Hi Guys Gordon Here Back Here Again With Another Episode
Flashback: 'That '70s Show's Very Special Gay Episode Does Not Age Well
Hanging out, channel surfing, I stumbled across a That '70s Show rerun that caught my eye, considering hey! Isn't that teenaged Joseph Gordon-Levitt showing off his rad car to Topher Grace? I didn't think the ep, so I settled in over my cereal, not realizing I was revisiting a groundbreaking moment in gay representation on goggle box. Before long though, I was revolted at how low the bar was not then long ago.
Ambulation on Dec sixth, 1998, the episode titled "Eric'south Buddy" centered on Eric Foreman (Grace) making a friend outside his basement-home clique. When he starts buddying up to his lab partner Buddy Morgan (Gordon-Levitt), Hyde and Kelso are pissed, mostly because instead of driving them home from schoolhouse in his station wagon, he's riding effectually with his libation, richer, more popular doppelganger with the matching floppy haircut. (A chipper montage shows them leap high-five over playing pinball, sucking at basketball game, and buying weed.) Meanwhile, Jackie is disturbed because someone every bit uncool equally Eric shouldn't be able to brand a clique jump this grand. Something must be amiss! And we acquire exactly what that is when Buddy kisses Eric.
The big scene begins with Eric realizing he forgot to call Donna. Buddy asks if she'south his girlfriend, and Eric sighs, "I don't know."
"It's okay to be confused," Buddy counsels. (The express mirth rail audition begins to chuckle. Their scripted reaction will get an increasingly important indicator of how the show expects the audience to respond to Buddy.)
"Sometimes, you know, similar, we're in a movie (theatre), and I'chiliad nervous effectually her," Eric confesses. "And I feel similar I'm playing this part, right? And it's not me…"
Buddy agrees, so moves in, and kisses Eric on the mouth. This is the first man-on-human being osculation to air on North American prime number time television. There'd been women kissing women on L.A. Constabulary, Picket Fences, and Roseanne. But That '70s Show beat Dawson'south Creek's passionate liplock between Jack McPhee (Kerr Smith) and Ethan (Adam Kauffman) by 5 months. Achieving this television landmark has won "Eric'due south Buddy" retroactive love online, with several sites remembering the episode as "normalizing" a gay kiss, commending Eric for not reacting with gay panic, and crowing that Buddy was "always shown every bit a complete person and not a stereotype." Frankly, I'g astounded over all this slobbering. Watching "Eric's Buddy," I was appalled by how Eric and his friends responded to Buddy being gay, beginning with that kiss.
For starters, the kiss is played for laughs. How wacky that less-than-macho Eric is assumed to be gay! How funny that he doesn't know a buss is coming, just we exercise thanks to the foreshadowing laughing track! When he is kissed, Eric literally flails, screams and stammers, "Woah! You—you are—you're—y'all're gay!?" It'southward cartoonish gay panic that leads us into the commercial break. When we return, we're greeted by this unnerved expression equally Buddy drives Eric domicile.
When they try to talk most what happened, Eric is very defensive nigh Buddy assuming he was gay. When the pair get caught in an awkward silence, Buddy reaches for the radio, request lightly, "Do you desire to heed to the radio?" And Eric is so freaked out past the threat to his heterosexuality that he takes the mitt's movement toward(ish) him equally some other pass, pitches himself abroad from Buddy and yells, "Hey, I told you I'thou not gay!"
Eric races dorsum to the prophylactic of his basement, where he lays a showy no-homo smooch on Donna in front of all his friends, and then postures to present merely how manly—and thereby super straight—he is. The "audience" yowls and hoots with approval. Eric feels his masculinity was called into question because someone thought he was gay, and even though it's someone he likes and admires, it so panics him that he rushes to overcompensate with uncharacteristic and totally hetero PDA, bro.
And then nosotros get to hear how the gang reacts—non to the osculation, simply to Buddy's sexual orientation—when Fez declares he's "so obviously gay." Outraged, Jackie rejects it outright, giving no reason. Then Kelso concurs, explaining, "If Buddy was gay he'd be all over me." Because that'southward how gay guys act, a lusty monolith unable to control their desire for dopey hunks. To That '70s Bear witness's credit, the audience laughs at this remark. And I suspect the joke is intended to be more about Kelso's vanity, and less about his insulting assumptions almost gay men.
Later, as the group parts ways, Hyde and Donna corner Eric and ask direct if Buddy is gay. They appear excited past the thought, like it's juicy gossip. And isn't it hip if their little suburb has a gay kid!? They literally stride in closer in anticipation of his answer, and so practically celebrate with the sharing of this secret. They're not supportive or accepting. Instead, Buddy and his not-public orientation are regarded similar an achievement of their own coolness because they're in on a shocking secret. Hooray, no ane wants to beat up the gay kid. Yet this is withal a crass form of tokenism. Buddy is treated non like a person, but similar a not bad merit badge. Merely we're non done notwithstanding, because next the pair mock Eric for getting hitting on by a gay guy.
"Eric, he'due south non going to make a motility on you if he knows you lot're directly," Donna says sagely. (The audience hoots.) When Eric admits he doesn't think "information technology'll happen again," the two shout in astonished chorus, "Again!?" Eric shuffles off embarrassed, and and so Hyde hits on Donna saying, "If Foreman ever decides to dabble in the love that dare not speak its name, I'm here for you." The audience loves it, laughing and clapping and ignoring the uncomfortable message that it's shameful to be mistaken for gay.
Eric needs to resolve this marker on his heteronormative thought of masculinity. So, Buddy's final scene is Eric against him on why. Why him? Why did Buddy think he was gay?! Told he's "smart and sensitive and nice looking," Eric refutes the first 2, declaring he's not equally bright as he seems (duh), and that "sometimes I tin exist downright mean." I suspect the real audience (as opposed to the raucous actors playing 1 on the show's soundtrack) are meant to run into Eric'south eagerness to exist seen as a jerk over being perceived every bit gay as something absurd. The laughs in this scene are meant to be on Eric and his gawky anxiety, not on Buddy. Even so, imagine this from Buddy's perspective for a moment.
In the scene, Buddy plays off Eric's distancing, chuckling, "You're so cute." Only this is a guy you crushed on, hung out with, risked rejection by making a move on him, and risked exposing yourself to the small minds and gossip of a stupid small town. And he'south direct. Okay, bummer. Merely information technology's not enough that he'due south not into and could never be into you; he needs you to understand how securely you got him incorrect. How he's not like you. He's not who yous think he is. Not at all. It's played as Eric existence insecure and awkward, but it'southward cringe-worthy because it'due south Eric we're urged to place with, not the gay kid he's treating like a contamination. The exchange ends with an bad-mannered bro-punch to the arm, because directly dude. And Buddy is not allowed the natural and human response of existence disappointed or hurt. He has to exist the model minority, and just smiling and bear it.
Now, yes, this is a show set in the 1970s, so how progressive can we really expect the show to be? Well, information technology'due south fictional, so fuck historical accuracy. And it seems they couched the discomfort in this '70s setting thinking that'd brand the gay panic shtick more than acceptable, because we were all and then over information technology by 1998. (We weren't. Nosotros aren't. Nosotros suck.)
Besides, the writers had to know they were taking on a large taboo by showing a gay osculation in prime-time. They decided to play every bit much of that as they could for laughs, which makes sense. This is a sitcom after all. But since it's an outsider (and interloper) to the principal coiffure who's gay, the evidence refuses to treat this every bit anything more than a amour with something vaguely outrageous. Fugitive being baldly offensive, they don't present Buddy as a flamboyant stereotype with airy gestures, scarves, and lisps. Instead, he's basically Eric, just cooler and more confident. Simply Buddy being acknowledged as "cool" is not the aforementioned as him existence complex or a "complete person." And though he and Eric make up one's mind to exist friends, he'due south never seen on the show again. Eric survived a brush with a gay guy, then why e'er take Buddy back?
Some say that Buddy was being fix up to exist a recurring character on the series, merely angry audition response killed that idea. However, I found little to back up this claim. As well, it's unlikely That '70s Bear witness would set upwardly a character who looks so much like Eric (but suaver) to play a bigger part in the evolving series, particularly in season one where they're still getting to know the kids. More likely, the writers were looking to practice a gimmicky ep to garner attention for the new show. So why not stunt bandage with tertiary Rock from the Sun'southward teen heartthrob in a surprising role! And that'due south the other thing. Information technology's highly improbable that Gordon-Levitt would take on a recurring role on a Play tricks sitcom while his NBC sitcom was thriving.
To his credit, Gordon-Levitt doesn't play gay for laughs. And while the script gives Buddy little to do across exist pleasant and kiss Eric, the immature thespian rejects shame, regret, or embarrassment over the buss. He portrayed Buddy as happy with himself, and not fifty-fifty lonely, just interested Eric. (Nobody's perfect.) Perhaps wife-and-husband writing team Bonnie and Terry Turner—who created both shows—approached Gordon-Levitt with the role that'd be a break from his cantankerous sometime alien trapped in an adolescent body. Instead, he'd get to play a dashing dreamboat who smiles and struts, and hey, to boot he could make some TV history. Virtually xx years afterward, he's still proud of that.
In a 2013 interview promoting his directorial debut Don Jon, Gordon-Levitt told Pride Source that "Eric'southward Buddy" was a "proud moment" for him. Just—without calling out the testify or its writers—he seemed to suggest it doesn't historic period well.
I was actually merely talking about this with a proficient friend of mine who's gay. We were proverb there really has been a change. I hateful, that was more than 10 years agone that we shot that episode, and a lot has inverse. I do think that television and movies take played a big function in information technology. (That episode) is certainly not solely responsible, but that has been a part of it condign a more normal and accepted function of our culture - that some people are gay and that's just how it is, especially for people who are not used to that or close-minded toward that. In that location'southward been a pretty big change, and we're certainly non all the way open up-minded - I mean, there was a civil rights movement in the '60s and at that place's still enough of racism in the earth - just we've come up a long way. I certainly am proud to take made that small contribution of whatever kind to that progress.
We have come a long way. LGBTQA+ representation is an ongoing chat in popular culture. It's not enough to have a gay character or a gay kiss or an "exclusive gay moment" anymore. If shows desire to impress audiences and critics, they need more than very special episodes, one-off token characters, and "shocking" kisses. Nosotros now need context and complicated characters who aren't aback of their sexuality, and aren't solely defined past it. But before Willow discovered Tara, before Sophia was imprisoned in Litchfield, earlier even Will & Grace showed a gay kiss, That '70s Show offered a cool, cute and unabashed gay teen named Buddy.
Kristy Puchko volition now shamelessly plug her Willow Rosenberg essay.
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Source: https://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/flashback-that-70s-shows-very-special-gay-episode-does-not-age-well-.php
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