"Well, was Tommy gay or not?"
"Does it matter?"
Oh boy.
Welcome to the 60s!
When men were men, women were women, and a time-traveling scientist was secretly laying
the groundwork for the next three decades of queer liberation.
All aboard, and welcome to Matt Baume’s Culture Cruise, where we take a deep dive
on LGBTQ themes in the entertainment we love.
This time, we’re checking out the 1992 episode of Quantum Leap entitled “Running for Honor,”
in which Dr. Sam Beckett travels back in time to set right what once went wrong -- and maybe
pave the way for the Stonewall Riots.
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Also, just so you know -- this episode deals with themes connected to self harm.
If you need help or someone to talk to, there are resources in the description for this
video.
If you’re not familiar with Quantum Leap, the premise of the show is … weird.
It aired from 1989 to 93, and Scott Bakula played a scientist named Sam Beckett from
the near future who invents a time-traveling device that sends him into the bodies of people
in the past.
Sam’s assisted on his jumps by a colleague named Al, who is projected holographically
from the future, and is only visible to Sam.
And on each episode Sam and Al have to figure out some historical problem that Sam’s there
to solve before he can leap again, always trying to get back to his home time.
Ok, got it?
Good.
On the 1992 episode “Running for Honor,” Sam Beckett leaps into the body of Tommy,
a midwestern military cadet.
It’s June -- hey, Pride month -- of 1964.
Tommy’s a star athlete, he’s the valedictorian, he’s got a friendly coach.
But what Sam, now in Tommy’s body, doesn’t have is any idea why he’s here -- in other
words, what historical wrong he’s there to right.
Until he meets with Tommy’s friend Phillip, who was recently kicked out of the same naval
school.
“You know, we probably should have met somewhere else.
… You know, somebody might see us together.”
Oh, could that possibly mean?
Phillip isn’t just worried about being seen together -- he’s also concerned about some
recent violence:
“Happened again last night in Dalton.
Guy was just walking out of a bar and they jumped him.
You know, that’s the third time this month.”
Sam’s still not sure what’s going on, but Phillip wants to meetup later that night
at an unfamiliar address.
Al, who’s projected holographically from the future and has access to historical records,
uncovers some details:
“Oh this is some kind of underground newspaper.”
It’s also the scene of a fight.
Sam bursts in to find Phillip getting beat up, and that’s when Al, who’s been busy
going through military records, explains what’s going on.
“Sam, Phillip was kicked out of Prescott because he was gay.”
The year this episode aired, 1992, was a big year for LGBTQ issues.
In the early 90s, the country was growing gradually -- very gradually -- more comfortable
talking about homosexuality.
For one thing, it was becoming safer for queer people to come out to family and friends…
“This is Doug, he’s my friend.
My very special friend.”
“Well, any friend of Clay’s is --”
But also, after a decade of the HIV epidemic, it was becoming clear just how important it
was to come out as publicly as possible.
Throughout the 80s, the federal government responded slowly or not at all to HIV.
It took Reagan years to even acknowledge it was a thing, much less dedicate any resources
to stopping it.
It took huge, loud, rowdy protests to force any kind of action at all.
By 1992, when this episode aired, 150,000 Americans with HIV had died.
In that climate, remaining silent in the face of the epidemic was seen as being complicit
in allowing it to spread.
As a result, LGBTQ activism became significantly louder and demanded more prominence as time
went on.
For example, here’s activist Bob Hattoy talking about being gay at the 1992 Democratic
National Convention:
“The gay and lesbian community is an American family in the best sense of the word.”
For comparison, here’s how the Republican National Convention talked about gays and
lesbians.
“The Nazi movement, the new world order of its day, was put on the map by militant
homosexuals.”
So, a bit of a contrast in how the parties were tackling things.
Anyway, HIV wasn’t the only issue that people were talking about in 1992.
One of the other big topics that year was gays in the military, in part because a report
had just come out showing that hunting down queer service members and throwing them out
was costing the military millions of dollars a year.
There was a ban on open service, and candidate Bill Clinton pledged to overturn that with
an executive order.
But Republicans in Congress knew that this issue fired up their base, and they threatened
to pass even stronger anti-gay laws if he overturned the ban outright.
They even used Clinton’s pledge in TV ads to try to mobilize voters against him:
“Bill Clinton’s vision for a better America includes job quotas for homosexuals.
Giving homosexuals special civil rights.
Allowing homosexuals in the armed forces.
… Is this your vision for a better America?”
So as a result, we wound up with a bad compromise, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which became law
in 1993 after Clinton was elected.
So that’s the climate in which Quantum Leap tackled the topic of gays in the military
-- not by placing it in a modern setting, but by setting it in 1964.
Back then, the LGBTQ community was virtually invisible.
Queer people -- especially outside of major cities -- barely had any way to find each
other in the 60s.
But I want to call your attention to the fact that Phillip is working at what Al calls an
“underground newspaper.”
The writers of this episode seem to have done their homework.
Underground newspapers were one of the first ways that queer folks organized in the 20th
century, and even earlier, starting with Der Eigene, a German magazine that was started
in 1896 by Magnus Hirschfeld, and was eventually forced to fold by the Nazis.
Later in the 20th century there was One Magazine, which published articles about marriage equality
in the early 1950s; lesbian magazines like The Ladder and Vice Versa, and The Advocate;
which debuted in 1967, just a few years after this episode takes place.
And then there’s physique magazines like Vim, which is maybe a topic for another video.
The point is, underground newspapers were a crucial component of early LGBTQ organizing,
at a time when queer folks were usually isolated, silenced, or killed.
It’s pretty cool to see them recognized on a mainstream TV show.
At this point, Sam and Al are starting to figure out why Sam’s here.
Al finds historical data indicating that Phillip is going to die in the next few days, and
that they need to save his life -- presumably, from a gang that’s been attacking gay men
around town.
But Al, who used to be in the military himself, is not entirely comfortable with the mission:
“I don’t ever remember seeing you cross your legs that way before.”
“Maybe it’s better if you don’t walk around with your hands on your hips like that.”
“Tea, not coffee?”
This moment reminds me of a scene in “The Gay Divorcee,” when Howard Everett Horton
is ordering from a particularly fey waiter, and …
“Tea.”
“Tea!
Well, isn’t it a small world, sir.”
I don’t know how drinking tea came to be code for being gay, but that’s none of my
business.
Anyway, Al doesn’t like the idea of gays in the military, though he can’t really
explain why.
“When the only thing between you and violent death is the guy next to you.
And I’m not so sure it’s a good idea for the guy next to you to be uhhh…”
Al’s supposed to be from the future -- a more enlightened time.
But in the context of Quantum Leap, “future” means around 1995.
And Al’s carrying around a lot of the actual bigotry of the 90s.
He’s not quite “the Nazis were all gay” bigoted, but he’s convinced that gays are
a problem -- somehow.
Despite being from the future, Al’s views are more closely aligned with the past.
“I don’t believe that a person’s sexual preference has anything to do with their ability
to lead or anything else for that matter.”
“I'm sure from where you stand that's true.
But I disagree with you and so does the Navy.”
“So do I.”
That’s a fine thing to believe, but it isn’t true.
Researchers at the RAND Institute have been studying this since 1993 and have conducted
multiple studies confirming it: Queer folks, whether they’re gay or bi or lesbian or
trans, don’t present any problems for military cohesion.
But you know what does?
Bigots.
There’s a group of anti-gay vigilantes on campus, and they’re starting to take justice
into their own hands.
“This tribunal finds you guilty of perversion and sentences you to death by hanging.”
After threatening Tommy, aka Sam, for asking too many questions, it looks like they’ll
go after Phillip next.
Phillip, meanwhile, is planning to print a list of names of gay cadets at the school.
Sam’s afraid that that’ll be the final straw that gets him killed, and begs Phillip
not to.
But Phillip says they’re in this together:
“You’re just like me, you just haven’t admitted it yet.”
“Maybe you just want to believe I am so you don’t feel so alone.”
Issues of loneliness and isolation come up a lot in this episode, and no wonder.
Remember, in 1964, it was extremely difficult for queer folks to find each other.
No wonder Phillip feels desperate.
But Sam doesn’t realize just how desperate his friend is until it’s almost too late.
It wasn’t the gang that was going to kill Phillip -- Phillip was going to do it himself.
“You said you wanted to make a statement, so make one.
Show the whole world you’re not ashamed.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
That line -- “I can’t do this alone” -- is the real crux of the episode, and honestly
of the queer liberation movement.
Of course he can’t make a statement alone.
Nobody could.
That’s why equality felt so impossible at the time.
Change happened because queer people found each other, organized, fought together against
systemic bigotry over the decades that were to come.
And on the topic of getting together, here comes the coach:
“You’re not alone, Phillip.
I know about the the guilt, the shame, the fear.
Spent my whole life that way.
Wondering why I had to be different.
… You and I, hey, we got nothing to be ashamed of.”
That’s all Phillip needs to start changing course.
Just to know he’s not alone.
Knowing that there’s others like him doesn’t solve all of his problems, but it’s a start
to building a better life, and from there a better world.
Later on, Al looks up what happens to Phillip over the next few years, and...
“He goes to work at a place called The Stonewall Bar.
Oh, this was the birthplace of the gay liberation movement, and he helped it get started.”
That’s a nice detail, though I think it’s important to note that a lot of the folks
at Stonewall were people of color and what we would today call non-binary or trans, though
that terminology wasn’t in widespread use at the time.
But like the underground newspapers, I’m glad to hear Stonewall acknowledged on prime-time
TV.
I distinctly remember learning about the Stonewall Riots from an encyclopedia in my teens, which
was around the same time this episode aired.
And just knowing that there were other queer folks out there standing up for their freedom
really changed the way I thought about myself, about Pride, and about the community that
awaited me.
Phillip’s not the only one changed by this experience -- in the epilogue, Al concedes:
“You were right.
I was wrong.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“You.
The coach.
Phillip.
Mostly Phillip.
I was wrong.
I’m not always right.
I was wrong.”
It’s rare that Al gets an arc on Quantum Leap, so this is a really nice touch.
In Quantum Leap’s vision of the future, people like Al who are uneasy about equality
can eventually come around.
In 1964, when this episode takes place, there were just barely hints of a better future
that awaited the queer community.
Some secret newspapers, quiet social support, suggestions of direct action to come.
This episode gives us a glimpse at just how isolated and harsh that pre-Stonewall time
was.
Thirty years later, when the episode aired, a better future was finally coming into focus.
This was a fictional story, but you just had to change the channel to the evening news
to see LGBTQ folks organizing, speaking out, and demanding equal rights.
The show was a small part of a big shift in visibility for queer folks, thanks to generations
of activists.
And here we are, another thirty years later, in the future.
We went from underground newspapers … to glossy magazines ... to entire cable networks.
From massive witch hunts to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to repeal in 2010.
We can look back at the real-life struggles of the 60s, to the hard work of the 90s, and
the intervening years.
And we can actually see how, together, the queer community set right what once went wrong.
Land ho!
We’re pulling into port.
Thanks for cruising along with us!
And thanks to everyone who makes the Culture Cruise possible with a pledge of a dollar
or more a month on Patreon, folks like Stanford Brown.
There’s some lovely new rewards for folks who make the show possible -- head over to
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to backers.
And now if you’ll excuse me, there’s some guy I need to leap into.