Home & Away actors defend #willex portrayal
Zoë Ventoura & Sarah Roberts tell LGBT community, scene was filmed with love & respect.
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Actors Zoë Ventoura have Sarah Roberts have reached out to fans on social media following reports Home & Away cut a same-sex kiss for Australian viewers.
https://twitter.com/zoe_ventoura/status/1223926817792221184
To the #willex fans; Please know that every scene was written, performed and shot with the utmost love and respect for the characters, the relationship, and the community. We see you, and we are grateful for your support. Much love x pic.twitter.com/65pU13yCka
— Sarah Roberts (@SarRoberts) February 2, 2020
The tweets do not comment on the editing or broadcast aspect of the kiss cut between their characters, Alex and Willow.
Daniel MacPherson, husband of Ventoura, also took to social media last week following the reports.
Obviously for many reasons I’m closer to this than most so I’m just gonna say this :
Thoughts tonight with fans of this show left feeling that the demonstration of their love or affection isn’t worthy of broadcast.
Well done ZV & SR on your beautiful work. #Willex https://t.co/zgmoLsQx41
— Daniel MacPherson (@DanMacPherson) January 31, 2020
ABC reports pictures taken by photography agency Matrix Media Group appear to show another scene where a kiss was filmed but has been edited out.
One photo from the photography agency shows a scene where Alex and Willow kiss in a park, as another character watches on.
A scene with all three characters in the same costumes and at the same location went to air last week in Australia, but Alex and Willow did not kiss.
The same episode is yet to be shown in New Zealand.
Seven was again contacted for comment and specifically asked if a kiss was cut from that scene.
The network said it had no further update.
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9 Responses
Cutting out gay content is not a “creative” issue
Somebody at Seven thinks its Aussie audience will freak out if they see what fans of the show are seeing in every other country that it screens
That is homophobia and it needs to be called out, regardless of how the show has been running or how many careers it has launched. Makes it even worse actually that a successful show with a rusted on audience doesn’t think its viewership is sophisticated enough … in 2020
I think some people are trying to interpret too much into a creative decision, let’s just welcome that Home and Away has been an outstanding Australian success story for some years and provided plenty of opportunity for creating various successful careers.
Representation is important, particularly in an influential show like Home and Away that reaches a very vulnerable age group and has consistently resisted any attempts to show a realistic LGBT relationship on screen. Teenagers and young adults need to see these relationships reflected on shows like Home and Away so that they know it’s normal, that they can see themselves on TV and feel like it’s okay to be exactly who you are.
Home and Away has been an enormous success, yes, but it’s not perfect and has some serious flaws when it comes to diversity – not just for LGBT, but for gender identity and racial diversity, too. It needs to address these – the fact the entire town is 99% white proves how out of touch it is when Australia is much more culturally diverse.
The fact that those statements are word for word identical makes me think Channel Seven asked them to issue those statements.
Home and No Gay continues. This wasn’t just a human error. Even if it was, the network should have taken greater care in how they addressed the issue, given Home and Away’s horrendous history in this area.
As I said previously. it’s no secret a large majority of H&A viewers are homophobic, there has been backlash every time they have done a same sex story line.
As for Neighbours, if you watch any UK soap series (East Enders, Coronation Street, Etc) they all have multiple same sex couples. It’s why Neighbours took the plunge. Having a bigger UK audience than Australian, they where giving the UK viewers what they wanted. H&A still focuses on it’s Aussie viewers more than international I guess.
Unfortunately Home & Away (yes I do watch it) is still a 3 decades behind in diversity. Where is the LGBTQI, Indigenous, Asian, African, South Asian etc casting. Unfortunately Leah has been the only ethnic char
Indeed, Summer Bay is the last bastion of the White Australia Policy.
And when was the last time they actually addressed Leah’s Greek heritage? They used to feature her mother at least on a semi-regular basis. She hasn’t been seen in years, neither has Alex, which is concerning, given that Danny Raco is a regular director on the show now and you’d think it wouldn’t be too difficult to get him to reprise his role.
Well done Daniel MacPherson for stating that. Even if it’s not true it’s how it’s coming across. Cutting an innocent kissing scene that would have no trouble going to air on 7 if it were a straight couple. My god Neighbours even had a straight boy kissing a trans girl last year and the world didn’t end. Welcome to 2020.