The First Interracial Kiss on (American) Television

[ToddPence]

A couple of relevant discussion forums from different boards. One of the posts cites the use of a "hell" from as early as 1956.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-330838.html

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-345410.html


Also, the following episode titles from TV shows previous to "City" all had the word, the frequency in which it is used in episode titles shows that it wasn't that big a deal:

BOURBON STREET BEAT - "Green Hell" (1960)
THRILLER - "Pigeons From Hell" (1961)
HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL - "Justice in Hell" (1962)
ROUTE 66 - "Hell is Empty, All the Devils are Here" (1962)
DUPONT SHOW OF THE WEEK - "The Hell Walkers" (1964)
THE FUGITIVE - "Corner of Hell" (1965)
COMBAT - "Hell Machine" (1965)
BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER - "When Hell Froze" (1966)
WILD WILD WEST - "Night of the Bars of Hell" (1966)
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - "Snowball in Hell" (1967)

 

[Captain Robert April]

Use as a proper noun was not an issue. Use as an expletive was a big issue. THAT'S the difference.

 

[Anji]

You are correct, Captain April. It is how the word is used.

But at the end of the City on the Edge of Forever, could you honestly see Kirk saying "Let's get the heck out of here"???? He just let a human being die for goodness sake!
If I was a censor I would've let it pass too. Given the situation and the emotion of the scene the word was the only appropriate one.

 

[ToddPence]

I don't doubt that there are different contexts in which the word can be used. My point was that there are a lot of web sites out there claiming that "City on the Edge of Forever" was the first TV show in which the word Hell was used, period. And I was trying to show that that claim is completely and totally false.

I posted the Jay C. Flippen line from 1960 I alluded to earlier. Here it is. Do you think this qualifies as the use of the word as an expletive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvbht-ZBpcE

 

[Sir Rhosis]

^^^Definitely does.

 

[Maurice]

Bingo. Another Trek "first" that wasn't.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

But ToddPence's earlier example from Route 66 wasn't in living color.

(Seriously, it's kind of impressive that you were able to produce that example, ToddPence.)

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Is my understanding correct that in fact it was the first "scripted" interracial kiss on American television.

Resurrecting this thread because I saw something. In an episode of Sea Hunt (the Lloyd Bridges scuba adventure show), Lloyd Bridges was kissed by a Japanese woman in the episode. Looked up the actress (Nora McCarthy), she was Japanese-Canadian. The episode, "Proof of Guilt", first aired 8/16/59, which would put it 9 years ahead of "Plato's Stepchildren". It would also predate the Sammy Davis kiss, making it not just the 1st interracial kiss on scripted television but the 1st such kiss on television scripted or as part of an "unscripted" show.


Was the Kirk-Uhura kiss first a myth perpetrated by an oblivious Star Trek fan who assumed it was the first interracial kiss on television and widely promoted that erroneous fact (because they read about the controversy it caused in the South)? Or were blacks seen as the only "race" that whites could have interracial kisses with and Asians were ignored? Or was it because Sea Hunt was syndicated it was ignored? (even though it was the highest rated series in syndication until Star Trek: TNG debuted)

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

Was the Kirk-Uhura kiss first a myth perpetrated by an oblivious Star Trek fan who assumed it was the first interracial kiss on television and widely promoted that erroneous fact (because they read about the controversy it caused in the South)? Or were blacks seen as the only "race" that whites could have interracial kisses with and Asians were ignored?

I think it's probably a combination of those two. "Race" in the Sixties had a strong Black-White connotation because that was what all the rioting was about at that time, as well as all the history with slavery, segregation, etc. So the only really verboten kind of "interracial" on TV was Black-White interracial.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

As a 65 year old man who lived through the struggle for racial equality with open eyes, the black "race" issue was the only race issue in the minds of most Americans. Other racial minorities were pretty limited outside the coastal cities (San Francisco, New York, Miami, DC, etc.) and not viewed with anything close to the hostility that blacks faced. Todays news tells us that it ain't over yet.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

I suspected that. Anyone know of any documented accounts of how Southerners reacted to mixed race couples of a white and a Hispanic or Asian at the time? Or even just their presence in their communities?

 

[RPJOB]

As a 65 year old man who lived through the struggle for racial equality with open eyes, the black "race" issue was the only race issue in the minds of most Americans. Other racial minorities were pretty limited outside the coastal cities (San Francisco, New York, Miami, DC, etc.) and not viewed with anything close to the hostility that blacks faced. Todays news tells us that it ain't over yet.

Well, except for the whole rounding up the Japanese, seizing their property and putting them into internment camps thing. I don't recall something similar happening to the German or Italian Americans. Of course, you could tell which people were Japanese just by looking at them and the others could just change their name to something more anglo.

 

[Maurice]

Of course, you could tell which people were Japanese just by looking at them and the others could just change their name to something more anglo.

Plenty of Japanese people are mistaken for Koreans and Chinese and vice versa. It's not THAT easy.

 

[Sindatur]

Of course, you could tell which people were Japanese just by looking at them and the others could just change their name to something more anglo.

Plenty of Japanese people are mistaken for Koreans and Chinese and vice versa. It's not THAT easy.

One would hope, if the Government went so far that they assigned folks to round up a specific Nationality of people, they would have the foresight to share the knowledge with them that Japanese and Chinese people have eyes that slant in opposite directions (I'm not sure about Koreans, but, I believe they slant downwards, like the Chinese). Though, I have heard Horror stories about Chinese people who were interred right along with the Japanese, simply because they looked Oriental

 

[Greg Cox]

Heck, after 9/11, you had Sikhs being beaten up because they "looked Muslim."

 

[Nerys Myk]

Of course, you could tell which people were Japanese just by looking at them and the others could just change their name to something more anglo.

Plenty of Japanese people are mistaken for Koreans and Chinese and vice versa. It's not THAT easy.

One would hope, if the Government went so far that they assigned folks to round up a specific Nationality of people, they would have the foresight to share the knowledge with them that Japanese and Chinese people have eyes that slant in opposite directions (I'm not sure about Koreans, but, I believe they slant downwards, like the Chinese). Though, I have heard Horror stories about Chinese people who were interred right along with the Japanese, simply because they looked Oriental

What???? First I've ever heard that.

 

[Tribble Herder]

Is my understanding correct that in fact it was the first "scripted" interracial kiss on American television.

Resurrecting this thread because I saw something. In an episode of Sea Hunt (the Lloyd Bridges scuba adventure show), Lloyd Bridges was kissed by a Japanese woman in the episode. Looked up the actress (Nora McCarthy), she was Japanese-Canadian. The episode, "Proof of Guilt", first aired 8/16/59, which would put it 9 years ahead of "Plato's Stepchildren". It would also predate the Sammy Davis kiss, making it not just the 1st interracial kiss on scripted television but the 1st such kiss on television scripted or as part of an "unscripted" show.


Was the Kirk-Uhura kiss first a myth perpetrated by an oblivious Star Trek fan who assumed it was the first interracial kiss on television and widely promoted that erroneous fact (because they read about the controversy it caused in the South)? Or were blacks seen as the only "race" that whites could have interracial kisses with and Asians were ignored? Or was it because Sea Hunt was syndicated it was ignored? (even though it was the highest rated series in syndication until Star Trek: TNG debuted)

I think it's the syndicated part that excludes "Sea Hunt", as well as, for some bizzare, arcane reason nobody has yet determined, Asians don't seem to count in these determinations.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Well, except for the whole rounding up the Japanese, seizing their property and putting them into internment camps thing. I don't recall something similar happening to the German or Italian Americans. Of course, you could tell which people were Japanese just by looking at them and the others could just change their name to something more anglo.

WWII was for more level headed in how it handled suspected enemies among the population. The internment of the Japanese was a disgrace but WWII didn't develop the toxic atmosphere WWI had. The internment probably saved the Japanese-Americans from being attacked by reactionary psychos among the population (one small positive from what was a big misjustice). Didn't save them from being depicted as subhumans in comics & cartoons though. I've seen conflicting info if the Niihau Incident was responsible for the internment policy or not. WWI was downright toxic by contrast.

The German-Americans were the subject of that anti-German mania. So many foods got renamed then to destroy the German connection and the Wilson administration crafted propaganda to make people suspicious of the Germans. There was at least 1 documented account of a man speaking German being killed simply for speaking German. Prohibitionists even took advantage of the historical beer/brewing= German link to push their agenda. That time is why German ethnicity and identity became invisible in the US and it still is compared to others. Except for Wisconsin, how many German pride parades do you see vs. Irish, Latino, Italian, Black, Polish, etc? 25% of the US has some German, yet based on what you see, you would guess it were far less. Many German-Americans changed their names in those years, often dropping the 2nd n for -manns and making other changes to the endings to make the names look less German.

Baseball and how it was treated during WWI vs. WWII is a contrast of how horribly vs. greatly the domestic wartime atmosphere was handled by the governments then. As bad as the internment of the Japanese-Americans was, WWII was handled much better domestically than WWI, even factoring out the Spanish Flu.

Edit: let me add that immigration to the US shut down to a trickle over the early-mid 1920s. As a result, most of the first-gen Germans & Italians in the US were middle-aged by WWII (in the country for over 10 years). This was a big contrast to WWI which came in the middle of the big immigration boom from 1892 to the early 1920s. By WWII, most Germans had assimilated and the cultural damage from WWI was already done. So WWI had more ethnic Germans in the country for a shorter time and their culture was intact (they speak their language, have cultural traditions out in public, etc) whereas by WWII they were in the country for longer or second-gen by then and German culture and identity had to basically dissolve away to avoid some kind of pogrom (there was that fear during WWI. That kind of thing was going on during WWI, Armenian genocide et al).

 

[Redfern]

...the knowledge with them that Japanese and Chinese people have eyes that slant in opposite directions ...

What???? First I've ever heard that.

I have, but only as unthinking, cruel schoolyard humor. A child, usually with no observable Asian ancestry, would say, "My father's Japanese," and raise the outer corners of his eyelids. He continue with, "My mother's Chinese," and lower the outer corners of his eyes. He'd finally follow with, "And I'm both," while raising one outer eyelid and lowing the other, usually while crossing his eyes.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Sindatur]

I work for a Japanese company, and work with many Japanese people, and have also worked with many Chinese. I wasn't being insulting or making a joke.