TV on bended knee for gay proposals

Over the weekend we saw two US dramas, both on Network TEN, where same-sex marriage proposals took place: Modern Family and Glee.

Both shows referenced changes by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision allowing same-sex marriage in California. Presumably there will be more to come.

Modern Family scriptwriter Jeffrey Richman has written in the Hollywood Reporter about the decision and execution of Cameron and Mitchell’s tyre-changing proposal, which aired last night on TEN. He writes in part:

When it actually looked like [same-sex marriage] might become legal, it seemed like we could really make something of that. Then it sort of gathered momentum because it wouldn’t just be a one-off story. It would give us episodes leading up to a wedding, and we’re so hungry for stories. You could see a bachelor party, you could see a party planner, you could see so many things. We spent a lot of time and energy breaking the first story and arcing out potential other stories and then trying to find out, by whatever means we could, how close to being real this was. We were very ahead of ourselves and so enamored by the story arc and the idea that we went way out on a limb.

It’s not a political show, and we bent over backwards in the episode not to be political. We all said this would not be about making a statement; it was very much about keeping it between these two people and what it means for them. These were questions that I dealt with personally, too. Now there’s this law that’s been lifted, what do we do with that? Do we get married? I know people whose relationships had suffered because one didn’t want to get married. So again, our goal really was to keep whatever story we were telling very specific to Mitch and Cam and just have the California part of it be the reason, the jumping-off point.

It turned into this very arduous shoot because it had a million different locations and it had night shoots. And that big emotional scene was on the side of the road, so even the geography was difficult for the [production] trucks to get to. It was shot all over town, too, and it was the first one back [after the summer hiatus] so all of the actors were there. But when Jesse and Eric filmed that final scene, you could see that that moment was going to land and be very special. You could just feel it.

But you can’t think of the historic part of it — the “Wow, these are the first gay characters on TV to be legally married” part. From a writing standpoint, it had to just be about telling a story. That’s the job. We saw it was another vein we could tap into that would provide us stories, much like Gloria’s [Sofia Vergara] pregnancy did last year. Once I step away, though, I realize how unbelievably fortunate I am as a writer and as a gay person to have participated in something like this — and on an insanely popular TV show. We don’t have premiere parties anymore, so I’ll watch it with my boyfriend at home. It’ll be the first time he actually sees it.

Of course, it isn’t the first time same-sex TV characters have married legally. I still recall an episode of Queer as Folk in which Michael and Ben got married by crossing the border into Canada. Back then, storylines still involved the fighting of Proposition 14 in Los Angeles.

Which US characters should be the next same-sex couple to tie the knot?