In the Life: Interview with series creator John Scagliotti

My name is John Scagliotti and I'm the creator of  "In the Life", whatever that means. There was no "In the Life" until I sat down and  put something on paper. Now the paper for "In the Life" actually started in 1979 and uhm...these folks at WNET hired me  to do the first big gay thing on public television and the Corporation Public Broadcasting got  involved and there were some really progressive people and it was called "Different Drummers" and  it was a big nine part series of everything you can imagine about gay life and so we put it together. They were going to put...in those days 1979, in those days 1979, you can imagine, a million dollars into the  making of this "Different Drummer" series. Well, then Ronald Reagan got elected President in 1980 and  they put a kibosh on that real quick. They felt so guilty that three years later the people from  Corporation Public Broadcasting came over to see me and said, "Can we give you some money and you  just pick one?" So that's how the first public money ever on a gay and lesbian issued program  "Before Stonewall" happened because I chose the history project and they put in something like a  hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that show. So that was the first time the Corporation Public  Broadcasting ever gave money. But meanwhile I had this huge proposal that we had done  research on and I...pretty, pretty extensive proposal and I just put it away and then, you know, we were  in the height of AIDS and the height of really difficult times for the LGBT community in the '80s. And then all of a sudden ACT UP came by and LGBT people started really becoming very active in  the late '80s and that's when I sort of dusted this old proposal off and started shopping it around with PBS stations. And I...this small, little station in New York no longer exists, WNYC, said, "Sure" and I said, "Well, let's give it a new name"  and they said, "Oh...what could we call it?" I said...and then I remembered this wonderful African-American woman who was in "Before Stonewall" and we asked her, "What was...what was life like?" She says, "We wasn't..." "What were the other women like that you hung with?" She said, "We were all in the life." And "in the life" in those terms meant it was sort of the Harlem Renaissance term uhm which...kind of the "night people," included homosexuals. It did include prostitutes and include people who smoke a little ganja. It was that kind crowd. And that's where the term came- "In the  Life." And so it came from "Before Stonewall" which was the originator...originator of the whole "In the  Life" project. We began in my kitchen on Gansevoort Street which was over Florent restaurant which  is a great restaurant in New York where all these cool people would hang like uh...Madonna and people  like that in this restaurant. So we were able to...sort of like... bring in some of these cool people at the beginning of "In the Life," especially for funding. And so it really started in a kitchen. Was  a small little...little operation of me, my partner Andrew Kopkind who sort of was working for The  Nation and keeping us alive, feeding us. And we hired one or two people- Mackie Alston (?)...  a couple of people were hired. And then we finally left the kitchen when we had raised  enough funds and opened an office and brought in some important people, like Chuck Ignacio,  who became the first producer of "In the Life." I decided to call myself "Executive Producer." Why? Who knows why.   Just seemed to be a good title. And then we started raising enough money to do our first pilot. So our first pilot came off in June Pride in 1991 and only six stations, I think, took it... around the nation but that was a thing that we started doing...was calling up stations and that was a lot of work to create. Program Directors who now began to see this program as a regularly scheduled  program. That was the big political thing that we're doing in those days was to turn it into...  a program director who had to commit themselves not to this one off like "Before Stonewall" or  these other programs that we're having on. They used to say, "Oh, you have to put it on once in a while Let the gay lesbian people have a voice on public television." No! They had to really begin to say, "It's going to be on next month and it's going to be on the  month after that and it's going to be on forever." And that really changed the way public television had to deal   with the issue of gay and lesbian programming and that was a real political change for the program directors. That's what "In the Life" was so exciting about. You know, it's interesting uhm...that what happened with "In the Life"  it began...remember I said there was this big gay explosion in the late '80s because of ACT UP and  gay people started really becoming very motivated. Well one of the things was there was this wonderful program that was on PBS called "Tongues Untied." A great, great program. The problem with it  was it was controversial and it wasn't so much controversial because it was African-American  but it was more controversial with program directors because they swore a lot in the program. So our  biggest thing was to tell program directors... they didn't care so much that we were going to cover  the gay and lesbian community because they knew a lot of their people wanted that. They wrote, you know.  in cities like, you know, Minneapolis or places like that. There was big large gay populations coming out. Uh...they wanted programming very much so but we had to swear that we wouldn't swear  and that was the big thing. As long as we didn't use "the seven deadly words," as Carlin would say, we were pretty much safe. We could cover almost anything we wanted to cover. It was, you know....obviously, we knew and maybe we were self-censoring ourselves, we knew that our show was the first time that you  could go into someone's living room- in a family. And we already were starting to get the letters  from our early shows, like from a 16 year old who would write a letter to us and say, "This is the  first time that I can sit in a living room with my mother and father and brothers and sisters  and watch a show about me and feel comfortable." And so we felt that...that responsibility. It was a  responsibility that the programs that we would choose would reflect with the idea that...that while there were some wild things going on in the LGBT community maybe on the Lower East Side, what we were  going to cover was going to be able to make people in South Dakota watching with their families feel  comfortable about these things that were happening and there was so many exciting things that were  going on in the LGBT community that, you know, you... you didn't have to worry about being conservative or not. I mean it's just so many wonderful things going on that the editorial choices, I think, we're  going to be quite comfortable for people because there were so many things going on that we could pick and choose stories at the beginning that made people feel comfortable and so uhm...we, we didn't run into that. We also were very smart in our organizing. We organized "In the Life"  as a public television sort of membership thing. So we ended up very early having 20,000 members in "In the Life" nationally. So...we never told them, "Oh, you should demand your public television carry us."  All we said was, "If...you are a member of 'In the Life' and the show is not being shown to you, for example, in Baltimore you might want to call up the station and ask...it's for free, they can take it down the satellite...that they might want to run it but you can do that. Anyone can ask." Well,  that's...was the real secret of how we went from seven stations to almost two hundred stations in a very  quick order because that membership would call up every month and say, "Oh...I am a member of 'In the Life.'  I've sent them money but yet my show is not on public television here- my public television."  And then finally program director's would call us and say, "Stop. Stop. Don't...", you know, "we're getting  too many postcards. We're going to put you on." You know, whatever. It really wasn't...we didn't have  to do that much. The gay and lesbian community was so activated in 1992-1993 that public television  really felt the need, very much so, to put on a relatively good program and while they didn't  give us the best times, they were going to put us on. You know, at that point gay and lesbian world  was affecting every institution in America. Whether it was church, whether it was law, whether it was  the health system...any place you went somewhere that institution was being changed and...and  refocusing how they saw the world due to so many LGBT people coming out within those institutions.  So, if you're at college all of a sudden there were like "Gay and Lesbian Student-Straight Associations."  Or if you were in the, you know, health clinics and all the, you know, homeless place is opening up for  people who where LGBT- tons of stuff. So, therefore, we had these great stories of people doing rather  heroic work- especially in youth and saving kids. And all the centers were starting to open and  they were doing programs that were pretty exciting- whether it was, you know, African-American men in  New York doing events or...so everyone was doing events and then the arts in Broadway, you know, some  of my favorite stories was just talking about open gay people who were who were doing stuff on  Broadway. That was pretty exciting. So you do a story on somebody who was on Broadway and that was pretty amazing to have such a story and have such access to that. The marches were getting  to be huge and they were opening up in all kinds of places. One of my favorite stories we covered  was the first gay march in Montana. It was a little tricky, you know. The producer, you know, had to  duck and weave her way through it but it was very exciting to do these kinds of first in...in   a rural America or smaller towns America and we went and that was the exciting thing. We didn't want to look  like our show was being produced out of New York. We wanted to look like our show was America and so  we started going to all over the places. We'd go to Martin Luther King Day down in, you know, Atlanta  and...and....and show the connections between the African-American experience and civil rights and  Atlanta and what people were doing...exciting stuff. It was really pretty amazing and I liked stories  that really generated that kind of energy where people began to see that all their   institutions were being changed and so anytime there was that connection of where "your universe used to think this way, now it has gay people and because of that you now have to think this way." That's pretty exciting stories. And in religion and churches we did some early stuff   on a priest and religion... and rather controversial and I don't know if we'd get it on nowadays but in those days it was pretty exciting. So all our stories, I think...really...uh really... were exciting when they cross those lines of  institutions that were always straight but now they had to begin to welcome, or are not welcome,  their LGBT folks who were in them and somehow a story was going to be generated- whether it was  gay...openly gay people on Broadway, openly gay people in Hollywood, openly...you know, wherever it  was...something was going to be happening and it was pretty exciting stuff. Those were my favorite stories. "In the Life" started at some point...and we even we even actually started a few of these...uh going international and I happen to think that the LGBT movement is a global movement and therefore it has its effects all over the world. So, I think, we're beginning to see major change take place all over  the world and because of that we're seeing some of the things that we went through early in the  American experience happening in those countries. So therefore, I think, even to this day the  relevancy of what we learned and went through and had those experiences of can be really wonderful  for people in the Philippines or in other countries where they're beginning to make LGBT  television or whatever they're doing, whatever... how they're going to reflect their changes. So there's  a lot there in terms of international and I'm very big internationalist in terms of the LGBT movement and I happen to think that "In the Life" can still, even as an archive, serve many of the people around the  world to understand this phenomena that took place here in the United States...uh...as well as the fact  that many of our programs were...many of the stories that we did were international. We did one of the  first gay Cuban stories early in the game. I think in the first year or second we were already doing stuff about Cuba. So, you know, big change is taking place. So you can imagine uhm...the continuation  of that would be a pretty exciting job. Now I, for one, think "In the Life" should continue. I don't see  why it needs to be in an archive. I think we should... start continue making more "In the Life" programs  but, you know, it takes up...it takes a lot of work but, you know, I think someone maybe not me but a  little younger, you know...uh...had the energy they could put that network together tomorrow and we'd have,  you know, season number 22 just like that because I know lots of stations would love to have it. So there is still, I mean, there's pretty exciting stuff going on in the LGBT community and so therefore understanding our history and seeing where stuff came from is important. You know, you can't really...  you know, the...the past inspires people but to be inspired so that you can do things in the  future, unless you are inspired to change for the future, uh...you're not going to change very much.  The past can help inspire you. When you hear about some of the wonderful things that people have done and see the wonderful things that they've done you are inspired and by being inspired you  just might go ahead and continue doing that work or changing it a bit and doing it a little better. So I happen to think it's very important to know your history because...mostly for inspirational purposes. I think it...I, you know, I read history and I get very inspired, you know. When I find out that there were gay people doing things in Japan thousands of years ago that it...that gets me very  excited to say, "Well, what the heck's going on now?" Believe it or not in 1910 there were huge amounts  of stuff going on. There was gay in early Germany and then when the Nazis came they destroyed tons  of stuff. I never knew about it. You know, it took me many years to find out about those times, about that history that was destroyed by Nazi Germany or hidden and... so we have seen our history up and down, up and down. So, you know, it's great to have this archive but there might be a point, you know, 50 years from now where somebody says, "Yeah...I don't think that gay stuff is so important." "We're not going to fund it." And it just gets shelved back, you know. You never know. That's our history. Let me tell you,  gay people have...as much as we think the LGBT people have made great achievements, and they  have, doesn't mean our history will automatically be saved. It's a struggle. I mean, the first gay film...  "Different From The Others"... the Nazis tried to burn them all. Some...one...gay person maybe, I don't know who it was, hid one away in Czechoslovakia then finally someone found it and, in fact, when we were  doing "Before Stonewall," we were part of the finding of that film and it was pretty exciting to find  this gay film made in 1917 and that we are part of the early filmmaking world and that there were these gay films. You wouldn't have known it if you'd been hanging out in Nazi Germany in 1937. You know, that in Germany was this film? No way to know it. As a young gay person you would not been out. You'd been in hiding. You'd don't even know you have a history. You know, that's why we have to be vigilant because it is our history and we have to save it and that's part of the struggle. That's  what we learnt in the '60s a lot was that... you know, we had...women had histories, African-Americans had  histories, people had histories. Nobody was saving it. Nobody thought it was worth while saving and  so now we have to insist on people who understand that to save material, to archive it, to give money to archives to keep this saved because it's important. It will inspire generations from now to  continue doing the fine work that they're doing.