CattleArmy
Well-known member
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Merely beloved
'Brother & Sisters' uses a civil union to draw viewers. How times have changed.
Globe Staff / May 11, 2008
Tonight on "Brothers & Sisters," ABC is featuring the quintessential May sweeps event, but with a critical twist. It's a big fat wedding, which, along with burials and casting stunts, is how the networks inflate ratings during those months when ad rates are set. But the "Brothers & Sisters" marriage is a gay marriage - technically, a civil union, since the show's Walker clan is dysfunctional by way of LA and not Boston. And so some 11 million viewers will watch the joining of two men in what one character calls "holy man-trimony."
Stop the presses?
Actually, no. The wedding of Kevin and Scotty isn't a controversial network milestone, like those early gay and lesbian kisses on the likes of "Dawson's Creek" and "Roseanne." Indeed, it's no big deal at all. ABC has deemed a gay commitment ceremony a sweeps event; no advertisers are pulling out and no hate campaigners are shooting arrows, according to ABC; and life goes on.Despite the decade's fraught politics about gay unions, the subject is not exactly making for incendiary TV in 2008. While gay marriage can still be a polarizing political issue, the realities of gay life - coming out, kissing, weddings - have become normalized in popular culture enough to pass by almost unnoticed on prime time.
Compare that to the noise that has accompanied so many early, pioneering network attempts to show gay people doing what straight people do, such as simply talking in bed, which triggered protest in 1989 over an episode of "thirtysomething." When Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on "Ellen" in 1997, there was brouhaha and there were boycotts. Now, on the day of Kevin and Scotty's nuptials, which arrives after much on-screen making out by the couple, there seems to be only TiVo-setting and shoulder shrugging.
Even the writers of "Brothers & Sisters" don't bother charging tonight's wedding with conflict and controversy. Scotty's parents are certainly unhappy about the ceremony - his mother calls it a "contrived event" and a "pretend wedding" - but none of the conservative regular characters on the series blink twice. Indeed, Calista Flockhart's Kitty, a former right-wing TV pundit who has objected to gay marriage and who is now married to Rob Lowe's Republican senator, presides at the altar. "When we give up on what was," she says to all those assembled, "well that's when things we thought improbable or impossible, even, happen right before your eyes."
Kitty's reference to "what was" has a broad resonance on "Brothers & Sisters." The Walkers' Uncle Saul, played by Ron Rifkin, is a gay man who has spent his life in the closet; he finally comes out to the entire family tonight. Now in his 60s, Saul is plagued with regret for having failed to live his life out loud, without the fulfillment that his nephew Kevin has found. During the ceremony, as Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke MacFarlane) exchange rings, the camera gives us a poignant shot of Saul. He is the product of a time when gays and lesbians were more apt to spend their lives trying to come out - or trying not to come out - instead of moving ahead to find love and commitment.
Merely beloved
'Brother & Sisters' uses a civil union to draw viewers. How times have changed.
Globe Staff / May 11, 2008
Tonight on "Brothers & Sisters," ABC is featuring the quintessential May sweeps event, but with a critical twist. It's a big fat wedding, which, along with burials and casting stunts, is how the networks inflate ratings during those months when ad rates are set. But the "Brothers & Sisters" marriage is a gay marriage - technically, a civil union, since the show's Walker clan is dysfunctional by way of LA and not Boston. And so some 11 million viewers will watch the joining of two men in what one character calls "holy man-trimony."
Stop the presses?
Actually, no. The wedding of Kevin and Scotty isn't a controversial network milestone, like those early gay and lesbian kisses on the likes of "Dawson's Creek" and "Roseanne." Indeed, it's no big deal at all. ABC has deemed a gay commitment ceremony a sweeps event; no advertisers are pulling out and no hate campaigners are shooting arrows, according to ABC; and life goes on.Despite the decade's fraught politics about gay unions, the subject is not exactly making for incendiary TV in 2008. While gay marriage can still be a polarizing political issue, the realities of gay life - coming out, kissing, weddings - have become normalized in popular culture enough to pass by almost unnoticed on prime time.
Compare that to the noise that has accompanied so many early, pioneering network attempts to show gay people doing what straight people do, such as simply talking in bed, which triggered protest in 1989 over an episode of "thirtysomething." When Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on "Ellen" in 1997, there was brouhaha and there were boycotts. Now, on the day of Kevin and Scotty's nuptials, which arrives after much on-screen making out by the couple, there seems to be only TiVo-setting and shoulder shrugging.
Even the writers of "Brothers & Sisters" don't bother charging tonight's wedding with conflict and controversy. Scotty's parents are certainly unhappy about the ceremony - his mother calls it a "contrived event" and a "pretend wedding" - but none of the conservative regular characters on the series blink twice. Indeed, Calista Flockhart's Kitty, a former right-wing TV pundit who has objected to gay marriage and who is now married to Rob Lowe's Republican senator, presides at the altar. "When we give up on what was," she says to all those assembled, "well that's when things we thought improbable or impossible, even, happen right before your eyes."
Kitty's reference to "what was" has a broad resonance on "Brothers & Sisters." The Walkers' Uncle Saul, played by Ron Rifkin, is a gay man who has spent his life in the closet; he finally comes out to the entire family tonight. Now in his 60s, Saul is plagued with regret for having failed to live his life out loud, without the fulfillment that his nephew Kevin has found. During the ceremony, as Kevin (Matthew Rhys) and Scotty (Luke MacFarlane) exchange rings, the camera gives us a poignant shot of Saul. He is the product of a time when gays and lesbians were more apt to spend their lives trying to come out - or trying not to come out - instead of moving ahead to find love and commitment.