Television Taboo

Just when I thought our television had turned over a new leaf.

I should have known of course that there'll always be certain boundaries drawn, especially around supposedly sensitive issues such as homosexuality. Still, when they showed Brothers and Sisters on our cable tv more than a year back, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Whoa. A regularly recurring main character who happens to be gay on our national tv? Hell, that's progress if anything.

Maybe our idiotic censors can change.

With the heartwarming emphasis on family values, it came as no surprise that my mom loves the show. Of course I never quite expected that Kevin Walker would turn out to be my mom's favourite character.

Still when week after week they continued showing Kevin's brief dalliances with his coterie of male admirers ( at least before he settled down with Scotty ), I found myself almost applauding the seemingly enlightened censorship board.


Scotty : Awww, Look, our proposal scene is coming on!
Kevin : Where? Bloody hell. Did they just erase it?
Of course - as usual - I spoke a lil too soon in praise of the scissor-happy censors. Since I guessed that tonight would be the infamous proposal scene that Kevin makes to his partner Scotty, I figured I might as well take a look. As a measure of support if nothing else - and I'll admit I was curious to see my mother's reaction.

Came down a few minutes late so I thought I missed the part when the episode cleverly segued into a preview of the coming week's delights ( with scant mention of the proposal! ).

Paul : Hey, how was the proposal?
Mother : What proposal?
Paul : The one where Kevin proposed to Scotty?
Mother : Wow. He proposed? A gay marriage?

Doubt my mom would have missed something that significant so I figured out later that our diligent censors had been busy at work. Helpful lil buggers. Obviously talk of gay marriage turned out to far too much for them. Two men committing to each other must have blown their little minds. Shouldn't have expected much from folks who'd censor the word 'gay' from the Oscars.

So for all my fellow countrymen - at least those who aren't as blindly bigoted as our homophobic censors - just take a look at what actually happened at the end of the episode.



Makes me wonder how they're gonna play out the episode next week which centers on Kevin and Scotty's marriage. Will the overeager scissor-happy censors slice and dice again? Tune in next week.