The first same-sex kiss on US TV was actually between 2 women on the show L.A. Law in 1991. The first kiss between 2 gay men was on Dawson's Creek in 2000.
"Plato's Stepchildren" and Southern TV Stations
- Thread starter Joanna McCoy-Kirk
- Start date
Naturally, since TV has traditionally pandered to the male gaze, and guys think two women kissing is hot.
Oh. I honestly did not know that.
In the 55 years of TV watching, I have never noticed a lack of beefcake. Even in the age of "jiggle television" when bras were optional, Steve Austin was running next to Jaime wearing nothing but trunks, Burke and Verdon were working in a field without shirts, Bo and Luke (not to mention Coy and Vance) were chopping wood in just jeans and the images of Ponch gyrating in a fitness class wearing nothing but a speedo is burned into my mental retinas. All aimed squarely at the ladies. Even Gil Garard was "showing the merchandise" for the appreciative in the audience. NYPD Blue had no problem panning down to Jimmy Smit's backside in the show for no apparent plot reason. TV is why I have such a problem with my own body image and never feel good enough. The 70's and 80's were full of well toned pecs.
Oddly, in the same era, Battlestar Galactica was mostly wrapped up pretty tightly (just a few scant exceptions).
I'm not gonna deny that was a factor, but it was also the path of least resistance to getting a same sex kiss on the air. Baby steps. Evolution instead of revolution. I'm not sure it matters which sex got the representation first, I guess mileage varies, but after years of negative connotation and coming off the horror of the AIDS epidemic, I'm sure they went with the easiest to swallow. Not even Star Trek did it without sugar coating and they never had the balls to go as far until it was already established (and it had to be on a pay platform).
CRUSHER: Perhaps it is a human failing, but we are not accustomed to these kinds of changes. I can't keep up. How long will you have this host? What would the next one be? I can't live with that kind of uncertainty. Perhaps, someday, our ability to love won't be so limited.
This is more loaded today than it was at the time and says less about humans than it does about Beverly. She was fine when it was Riker's body but once Odan was in a female form, she balked. I would have loved to see him in another hot dude's body and have her say the same thing. Regardless of her dialog, the implication is there if you look for it.
So sure, there are reasons why female / female was broached first, but I think there was more to it than "pandering."
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The sitcom Friends made a big deal out of Joey and Chandler wanting to see the girls kiss. It's a really good series and I'm guessing you missed it.
Of course, on that show, the girls were Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston at the peak of their beauty. In real life, how "hot" it is to see women kiss very much depends on which women are doing it, I'm gonna tell you that much right now.
I said "traditionally," not "exclusively."
Which was exactly my point.
No, I never watched Friends. Also, I guess I don't get out much.
I’ve never watched it either. Left me stone cold and unimpressed.
We used to torment my friends Mississippi born and bred racist mom by calling her down to the basement rec-room whenever the rerun of that episode was on. We timed fake emergencies to coincide with kiss. She would actually (I'm not kidding) scream, then march furiously back up the stairs complaining about what awful children we were. My friends (three sisters) were often horrified by the racist shit that came out of her mouth. (Lived in Denver at the time.)
This has been happening with things I post in the "stars in surprising roles" thread for a while. It's been suggested it's because TBBS is a secure (https) site, and my website host is a plain ol' http.
Here's a link to the page rather than the picture - scroll down a little.
http://www.inpayne.com/film/film.html
Not missing much, though it sadly dominated my last two years of high school.As per usual, it overblows the whole idea of "all guys find two women kissing hot."No, I never watched Friends. Also, I guess I don't get out much.
Well, sure, but you have to put it in the context of the time. Having it be forced is the only way they could get it on the air at all. These things tend to go in baby steps, so it's not how it seems to us in retrospect that matters, but how it compared to the norm for the time.
Besides, the importance of the event had more to do with the actors kissing than the characters. After all, audiences had no problem with the idea of a human and Vulcan getting married and having a kid, as long as they were both played by white actors. The reality of the actors' races outweighed the fiction of the characters' species. By the same token, what's significant here is not Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura being forced to kiss on the planet Platonius, but William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols voluntarily kissing and the producers and network voluntarily broadcasting it on prime-time television. Racists would've seen any depiction of black lips touching white lips as obscene, regardless of the excuse within the fiction. After all, they knew it was just a story. What was offensive to them was that the storytellers chose to include that in their entertainment. After all, it might give people (shudder) ideas! And we can't have that!
Says. Who?
Right? Again I point to Wagner and Nicholas, a month later.
The idea that they had to use a forced kiss is in no way supported by any firsthand account I can recall reading; it doesn't jibe with the what I remember Freiberger saying about it, nor does it comport with the NBC Broadcast Standards memo I've seen, which is only concerned with the kiss not being exploitive. There's more to it, but that's all in an article we've not published yet.
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Here's a thought experiment that might be interesting to consider.
Could "Court Martial" have been made with a black Areel Shaw, with the same script and editing, including the (consensual) kiss between Kirk and Shaw at the end?
I chose that one, because Shaw is human, but not under Kirk's command; she's one of the guests of the week.
Could "Court Martial" have been made with a black Areel Shaw, with the same script and editing, including the (consensual) kiss between Kirk and Shaw at the end?
I chose that one, because Shaw is human, but not under Kirk's command; she's one of the guests of the week.
It's an interesting thought experiment but there's no way of knowing what NBC's reaction might have been in 1966. The romance between Lazarus and Masters in "The Alternative Factor" was cut (due to its similarity to McGivers in "Space Seed") before the Masters role was cast with a black woman.
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