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Neighbours new credits finally pairs Aaron & David

Updating opening credits allows producers to remedy things for same-sex couple.

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Neighbours refreshes its credits on Tuesday to include new cast members, and manages to bring together its same-sex married couple David Tanaka (Takaya Honda) and Aaron Brennan (Matt Wilson).

As TV historian Andrew Mercado notes, this should quell some disquiet that their marriage was not reflected in the opening credits.

“There were a lot of angry gays who claimed #Neighbours should not have a float in in the Mardi Gras Parade because … wait for it .. Ramsay Street’s gay couple were not partnered together in the opening credits What will they have to complain about now that has been corrected?” he wrote on Twitter.

Also added to the credits are Finn Kelly (Rob Mills), Kyle Canning (Chris Milligan), Roxy Willis (Zima Anderson)… Ramsay Street still loves its shirtless poolside.

The new sequence hits screens 6:30pm Tuesday on 10 Peach.

13 Responses

  1. We currently at hing the start of The Heights and while it is early days I know there is a same sex relationship, I love the character with cerebral palsy (sorry haven’t learnt all their names yet). She has a great sense of humour and her character is not defined by her disability. So kudos to 10 for all they are doing, it might not be enough with all representations, but it is currently a great example like the Heights showcasing diversity

    1. I enjoyed the Heights despite the ticking all boxes of diversity, which usually annoys me. It did occur to me that there was no Anglo or European background guys among the high school kids and the only white school girl featured had a disability.

  2. Some people do make a big deal out of nothing. Aaron and David previously appeared with their siblings, there was nothing wrong with that. Now that they have bought a house together it makes sense to have them together on the opening credits. It’s happening organically instead which is much better than the dreaded PC mandate.

  3. Great to see them embrace the LGBTQ community, now Neighbours just need to move away from the models and Instagram stars and have some actual realistic people on the show. I’d love a plus size teenage girl or guy on the street, perhaps someone with body hair? Just little things like that which haven’t been shown on Neighbours since the 90s when Toadie was a teen.

    1. Callum (Toadie and Sonya’s son) is plus-sized, although he’s no longer a regular cast member. I think Neighbours has done a good job of trying to include a broader range of people in the cast over the years, although it seems that no matter what they do, they’re criticised for not doing enough. Aaron and David are one of five on-screen couples that currently do not appear in the credits together (two of the couples are married and one is engaged) – Elly and Mark (recently married), Therese and Paul, Ned and Bea and Gary and Amy are the others. I’ve yet to see people complaining about Elly and Mark not appearing in the credits together the moment they were married. I’ve just checked and they don’t appear together in the new opening credits, although Paul and Therese do (Ned and Bea and Amy and Gary are still separated).

  4. I think a lot of people still watch the show. But they probably watch it on their computers or mobile phones and therefore are not reflected in the ratings.

    And as for Home & Away – I can’t recall them ever having a gay character. So kudos to Neighbours for making an attempt to be more diverse.

    1. Neighbours absolutely does much better in this department, although Home and Away have had a bisexual character (Esther Anderson’s character), an implied bisexual character (Shannon – decades ago) and they recently had one of their teenage male characters come out to his best friend (although I believe he wasn’t a permanent cast member).

      1. Home and Away are yet to have a LGBT couple on the show that have been a permanent fixture on the show. I had high hopes last year but it was disappointing the way it was shown on the show. Home and Away need to lift their game. No excuse nowadays.

  5. They will need to be updated in a little while as I’ve heard the whispers that Scott McGregor is the latest departure. With it hovering just over 100k viewers it is no surprise the popular characters of Sonya, Steph, Piper, Xanthe and now Mark no longer fit the budget! It is a shame as the production quality is as good as it’s been in years.

  6. As an LGBT person I do really appreciate small gestures suci as this… the only problem being not many people watch this show ! Does Home and Away have gay couples featuring prominently too?! Diversity on TV should be mandated and not left to multichannels and SBS

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