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Is ABC's Primetime hiding the gay content of tonight's episode?
I was all set to do a post reminding folks to tune into tonight's episode of ABC's Primetime: Basic Instincts, their hidden camera episode looking at how folks how handle certain awkward situations. In a press release you can read here ABC touts their look at how people behave when obnoxious kids ruin dinner at a restaurant, someone talks too loudly on their cellphone, a taxicab driver uses homophobic slurs, and when an elderly patient is being abused by their caregiver.
I popped over to ABC.com to see if there was a clip up for the show, maybe some promotional materials. Sure enough, you could watch a video of the out of control kids or someone yakking on their cell phone. There is an article about outrageous public displays of affection and one about witnessing elder abuse. You can even vote on what you would do when confronted with those two situations.
Guess what you can't watch a clip of? Or read an article about? Or vote on? That's right--the gay segment.
So did Primetime cut the taxi cab confrontation out of the show entirely or are they trying to hide it from viewers? Or perhaps they just don't think homophobic slurs warrants the same level of attention as those truly horrifying public displays of affection? And did I mention that press release says one man in the cab even suggests gays should be put down? But, hey, what is that compared to bratty kids, right?
I want to be careful here. Assuming ABC hasn't cut the taxi cab segment from the show, they do deserve credit for tackling the issue. But aren't they completely undercutting that good work by excluding the gay segment from the promotional material on their website? By doing so they're communicating that there is something too controversial or sensational or who knows what about the topic. Given that someone actually advocates killing gay people, you'd think ABC would be especially careful about opening themselves up to charges of homophobia. (And the press release which went out to media outlets, doesn't cut it.)
No doubt some high-powered public relations person would spin a nice story about how there was no conscious effort not to promote that segment and nothing should be read into it.
Hogwash.
I have to say I'm rather shocked by this. I'll watch the show tonight and if the segment is not included you can bet I'll be calling ABC back (I've already got a call in about this) to ask what happened to it.
Primetime airs tonight at 10PM.
UPDATE: I just got off the phone with an ABC spokesperson who assures me that the taxi cab segment will still be included. As to why the Primetime website doesn't include any promotional materials regarding the segment, I was told that highlighted pieces of tonight's show are already edited and were what the producers were able to get to the website prior to the show's airing.
Hmmmm.....You are here
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