“I hate it on TV shows, and there’s one show that I won’t name right now, where it’s like ‘Why aren’t these character kissing? Don’t they have a child?’ That’s ridiculous to me. I don’t understand it. If I did it on my show, I would just have them do it in every scene and not have a big deal about it. I don’t think that you have to announce a very special episode. Weren’t they doing it back on Roseanne? It is just so outdated and archaic to me and as a gay man, I would never do that. I would make it very organic and do it several times and not make it a stunt.”
— Ryan Murphy, Executive Producer, AfterElton.com, August 2010
What happened?
In our season re-watch, we recorded 40 kisses involving New Directions’ young straight characters and only 5 for the LGBT ones. We cast a slightly broader net for the video to include named characters who kissed on screen. We didn’t include the 30 straight kisses exchanged by extras at prom and in the hallways, for example. We also used a slightly different metric for counting kisses for the purposes of this video to include only ones with very clear visuals of the kiss. It’s a video. It’s true to the spirit of Glee’s “insane double standard.” Strikingly so.
