During the few months I’ve been watching MODERN FAMILY, it’s struck me how little physical affection Cameron and Mitchell display on screen. I understand that there are in-story reasons (i.e., the titanium rod that seems to be stuck up Mitchell’s backside), but it seems more likely to me that network homophobia – specifically gay-man-phobia – is at fault.
But maybe I’m wrong. That’s what I want to discuss. So I ask you: If Claire were the homosexual Pritchett sibling, in an long-term monogamous relationship with someone who looked like, oh, Mindy Kaling, would we see more affection between them than we do between Mitchell and Cameron?
Yes. More tender kisses, with an oh-so-deep gaze between their eyes, and warm embraces, pillow talk, and maybe she just reaches out and, gently, tweaks…
I’m that rare straight guy who finds lesbian kissing boring, and the usual I’ll be in my bunk responses are not what I was seeking to elicit in this thread.
Forgive me, then. I took the specificity in which you portrayed this hypothetical relationship as a subtle nod that this was exactly what you were looking for.
I disagree with the other responses. I don’t watch Modern Family, but I do watch the Fosters on ABC Family, a similarly family-oriented show with a lesbian couple, and they rarely have PDA’s either. If we could point to other shows in the same genre that showed more affection between lesbians, I’d be more inclined to agree, but I’m not aware of any, at least not in the network/basic cable mainstream.
I disagree with the adjective ‘prurient’ in the first option. Gay women showing affection is more socially acceptable, but I don’t think the people who socially accept it are pretending moral superiority.
Prurience, almost by definition, has to occur in non-socially accepted acts.
I also disagree with what I perceive is slight judgmental-ism by the OP. Why even bother to mention ‘prurient’ (even if what you meant was voyeuristic)? Our current culture allows for women being romantic more than men. OK. True. Are we supposed to feel bad about it if we like watching women, even if it bores you?
Of course not. The only reason I can think of disapproving of your watching something that bores me would be if you insisted on coming over to my apartment to watch football on Sunday, or something.
I used the word “prurient” because I suspect that the reason you see more lesbian kissing than gay male kissing on network TV is that lots of guys like to fantasize about girls kissing one another.
The only thing wrong with this line of reasoing is that network TV sitcoms have a predominantly female audience. Since the suits are not likely to do anything that alienates the core audience, it would be easier to assume that women are more accepting of depictions of lesbian relationships, instead of some attempt to pander to males (who are off watching sports or something.)
Part of the reason I (a gay man) watch the show is to see the interactions of the two gay men, and how they relate to the other cast members. But they are not super-hot men, so any additional sex-PDAs would actually be a turn-off.
I wasn’t imagining a Modern Family in which both Pritchett siblings were gay; I was imagining one in which Claire was the lesbian (presumably with an adopted child, but it it would obviously be easier for her to swing having a kid than Mitchell) and in which Mitch was straight – say married to the wacky Elizabeth Banks character.
