The "Morn Fay" gay weddg -- equal rights or assiatn? |

Contents:

• MORN FAY’S BIG, GAY (AND IMPORTANT) WEDDG
• THE MORN FAY EFFECT: POP CULTURE’S ROLE THE GAY-MARRIAGE REVOLUTN
• ‘MORN FAY’ FALLY THROWS THE GAY MARRIAGE EVERYONE WANTED
• 'MORN FAY' AND GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S COMPLITED
• ‘MORN FAY’ FALE: HOW CAMERON AND MCHELL FOREVER CHANGED GAY FAI ON TV
• ‘MORN FAY’ WRER REVEALS EMOTNAL BACKSTORY OF ‘HISTORIC’ GAY MARRIAGE PROPOSAL (EXCLIVE)
• THE "MORN FAY" GAY WEDDG -- EQUAL RIGHTS OR ASSIATN?
• ‘MORN FAY’ CONSIRG A GAY WEDDG AFTER SUPREME COURT RULGS
• MORN FAY CONSIRG GAY WEDDG FOR MCH AND CAM

MORN FAY’S BIG, GAY (AND IMPORTANT) WEDDG

In what is, at the most, a major moment televisn history and, at the very least, a quiet step forward for the marriage equaly movement, TV’s most award and send most-watched edy seri aired a gay the bate over the legalizatn of gay marriage makg headl on a daily basis, ’s hard not to read to the fact that 10. ” Ever sce Morn Fay accintally beme televisn’s go-to polil lightng rod, the show’s gay uple and the ton they’ve passed together on screen have llaterally bee bean’s of progrs when to what uld broadly be referred to as “acceptance” by the public at might argue that what two televisn characters do on a s should hardly be nsted as “important, ” but as we’ve long learned, polics and pop culture are often extribly tertwed. Now, ’s apparently OK for two guys to share that bed, ’s impossible to quantify how many words have been voted to the progrs—or, some opn, the lack thereof—when to pictg gay characters on mastream TV.

There are some who reject the ia that Mch and Cam, two characters who are broadly drawn and arguably perpetuate margalizg stereotyp of gay-ish character tras, are the unwtg poster gays for the equal-rights movement, at least some of the more uniated segments of the one thg that’s never been broadly drawn when to Mch and Cam, and much of this is owed to the warm chemistry between stars Jse Tyler Fergon and Eric Stontreet, is their love.

”From the time that Morn Fay’s brilliant pilot buted and Cam was thstg newly adopted Lily to the air while “Circle of Life” om The Ln Kg played the background—a geni moment one of the most perfect pilots om the last 10 years—Mch and Cam and their gayns were also thst forward, their every actn and even their mere existence, on a mastream seri stantly embraced by crics and viewers alike, was a gay love story that we actually jo the middle. There were no plots, as there ually are on work TV when gay characters are volved, about g to terms wh their own sexuali, g out of the closet, or nvcg their fai to love them.

THE MORN FAY EFFECT: POP CULTURE’S ROLE THE GAY-MARRIAGE REVOLUTN

It was the polil maniftatn of a Sefeld joke, reassurg voters that they don’t hate the gay muny—a verable “not that there’s anythg wrong wh that…”Then me the clamorg for what people wanted Mch and Cam to reprent, more than what they maybe actually did. And that was, neglectg the fact that they were s characters, a “real” gay uple. And, fally, the petn to have them fally make legal (you know, once California, where the show tak place, ma so a legal gay marriage was actually possible) other words, this was a very special episo of the show, and a landmark episo of televisn, general.

”)There was also the edy of errors stemmg om the mismunitn between Mch and his father, Jay, who he thks isn’t on board wh the ia of the gay weddg but, of urse, uldn’t be more proud. Jay, a b obtely standg for the ntgent of Amerins who happily endorse gay marriage but don’t know the rrect or acceptable terms for discsg , keeps parg Mch and Cam’s ceremony to a “regular weddg.

When the two men actually said “I do, ” the only thg borrg on a natural disaster was the flood of tears by the guts ’ve seen gay upl get married on TV before. Now, wh Proposn 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act DOMA feated, the seri is about to cement the public image of a happy gay nuclear fay wh the weddg of long-term boyiends, Mchell and Cameron. Although the reprentatn of gay and lbian characters on Amerin screens is beg creasgly mon, is easy to fet how recently US televisn was a straights-only doma.

‘MORN FAY’ FALLY THROWS THE GAY MARRIAGE EVERYONE WANTED

In the 1960s and 1970s, homosexualy on televisn was treated like a social problem, or an exotic disease.

'MORN FAY' AND GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S COMPLITED

The low pot of this sort of programmg was CBS’s 1967 hour-long vtigatn The Homosexuals. It opened wh a poll statg that Amerins saw homosexualy as “more harmful to society than adultery, abortn or prostutn”, and did ltle to dispel those fears.

While there were also more thoughtful treatments of homosexual characters, such as the ABC TV movie, That Certa Summer, even the tend to portray gayns as a personal misfortune. As gay rights groups grew more vol, televisn grew braver pictg gay characters. Shows like Hill Street Blu and LA Law featured gay characters, typilly one-off storyl or “special episos”.

Here homosexualy was still an issue, though was more likely to be a personal or emotnal one rather than the social problem of earlier tim.

‘MORN FAY’ FALE: HOW CAMERON AND MCHELL FOREVER CHANGED GAY FAI ON TV

But notable exceptns like Soap’s Jodie Dallas asi, gay characters tend to have a limed shelf-life. Unwillg to show the velopment of gay relatnships, works only showed them g out, and later, stgglg wh the implitns of AIDS.

By the 1990s gay and lbian characters were almost rigur on prime-time ss.

Ron Becker has argued that gay TV characters the 1990s beme a kd of stat symbol for viewers who wanted to showse their own progrsive polics through the culture they nsumed. Male characters like Frasier Crane or Jerry Sefeld were forced to nont their own ambiguo masculy light of the new cultural visibily of homosexualy. After 2000, gay characters beme an creasgly stable and regular part of the Amerin televisn landspe.

‘MORN FAY’ WRER REVEALS EMOTNAL BACKSTORY OF ‘HISTORIC’ GAY MARRIAGE PROPOSAL (EXCLIVE)

But this was also a time of agmentg televisn servic and creasgly niche channels, wh the rult that even if the reprentatns of gay and lbian characters on shows like Queer as Folk and The L Word were unprecentedly staed and multi-layered.

Morn Fay remas signifint the history of gay reprentatn on televisn not bee is pecially nuanced ( isn’t), or bee shows somethg we’ve never seen before ( don’t). And this allows room for the dience, pecially those whose attu towards gay rights is still floatg around the primordial soup, to evolve along wh them.

THE "MORN FAY" GAY WEDDG -- EQUAL RIGHTS OR ASSIATN?

While there might be many the natnal dience who would qutn the suabily of two gay men to be parents, there are very few who uld watch the two lovg fathers wh their dghter and see anythg but a betiful new fay.

ABCIt you look at the trend le for the Gallup poll about Amerin attus towards gay marriage, you’ll see that support for same-sex marriage, after craterg for a year, began to climb toward s now-historic height 2009. 2009 was the year that dienc met Cam and Mch, a gay uple livg together wh an adopted dghter. A 2012 Hollywood Reporter poll found that 27 percent of likely voters said that pictns of gay characters on TV ma them more pro-gay marriage, and there are news acunts of people credg their newfound sympathy toward gay people to Morn urse, televisn has spotlighted queer people for s, both major rol on shows like Will & Grace and Glee, and mor on on shows like All the Fay and Goln Girls.

But the fact remas that each popular pictn of gay life helped enurage works to take chanc on others, and today there’s unprecented diversy reprentatn of sexualy on televisn, as shown programs like Empire and Orange Is the New any of this matter to the Supreme Court, which jt clared gay marriage a legal right?

‘MORN FAY’ CONSIRG A GAY WEDDG AFTER SUPREME COURT RULGS

But speculatg on judg’ motiv is a losg task, and the rise natnal support for gay marriage possibly ow ls to ss than do to mographic shifts and polil anizg efforts followg ballot-box feats to pop culture, ’s probably bt to jt foc on what n acplish now, the wake of Obergefell v. Film and TV has helped popularize the ia that gay upl n be “normal”—as banal as Cam and Mch; as dire need of unselg as Cys and Jam on Sndal; as lovgly parental as Stef and Lena on The Fosters. Same-sex upl, statistics show, often differ om straight on when to divisns of labor, monogamy, and problem-solvg, and many gay people don’t want to get married and won’t after this cisn.

MORN FAY CONSIRG GAY WEDDG FOR MCH AND CAM

All season long has been leadg up to the marriage of Cam and Mch, the mted gay uple on the h ABC edy seri. Dpe a plot le rried over om the prev episo, which fay patriarch Jay Prchett uncharacteristilly (and rather implsibly) was sudnly iffy on the whole gay weddg thg, he me around and end up walkg his gay son down the aisle.

As Evan Wolfson, the print of the advocy group Freedom to Marry, says: "Our weddgs are the same as everyone else's, only gayer. "Yet unlike oppose-sex nuptials, the “Morn Fay” weddg sh head-on to many of the unique challeng gay upl face.