46 Years Ago Today: The Kirk/Uhura Kiss

[Joel_Kirk]

The first interracial hand-holding actually appears to be in The Littlest Colonel between Shirley Temple & Bill Robinson from 1935 (another 8 years earlier).

The studio probably figured it wouldn't spark any controversy since Shirley Temple was 6 years old at the time.

There was a Japanese-American actor named Sessue Hayakawa who romanced Asian and Caucasian women in silent films. So, maybe he was doing the interracial thing in movies first.

Based on the racial standards (and racial hard-on)of America and how America views race (i.e. only discussing it or bringing attention to it when something involves black people opposite non-black people) it always bothers me when people gloss over the 'other' interracial kisses Kirk does in the series with non-white women. For example, the smooches with France Nuyen and Barbara Luna.

 

[scotpens]

The first interracial hand-holding actually appears to be in The Littlest Colonel between Shirley Temple & Bill Robinson from 1935 (another 8 years earlier).

The studio probably figured it wouldn't spark any controversy since Shirley Temple was 6 years old at the time.

The more I think about this, if someone was going to get upset about this kind of thing, wouldn't they be more upset if it was a little white girl?

No, because childhood was seen as a time of innocence back then. People didn't have today's sensibilities whereby we've become hyper-sensitized to issues like child molestation and pedophilia.

 

[ToddPence]

When Sidney Portier kissed Anne Bancroft at the 1964 Oscars, the New York Times the next day referred to it as "television's first interracial kiss".

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I've always felt that Roddenberry crowed a little too often and a little too loudly about how he courageously gave us the first interracial kiss ever seen on TV when that kiss was depicted as an involuntary, coerced exercise in humiliation.

 

[Marsden]

I've always felt that Roddenberry crowed a little too often and a little too loudly about how he courageously gave us the first interracial kiss ever seen on TV when that kiss was depicted as an involuntary, coerced exercise in humiliation.

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