Gay Kisses on TV: Finally No Big Deal?

On the May 26th episode of Greek on the ABC Family Channel, Calvin (Paul James) kissed his new boyfriend Michael (Max Greenfield) not once, but twice.

Greek May 26, 2008

Five prominent male kisses in less than a month with little or no ensuing controversy? Something definitely seems to be happening here.

By contrast, back in 1989, the ABC drama thirtysomething caused an enormous stir simply by showing two men together in bed.

“Originally they were supposed to kiss,” thirtysomething actor Ken Olin tells AfterElton.com. “And then I guess there was this negotiation about what they could and couldn’t do, and I think [the producers of the show] were really supportive of them being in bed together, because they wanted it to be post-sex so they agreed, okay, they can do that, but they can’t touch.”

Melrose Place's Doug Savant (left) & the cast of thirtysomething

A filmed kiss between two men on the nighttime drama Melrose Place in 1994 resulted in such controversy (and advertiser pull-out) that the show ultimately cut away from the kiss, showing the heterosexual character’s reaction, resulting in howls of protest from the gay community.

By the late 1990s, kisses between women were at least a semi-occasional occurrence on network television, on shows like Friends, Felicity, LA Law, and ER. And the men of Friends kissed each other at various times over the run of that show, but these were sight gags and involved heterosexual characters.

The first actual kiss between two gay or bisexual male characters didn’t happen until 2000, on NBC’s Will & Grace. It was a “protest kiss” between Will and Jack as they demonstrated outside NBC’s offices over the network’s censoring of a gay kiss on a fictional TV sitcom (a sly reference to the controversy over the lack of gay kissing on Will & Grace itself, despite the NBC show being in its second season).

Sean Hayes (left) & Eric McCormack

The first romantic kiss between two gay male characters on network television happened a year later, on the WB’s Dawson’s Creek. ''We wanted to make it a good kiss,” executive producer Paul Stupin told EW at the time. “And it's a HELL of a kiss.''

Scenes from Dawson's Creek

But as recently as 2006, Melrose Place creator Darren Star told AfterElton.com, “I would still say on network television, I don't think hardly anything's changed since Melrose Place aired. I don't know if they would show [the controversial 1994 Melrose] same-sex kiss today.”

Cable television has always been more forthcoming with same-sex kissing, with envelope-pushing shows like Queer as Folk and Six Feet Under showing full-on kissing (and more). But by the time Andrew kissed Justin on Desperate Housewives in 2005, network television had given the world a grand total of six kisses between gay or bisexual characters, almost all of which had been at least somewhat controversial.