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September 24, 2009
7. L.A. LAW (1986-1994) AND THE LESBIAN KISSThis ensemble legal drama was midway through its fifth season (and running out of possible combinations for its bed-hopping characters) when it brought saucy British actress Amanda Donohoe on board to plant one on the lips of Michele Greene's resident sexy-mouse character. Coming at the end of an episode, the kiss was tantamount to a cliffhanger; it all but guaranteed that slack-jawed viewers would tune in next week. Those who did got to see Donohoe deliver a back-pedaling speech about how she liked both men and women equally and would be happy just to be friends if that's what her new friend preferred, while Greene "considered" exploring a new side of herself before deciding that, nope, she wouldn't be going there. Many years later, Greene would tell an interviewer that she regarded the move as "a positive step, especially at that time," but also claimed that the show's producers "never intended to explore the issue of a relationship between two women; it was about ratings during sweeps so I always found it a bit cynical." Said cynicism has led to so many similar moments on so many different shows that critics coined the phrase "lesbian kiss moment" to sum them all up.
8. MELROSE PLACE (1992-1999) AND THE CASE OF THE KISSLESS GROOM
As the campy neon circus of '90s prime-time soaps, Melrose Place was meant to be scandalous, but it hit a wall when it tried to slip the merest suggestion of gay male love past the network. The show had a resident good-looking gay guy — Matt Fielding, played by Doug Savant — who, in contrast to the juicy goings-on by the hormonally deranged straight people all around him, seemed almost pathologically stable. When Matt was permitted to enjoy an on-screen kiss with a man, the network edited it out of the program before allowing the episode to be broadcast, though they had no problem with having him gay-bashed on camera, twice. (Matt was eventually killed in an off-screen car crash after Savant quit the show, claiming terminal boredom.) In contrast to lesbian kisses, even the '90s outbreak of gay-marriage ceremonies still couldn’t bring two men together; witness the kiss-less same-sex weddings of Roseanne and Northern Exposure.
9. INSIDE THE ACTOR'S PANTS
Sometimes plans to stretch the sexual boundaries of a character are thwarted not by network interference, but by queasiness on the part of the actor. Kyle MacLachlan, who hid in a closet watching depraved mommy-and-daddy figures going at it in Blue Velvet, and who would later don a kilt for his wedding scene on Sex and the City, drew the line at having his upright FBI-agent character on Twin Peaks jump into bed with a high-school-age girl (Sherilyn Fenn's Audrey Horne), even though the age difference between the two performers was actually only six years. MacLachlan's reticence derailed carefully laid plans for a serious romantic subplot, and in retrospect may have contributed mightily to the series losing its way during its second season. Agent Cooper's last big scene with Audrey faintly smells of the writers lamenting what might have been.
Then there's the matter of David Jacob Connor., played by Michael Fishman on Roseanne. As the show neared its seventh season, there was a persistent and widespread rumor that the youngest Connor child, D.J., was going to announce he was gay. It never happened — the big surprise of the season premiere turned out to be that Roseanne herself was pregnant again — and some say the reason is that Fishman refused to play along. If Roseanne really had her heart set on Deej coming out of the closet, maybe the thwarting of her plans helps explain the spiraling, out-of-control last few seasons of Roseanne, during which gayness broke out all over Lanford, Illinois, culminating in the fantasy outing of Roseanne's mother. As for Fishman, if he has any regrets about not having ever kissed a guy onscreen, maybe he can take it up with the writers of the new Melrose Place, where he has a recurring role.
10. GREY'S ANATOMY (2005-)
Nowadays you don't often see a big show flailing in terror and confusion over its characters' sexual behavior. Luckily, ABC and the makers of Grey's Anatomy have stepped up to reach for the brass ring. Last year, Grey's brought aboard Brooke Smith — arguably the best actor ever to join the Grey's Anatomy cast — as a love match for Sara Ramirez's Callie Torres. Smith (and the world) thought she was signing on as a series regular. Mid-season, she was surprised to be informed that the next episode she shot would be her last. After E! Online reported that this was the result of an order from upstairs to "de-gay" the show, Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes put out a bizarre statement insisting that it was ridiculous to suggest that the show had a problem with lesbian characters, since Callie Torres (who’s slept only with men up to this point) would be sticking around.
Part of what makes the behind-the-scenes activity at Grey's Anatomy so fascinating is that it seems to have been triggered by the show's own appearances in the gossip columns. In 2006, original cast member Isaiah Washington reportedly called co-star T. R. Knight a "faggot" during a backstage argument. The incident took on deeper significance when Knight felt compelled to come out because of it. The whole thing might still have blown over, but Washington, who seems to have more issues than Publishers Clearing House, wouldn't let it die, alternately apologizing or whining about how he was being treated. (In doing so, he chose to ignore the counsel of his co-star, Katherine Heigl, who told reporters that Washington "needs to just not speak in public, period," the best piece of unsolicited advice I've overheard in many a moon.) Washington was fired at the end of the 2006-2007 season; a year later, Knight would announce that he was quitting, partly because he felt that, since publicly identifying himself as gay, he’d been all but written out of the show. Where earlier shows such as Soap and Love, Sidney were subjected to a "de-gaying" process despite their creators' efforts to bring positive portrayals of gays to TV, Grey's Anatomy defiantly asserted its straightness to keep potential viewers from getting the wrong idea after open warfare broke out between the gays and the homophobes on its creative team. I'm not sure I'd call that progress, but it is a change.
Commentarium (44 Comments)
Joss Whedon had it long before Grey's Anatomy on Buffy. I beleive it was season 5 where Willow and Tara actually kiss on air, but they were a couple for most of season 4.
Not to mention the implied oral sex between Willow and Tara in Once More with Feeling.
In its original form, this article actually mentioned Buffy as a show that handled lesbianism in a less cynical, more character-driven way; we just ran a little short on space. - ed
You ran short of space on the internet?
BAM
DJ Conner stood for David Jacob, not Dan Jr.
While I understand the "running short on space" argument, I don't think that sacrificing a POSITIVE portrayal of lesbians on television (i.e. Willow and Tara) in favour of listing all the ways that television got it wrong possibly loses some of the spirit of the article that I was hoping to read. Then again, not my article, so if your aim was specifically to highlight "here's how television quashes all gay romance," then top-notch job. Yes they're all controversies, but it would have been great to see some of the positive outcomes from these incidents! They're definitely out there!
Fair enough. Here's what Phil had to say about Buffy:
There have been lesbian kiss moments on Roseanne, Picket Fences, Party of Five, Ally McBeal, and Friends, among others; Mischa Barton, who dropped in on Once and Again long enough to tempt Evan Rachel Wood, would later be tempted herself, on The O.C., by Olivia Wilde. In a category all its own is the love affair of Alyson Hannigan's Willow and Amber Benson's Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the characters were deeply and believably committed to each other long before they were first seen to kiss on-screen. Even if it's true that their first kiss was delayed because the network had cold feet, the effect may have been to make the relationship seem like less of a stunt.
Echoing the already stated fact that DJ did not stand for Dan Connor Junior. He was indeed David Jacob. His teacher called him "David Jacob" repeatedly in the early episode in which he won his elementary school spelling bee.
Ditto.
You ran short on space on the internet?
Hello? Xena?
Don't forget the first inter-racial kiss on TV: Uhura and Kirk (I think) on the episode Plato's Stepchildren, circa 1968.
The Brady Bunch was the first program to show a married couple sleeping in the same bed (fully clothed, but still...). That must count for something.
You forgot the TV Movie "That Certain Summer" and the same-sex couple on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman that pretended to be brothers. And to Erin S., Bewitched showed a married couple in the same bed long before the Brady Bunch came on the air.
Do I live in an alternate universe? An article like this an no mention of Will & Grace?
Hate to jump in deeper into the geek pool, but what about the big psuedo-lesbian moment with Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? That one pissed off plenty of idiots back in the day . . .
The first interracial kiss on television was on Star Trek (maybe worth a mention).
I was going to mention the Dax "lesbian" scene in DS9. The writers twisted the whole thing into a pretzel: without going into detail, Dax's female love interest are both aliens who can periodically switch genders. Dax had fallen in love with the lady in question while she (Dax) was male. So, the two ladies got to lay a fairly hot smooch on each other while still having the waters suitably muddied about any lesbian/gay vibe. As a result, Trek had its cake and ate it, too.
That should be "Dax and her female love interest are both aliens...." Woops.
The first married couple in the same bed was on Green Acres: Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.
Pretty shocked that there's no mention of Murphy Brown or Ellen here. I didn't watch or care about the shows, but I certainly remember the national brouhaha each of them stirred up at the peak of their controversy.
To be fair to Grey's Anatomy, they replaced Dr. Hahn with another lesbian doc, Arizona Robbins, and Callie has continued down the lesbian path. I suspect what really happened was
A: The network decided the pairing was to butch, and the orders came down from the network to replace Smith with a more femme actress.
B: the character was gotten rid of because the character was extremely unlikeable, to an extent she couldn't reasonably come back from(due to bad writing).
Or a combination of the two...I tend to believe that it was 75% column A, and 25% column B.
Let us not forget about the classic episode "The Contest" (about masturbation) from Seinfeld.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contest
Christian fundamentalists raised a fuss about this episode as well.
@ Bruce - totally agree! They got rid of the awesome actress who played Dr. Hahn, then replaced her with a sugary sweet younger blonde.
I Love Lucy was groundbreaking. It was the first program to allow a pregnant actor screen time, but she wasn't allowed to use the word 'pregnant'.
Ozzie and Harriet Nelson were one of the first screen couples to be allowed to share a bed without with each actor being required to keep one foot on the floor at all times. The horrors!!!
My post is so garbled because the comment box is so small that you can only see two lines at a time. Increase the size of the comment box!
Are you sure that Jodie Dallas ("SOAP") still identified as gay? During the story where he converted the lesbian, he did bring a man home (the scene was for a laugh -- the lesbian brought a woman home, and things were awkward), and then he almost lost custody of his child because of homosexuality, but they still put him in hetero relationships. His last relationship on the show was with the PI who had helped him in the custody fight and when the baby mama ran away. She was played by Maggie Rhodes. Then, realizing the character was long dead anyway, they fully caved to Billy Crystal's "comic" gifts and had Jodie somehow get the personality of an elderly Jewish butcher.
i dont get it, what exactly was this list about? the moments when networks chose the easy path over controversy? or when the networks neutered their best chances at interesting shows? none of these "controversies" changed tv, they just supported the networks ideas that america wasn't ready for the raciness they could offer, but chose to soften. so what is this really about? Please inform me, i don't follow the current titles ideology.
What is bisexuality "back-pedaling"? Do you not consider it a valid sexuality? Do you realize how insulting that is to bisexuals?
Did all of these controversies really "change TV"? Many were arguably trailblazers that were before their time, and I found this a fascinating history of what was controversial before my birth in 1978. If this article is to be treated as comprehensive, post-1980 nothing besides homosexuality was very controversial on TV when it comes to sex. I suppose that time period coincided with the launch of cable, and as cable blazed new ground the networks were able to gradually follow.
In many ways this reads as a list of "things the Networks got squeamish about and weren't allowed to change TV at their time".
Seriously? No mention of Star Trek?
30 Something having the first gay couple in bed together.
How about the first human-machine sex in Battlestar Galactica, when Helo and Athena get it on and have a child?
DJ's name was David Jacob
We've updated the post to correct D.J.'s full name. - ed.
I cannot believe you overlooked mentioning "Seinfeld" for one single reference.
"Master of my domain"? Erika, the phone sex lady? George and Jerry's evil plot hatched to get Jerry in bed with his girlfriend's roommate, and that ingenious ending, so incongruously REALISTIC, for God's sake?
No TV program slashed censorship more. And...Cagney and LACY? Groundbreaking? Because they LOOKED like dykes? Good grief!
No mention of Maude's (Bea Arthur) open decision to have an abortion of her husband's baby? That wouldn't fly on television even today. Are all of the new Nerve writers sub 25?
Not to nitpick, but the lesbian kiss on "L.A. Law" was not at the end of the episode but about one-third of the way through the episode...which, like Rosalind Shays falling down the elevator shaft, made it all the more shocking than if it had been at the end of the episode. I remember it as if it was yesterday--I was in college and had recorded the episode on my VCR (kickin' it OLD SCHOOL!). I watched it later that night as I was falling asleep, and when the kiss happened, I jumped straight out of bed in shock. I had to rewind it a few times to make sure I didn't dream it. Yes, they downplayed things by the end of the episode, and when the characters did go out on a "date" (several episodes later) it was just long enough to have C.J. dump Abby for not really being interested in women ("Consider yourself two things: dumped...and relieved."), it cemented CJ as one of the most intriguing characters on the show. At least until they watered down her character a season or two later. Hell, everything got watered down by the end of the run of that show.
In an interview, Joss Whedon said he specifically waited to show Willow and Tara kiss until the episode dealing with Joyce's death so the network couldn't advertise the episode as a lesbian kiss thing. Joss didn't want their relationship trivialized like that.
How could you possibly leave out the first televised interracial kiss on Star Trek?
The high school orgy scene on Without a Trace's epi, Our Sons and Daughters, no big deal the first time it aired, but it ran in an earlier time slot in a re-run and caused a big problem. CBS and WB got fined big time.
@Bruce:
On what planet is Callie Torres butch?
mumbo jumbo,
Also on Roseanne, the episode where DJ was caught masturbating at school. There were tons of joke about how he played with his instrument, etc, and the closing shot of the episode showed Roseanne arguing arguing with the network's censor over what synonyms for "erection" could be used. I believe the show was fined and Roseanna happily paid it herself.