‘Morn Fay’ Fale: What Cam & Mchell Did for Gay Fai on TV – IndieWire

Contents:

• THE MORN FAY EFFECT: POP CULTURE’S ROLE THE GAY-MARRIAGE REVOLUTN
• 'MORN FAY' AND GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S COMPLITED
• MORN FAY’S BIG, GAY (AND IMPORTANT) WEDDG
• ‘MORN FAY’ WRER REVEALS EMOTNAL BACKSTORY OF ‘HISTORIC’ GAY MARRIAGE PROPOSAL (EXCLIVE)
• GAY MARRIAGE
• ‘MORN FAY’ FALE: HOW CAMERON AND MCHELL FOREVER CHANGED GAY FAI ON TV

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

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? 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.

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

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. In March, ahead of Morn Fay's seri fale, Jse Tyler Fergon reflected on the legacy of the groundbreakg ABC s, which followed the liv of the Prchett fay, cludg gay uple Mchell and Cameron (Fergon and Eric Stontreet). There, Mch was walked down the aisle by his father, Jay -- after overg his own homophobia about the uple's marriage -- as his brother--law, Phil, prid over the ceremony.

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

S., “The Weddg” episo, if nothg else, ptur a moment time, when the natn me together behd their favore gay TV uple and the LGBTQ muny alike. ABCIn a slightly prsg lumn on sex and televisn earlier this week, Washgton Post TV cric Tom Shal sgled out Morn Fay for s portrayal of gay characters.

The show, he said, "picts a gay-male marriage which both partners are rehgly dimensnal, believable human 're not flawed the silly, stereotypil ways that once domated such portrayals. " This statement highlights both how far Morn Fay has e—and how far still has to go when to gay upl Stontreet—the actor who plays Cam, one half of the uple Shal prais his lumn—told me he's proud that the show treats his character's fay like an equal rner of the three fai who make up Morn Fay's supportg triangle.

He appreciat that the seri don't need to dwell obssively on the fact that the show portrays a lovg, healthy, stable fay head by two gay parents.

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

It's alright for the dience to know that gay upl kiss. But apparently, the lculatn is that, we're jt too jumpy to actually watch a very realistic middle-aged and half-overweight gay uple share even a relatively chaste smooch on the show walks an tertg le on qutns of gay inty and sometim miss out on opportuni to nont homophobia. Mch sisted the uple uldn't die the quake bee "if they fd the outfs 's gog to be very bad for the gays.

" It was a self-aware ltle le about the gay muny's own ternal bat about perceptn and reputatn. But acquired a sour note later the show when Nathan Lane showed up to portray an overdramatilly swishy stereotype of the kd Shal mend Morn Fay for wasn't the first time Morn Fay has mocked one kd of gay performance to showse the normaly of a gay fay. In a first-season episo, the characters assumed a iend of Jay, the fay patriarch, was gay bee of his mannerisms.

Her slip to a sual, homophobic teenage mdset isn't shockg. It's an example of the kds of promis straight Amerins make around sexual orientatn all the time, lovg fay or iends whout fully mtg to their stggl for legal and societal show ma a joke of Mch's rponse to perceived homophobia the earlit mut of the seri' premiere episo. But if he'd been the room when Haley had her slip, the scene uld have validated his fears of homophobia—and challenged his extend fay—by revealg the gap between how much the Duphys love Mch, Cam and Lily, and how much they're still fluenced by larger societal views of gay importantly, there's a factual error Shal' asssment of Mch and Cam's relatnship: they aren't actually married, somethg Stontreet nfirmed for me.

GAY MARRIAGE

It's not a particularly radil thg to show a gay uple raisg a child together anymore.

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

But at a time when equal marriage rights are a state-by-state battleground, Morn Fay might nsirg makg Cam, Mch, and Lily legally, as well as socially, equal wh the other fai on the 's no qutn that Morn Fay's gay fay is ft, well-sketched, funny and sweet. 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. 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.