‘Morn Fay’ Fale: How Cameron and Mchell Forever Changed Gay Fai on TV

* modern family gay couple daughter *

While Sofia Vergara’s Gloria waltzed her way to the hearts of gay men and lbians for wildly different reasons, was Cameron and Mchell’s lovg relatnship that ma LGBTQ viewers feel tly seen and reprented. Played by Jse Tyler Fergon and Eric Stontreet, seeg a lovg (and bickerg) gay uple on primetime was a revelatn.

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“The seri has nsistently brought lns of viewers every week for the past 11 years, and let viewers — particularly on who may not have been tung to other clive seri on ble or streamg — get to know and love a gay uple all their ups and downs and trials and tribulatns. Hulu buted “The Bravt Knight” last year, an animated fairy tale about a gay dad reuntg his adventur to his adopted dghter. 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.

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.

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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.

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

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. 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.

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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.

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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?

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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. Jse Tyler Fergon has suggted that is "very important" to have a gay uple on Morn the show, Fergon's character Mchell has adopted a dghter wh Cameron (Eric Stontreet). Gay uple Cam and Mch (actors Eric Stontreet and Jse Tyler Fergon) have won our hearts and ma lgh dozens of tim, and have also generated ample bate about straight actors playg gay rol (and vice versa).