Contents:
- 'MORN FAY' AND GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S COMPLITED
- MORN FAY’S BIG, GAY (AND IMPORTANT) WEDDG
- ‘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
'MORN FAY' AND GAY MARRIAGE: IT'S COMPLITED
Fergon, who is gay real life, and Stontreet played the beloved married uple Mchell Prchett and Cameron Tucker for eleven seasons on ABC's Morn Fay. Fergon was nomated for five Emmys for his role, and Stontreet was nomated for three, wng two awards for Outstandg Supportg Actor a Comedy uple was much ld for their pictn of everyday married life for a gay uple on an ABC s.
They also adopted a dghter, Lily, and later another child, beg one of the most visible exampl of a gay fay on TV for fans might be beggg for the whole st to rne, this cute rnn will have to hold over until then. 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.
MORN FAY’S BIG, GAY (AND IMPORTANT) WEDDG
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. 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.
‘MORN FAY’ FALE: HOW CAMERON AND MCHELL FOREVER CHANGED GAY FAI ON TV
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. 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.
THE MORN FAY EFFECT: POP CULTURE’S ROLE THE GAY-MARRIAGE REVOLUTN
In the 1960s and 1970s, homosexualy on televisn was treated like a social problem, or an exotic disease. 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.