![]() It was the political manifestation of a Seinfeld joke, reassuring voters that they don’t hate the gay community-a veritable “not that there’s anything wrong with that…” But for conservatives, who may not have championed some of the rights Mitch and Cam might have wish they had, saying “I like Modern Family”-as Ann Romney did-was a cautious reach across the aisle to the liberal voters. ![]() For Democrats, like the Obamas, the failure to do so would’ve been blasphemous. It was the rest of us, though, that was pushing it for them.ĭuring the 2012 election, endorsing Modern Family became a necessary step on the campaign trail. In its most progressive act of all, Modern Family wasn’t pushing that button, just letting Mitch and Cam exist. That was all already established, and presented as normal.īut by the virtue of the show’s name, branding this family “modern,” the series-and, by extension, Mitch and Cam-were seized as political talking points, particularly with equal rights becoming an increasingly hot-button issue. There were no plots, as there usually are on network TV when gay characters are involved, about coming to terms with their own sexualities, coming out of the closet, or convincing their families to love them. Here, on a mainstream series instantly embraced by critics and viewers alike, was a gay love story that we actually join in the middle. That’s what made Wednesday night’s finale, yes, “important.”įrom the time that Modern Family’s brilliant pilot debuted and Cam was thrusting newly adopted Lily into the air while “Circle of Life” from The Lion King played in the background-a genius moment in one of the most perfect pilots from the last 10 years-Mitch and Cam and their gayness were also thrust forward, their every action and even their mere existence significant. ![]() There are some who reject the idea that Mitch and Cam, two characters who are broadly drawn and arguably perpetuate marginalizing stereotypes of gay-ish character traits, are the unwitting poster gays for the equal-rights movement, at least in some of the more uninitiated segments of society.īut the one thing that’s never been broadly drawn when it comes to Mitch and Cam, and much of this is owed to the warm chemistry between stars Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, is their love. It’s impossible to quantify how many words have been devoted to the progress-or, in some opinion, the lack thereof-when it comes to depicting gay characters on mainstream TV. Now, it’s apparently OK for two guys to share that bed, too. have made their bed together, and we’re just lying in it. Some might argue that what two television characters do on a sitcom should hardly be construed as “important,” but as we’ve long learned, politics and pop culture are often inextricably intertwined. With the debate over the legalization of gay marriage making headlines on a daily basis, it’s hard not to read into the fact that 10.2 million people tuned in to toast Mitch and Cam’s “I do’s.” Ever since Modern Family accidentally became television’s go-to political lightning rod, the show’s gay couple and the milestones they’ve passed together on screen have collaterally become beacon’s of progress when it comes to what could broadly be referred to as “acceptance” by the public at large. In what is, at the most, a major moment in television history and, at the very least, a quiet step forward for the marriage equality movement, TV’s most awarded and second most-watched comedy series aired a gay wedding.
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