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Seven censors Home & Away same-sex kiss

Home and Away bows to pressure and censors a same-sex kiss following a media frenzy.

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hakcThe Seven Network has censored a same sex kiss in its soapie Home and Away.

A scene involving a kiss between Joey (Kate Bell) and Charlie (Esther Anderson) has been censored following media stories with lobby groups criticising the storyline in a ‘family’ show.

The plotline involves the arrival of a young lesbian who has become attracted to one of the show’s regular characters. As the two grow more intimate they were set to share an on-screen kiss. In last night’s episode (pictured) the two girls finished a dance with an awkward and hesitant moment before Charlie made a quick exit.

After media stories and criticism by lobby groups, Seven diminished the intensity of the romance between the two.

Seven has itself contributed to the media storm, which even led to UK press stories, first by talking to media about the upcoming plot and including debate on the subject in Today Tonight -the show that precedes the soap.

There is even the suggestion that the show has lost 100,000 viewers since the lesbian story became news.

The show’s average audience this year has been:
Week 7: 1,123,000
Week 8: 1,094,000
Week 9: 1,192,000
Week 10: 1,136,000
Week 11: 1,092,000 / (“Lesbian Story” breaks in media)
Week 12: 1,090,000
Week 13: 1,080,000

PG television allows for adult themes with limitations. A soap can depict romance as either heterosexual or homosexual. Seven fell within the boundaries of the PG ruling to include a same-sex kiss, just as it has kisses by straight characters.

The media outcry has been self-serving, with network and lobby groups each pushing their own agendas.

Family groups who attacked the storyline also did so purely on the promise of upcoming plotlines. They had not viewed the footage. Generally speaking, Seven doesn’t send previews of Home and Away.

The irony is Australia was the first country in the world to have an ongoing, sympathetic, openly gay character in Number 96 in the ’70s. Since then gay and bisexual characters have appeared on numerous soaps including Prisoner, Sons and Daughters, Pacific Drive, Water Rats, GP, Sweat, Raw FM, Breakers, The Secret Life of Us, All Saints, Rush, Love My Way, Satisfaction, The Circuit. 

While not all PG representations include scenes of romance, even Neighbours covered the same terrain as Home and Away in 2004 when Lana (Bridget Neval) was attracted to Sky (Stephanie McIntosh). That aired at 6:30pm. It had gay characters as far back as 1994 when Macca (John Morris) was a builder who worked with Doug Willis (Terence Donovan).

Out of the Blue is currently screening on TEN at 5:30pm with lesbians without any fuss. Poppy and Peta are wildly in love, however out of nowhere, Peta’s husband has turned up. Peta married him before she came out, and they’ve never been divorced.

All those ‘outraged’ by the present storyline have forgotten Home and Away itself has had gay characters. In 2003 Pippa and Christopher returned in 2003 for Sally’s wedding and revealed that Christopher was gay. A kiss was averted at the time during a non-mutual attraction. Back in 2006 Eve fell in love with Sarah Lewis which jealousy led to her becoming the notorious ‘Summer Bay Stalker’. Shannon (Isla Fisher) also left Summer Bay with her older lover Mandy.

In Reality Television diverse contestants are celebrated for their individuality: So You Think You Can Dance Australia, Big Brother, The Block, Australia’s Got Talent, Dancing with the Stars, Strictly Dancing, Australian Idol amongst others.

Two same sex parents appeared years ago on Play School.

There is also a question of the H&A storyline choosing to include an attraction with a character who had previously enjoyed heterosexual storylines. Seven did not respond to questions about whether Charlie was therefore a bisexual character from the start, let alone how she is perceived by writers now.

Former Home and Away script producer Coral Drouyn has previously told backtothebay.net: “Home & Away should have a gay character. I tried several times but it ended up a debacle. It won’t happen while the present hierarchy is in place. I have found on various shows but especially H&A, often the most vehemently opposed person to a gay character is a gay person. Not from homophobia…but simply from fear of ratings.”

Ironically there are gays and lesbians workingin the Free to Air and Pay TV industry as writers, actors, directors, producers, publicists, executives and even programmers.

This smells more and more of a TV ‘gay panic’, with everyone getting last-minute nerves: the network, advertisers, lobby groups.

The missing ingredient in the decision making process is the audience.

Source:  The Australian

70 Responses

  2. What are “family groups” talking about. Gay people are part of families too. And religious groups are just as pathetic. Christianity has a lot to answer for with what’s wrong in this world. We should be promoting any kind of relationship between two people. Love is love, no matter who the two people are and its a hell of a lot better than hating each other. It’s 2009 people. Stop living in the past. As a gay man, i really do pity those types of people.

  3. Again, I’ll say it should not even be an issue in this day and age. If parents don’t like their children seeing it, then turn the show off.

    Or, better still, try explaining to them what is going on so they don’t freak out one day when they see a same sex couple in real life.

  4. Shame Shame Shame Channel 7 – this is dreadful.
    One minute they are hyping this storyline to get publicity – due to a drop in ratings – now they have done a backflip due to some groups who are so removed from reality it’s scary!
    What on earth does this tell our young people who may be struggling with their sexuality – Home & Away is going to get a huge backlash over this one, especially from the gay community.
    Very disappointing!!

  6. Seven is full of crap! I am straight and I have nothing against watch two guys or two girl kissing. Brothers and Sisters is shown on seven and the two main gay characters kiss. L word shown girls making out. If they are worried what it will do to the Family groups, then what about kids of same sex relationships. They are family and when did seven care about what people think. They stab people in the back to get ratings. In the older days it is a shame to show black people, now they are say it is a shame to show gay people on TV. As Whoopi Goldberg will say ‘What the hell?’

  8. What a disappointing decision from Seven. It does sound like some of the publicity involved in this has backfired, but I still reckon everyone involved should have had the courage of their convictions and stuck with it.

    I wonder if the UK will get the unedited version?

    Enjoyed the well-researched article.

  9. Seven is funded by advertising and can’t afford to lose viewers so they have been held to ransom by the ultra-conservative family groups and some anti-gay Christian groups. I think there are probably more viewers who would be offended by the removal of unobjectionable material relative to the behaviour of heterosexual couples in a PG timeslot and there could possibly be another viewer backlash from the socially liberal and tolerant viewers.

  10. No matter what peoples views on this issue are, it was inappropriate to have something like that in a show that airs at 7pm, a time when most kids still haven’t gone to bed, and some kids (despite the show, in other ways being inappropriate) are probably watching it.

    I’m glad seven finally had a bit of sense knocked into them and stopped before they went too far. Although, having a same-sex relationship in the show, i would consider to be going to far.

    When i say that though, i say it acknowledging that home & away has gone too far, at times, in their portrayal of normal guy-girl relationships.

  11. Unbelievable! “The L Word” featured lesbians kissing throughout each season, but Seven went ahead and screened only two seasons before they axed it due to complaints from Christian lobby groups, even when it was shown around 22:30 and then 00:00 at night. And now the same groups called on Seven to censor this “same-sex kiss” and they complied.

    Further proof that television networks are scared of Christians. Esther Anderson will not be happy about this.

  13. Seven have a lot to answer for here! They have deliberately stirred up the ignorant bigots of the so called “family” groups by promoting the storyline as controversial and running stories on Today Tonight giving airtiime to these loons etc. The News Limited rags have also been pushing their own homophobic badwagon as usual!

    When Neighbours ran the Sky/Lana storyline back in 2004 there was a brief initial flurry of outrage (again before the storyline had aired) and then once ithe storyline started almost nothing was heard. Thats because Ten didnt deliberately try and milk it for all it was worth! That storyline featured two same-sex kisses. I might add that Neighbours ratings during that period were higher than they had been for years and they have never reached the same height since (although I put that down more to the quality of the storylines at the time, including the Karl/Izzy baby story, than any titilation from the lesbian romance).

    Neighbours has had two subsequent same-sex kisses, one between Chris (Peppers mum) and her girlfriend Carole and one between Pepper and Rosie. Neither attracted much comment because they werent publicized as “controversial”. Same goes for Out of the Blue I imagine.

    Sadly thanks to this debacle I imagine we will now have to wait another 5 years before either show attempts another gay romance!

  14. This is a ‘family’ show?

    It is a scary thought that this soapy with its convoluted story’s of betrayal, deceit, nastiness, cheating, murderers etc could in anyway be considered to be a ‘family’ show.

    Cheers,

    Teddy Bär

  15. These so called Family Groups are a bunch on wankers! They can’t help but find fault in anything and everything they consider to be too ‘progressive’. What a bunch of conservative prudes.

  17. How pathetic. When will this country grow up? Never, while the opinions of a dangerously reactionary minority are given more credence than that of normal people.

  19. And of course there’s no one in any so-called family groups who’s ever had an extra-marital affair, or had homosexual experimentation, or watched pornography, or parked illegally, or even coveted their neighbour’s donkey or whatever it is they’re not supposed to do…

    By censoring the kiss while keeping the lesbian characters in the storyline. Seven is contradicting itself while also totally misreading its audience.
    The fact is that the majority of the audience finds homosexual relationships acceptable.

    Are they going to lose ratings because if two girls kissing? No.
    Would more males watch H&A if two hot lesbians were kissing? Yes. (sorry, but it’s true)
    Would the younger demographic groups switch off because of two girls? No.
    Would the older demographic groups switch off? Some might (the ones too busy coveting donkeys) but in general, no.
    Do the majority of Australians find this offensive and intolerable? We all know the answer to that one.

    And, speaking on behalf of M35-45, Let the hot chicks kiss dammit!

  21. So Seven is happy giving into religious extremists from these family groups?

    What’s more important…helping young people who may be gay come to terms with it, or making them feel bad because christian extremists want them to?

    Shame Channel 7.

  23. I know this is a ‘family’ show but OMG it’s 2009 don’t they think there are gay and lesbian relationships going on in the real world every day?

    ITA it more a rating fear than anything else.

  24. Its just a case of bad timing id say, H&A is a mess at the moment, its down about 200K viewers year on year, i dont think anything to do with the gay storyline and id say this decsion is to avoid any further drop in ratings, our soaps in this country lag so for behind those of overseas countries its just a joke, all three big UK sops have high profile gay character, and have for year, Emmerdale even has a gay couple (shock, horror) even kiwi’s are ahead of us, Shortland Street has had gay characters for years, this is a poor decsion on the part of channel 7..

  25. This is getting ridiculous!!! It’s 2009 and these so called ‘family’ groups in Australia are still stuck in the 1950’s in terms of their knowledge of homosexuality.

    I really hoped that Home and Away would finally have the courage to have a long time gay character/s on the show but sadly once again the bigots have the final say.

    It’s a real shame as I feel that GLBT characters/storylines are important and should be included in all current Australian TV shows. I don’t remember ‘Water Rats” having this problem but that could be that it was on a different time slot. I have been watching ‘G.P.’ for the last few months and let me tell you, it was great to see a openly gay doctor (Dr. Martin Dempsey – played by Damian Rice) as well as storylines based on GLBT issues including homophobic violence, young teens coming out and HIV.

    One day I hope these people will finally realise that being different isn’t something to be ashamed of and GLBT people can be who they are without any problems!

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