans may be big, but Ryan and Goodsell acknowledge they’ll need help from the gay community to make The Weekly G a success. They’re asking those interested in the program to join The Weekly G Facebook group as a show of support, and to attend the upcoming fundraiser night at Heaven’s Door in Melbourne on May 24.
It’s also a good idea to be active in our community in terms of asking these questions of the networks -” why don’t we have any gay-themed shows? If that question’s out there, it’ll certainly encourage them to consider us, Ryan said.
What the gay community can do is publicly support us -” come to the fundraiser, tell your friends, join our Facebook group.
We’ve had so much support from different people and community groups so far, and we don’t plan to just take that support. We want to give something back, in the form of a great TV show.
We want to give as much back to the gay community as they’re giving to us.
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