Riedquat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 7:53 pmWe're not at the point yet where a non-straight couple draws no attention (and perversely current attitudes run the risk of including one gets seen as making a gesture rather than just happening to be another character trait) but it's not the event it would've been even at that time, although even then in many places the reaction at most would've been "ooh, two women kissing!" from a significant proportion rather than any controversy.
Come to think of it that's probably one area where people who say things are too male-dominated have a point, it might've been easier to get two women kissing then than two men.
Perhaps getting more controversial there is a potential issue when it no-one cares just whether it's even right to ask straight actors to do such a kiss.
You have a rather halycon view of 1995. That was two years after the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" act started a witch hunt in the military for gay soldiers, the Supreme Court ruled that parade organizers didn't have to allow LGBT groups to march with them, and the year that Clinton finally allowed LGB people to gain security clearance - yes, before that being LGB was grounds for utter revocation of security clearance, no matter what (Transgender people would have to wait a while). Still a black mark, mind you, but not utter disqualification. This was a time when it was mainstream that being gay was a perversion, gay teachers were automatically disqualified, and murdering people for being gay still occurred and got a lot of mainstream sympathy.
I'd agree that male sexuality is generally seen as more threatening, and therefore lesbians often get a pass in terms of portrayal (especially if conventionally attractive, and with the acknowledgment that "men can join in too"). To this day you can very much tell the bias exists - the Mass Effect series allowed gay romance options for women back in the first game, and second game, but it took until the third game to have a gay male romance option - at which point there was outcry against the concept. Conventionally attractive gay women who later return to men are simply the "safe" way to portray homosexuality - women are mislead by their silly feelings and think they can have romance with each other, but later a good hot dicking fixes them.
Riedquat wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 7:53 pmPerhaps getting more controversial there is a potential issue when it no-one cares just whether it's even right to ask straight actors to do such a kiss.
Given Terry Farrell explicitly for it and cites it as one of her favorite episodes, I do wonder at this odd desire to protect someone who doesn't want your protection.
Although Memory Alpha tells me Avery Brooks told Entertainment Tonight to go pound sand when they wanted to film the kiss, because he didn't want it sensationalized, so he made a pro-LGBT rights allegory and didn't even get any viewer boost from sensationalism. Avery Brooks, continuing to be an utter class act, and showing why Rick Berman hated his guts at the same time (not that Berman had the balls to do anything about it - this is fucking Sisko here).
