CN Introduces First Gay Kids Cartoon Characters...and it may have censored their kiss, too

Happy Halloween, everyone.
Seen this yesterday?

You likely may have because the story behind it blew up across the Internet. Cartoon Network introduced the first-ever pair of openly gay male characters in a children's cartoon series in an episode of its series Clarence. Now you may be wondering what the show is. Well, you may have never heard of it before video featuring the two was released to YouTube...or before you read this blog.

In the video, which is an except from the episode "Neighborhood Grill", a guy walks into a restaurant and looks for his date. He looks at a woman and she looks back (she's on a blind date, I assume; I haven't watched the episode yet). The guy shakes his head no, and ask the employee. Then another guy walk to the guy. They smile at each other, give each other a kiss on the cheek, and walk away arms-in-sides, ready for their date. Here it is below.

Aww, how sweet.

Since then, it got everyone talking, and a big discussion was made: Is it now possible for cartoons to allow gay characters to interact on shows like this? Well, I say yes. As long as they don't do any PDA (public displays of affection) like the one we saw in that clip and the producers, writers and VAs steer clear of the many annoying stereotypes we've seen on TV for the past few decades. Lord knows we don't need a Pride parade on an ep of Regular Show or a character shaped like a rainbow on Gumball or Uncle Grandpa revealing he's gay but likes sleeping with chicks so much, that he doesn't mind the worldwide breed of nieces and nephews/grandsons and granddaughters he has.

In my opinion, I don't find it a big deal, but I think it was handled very well. It was kinda low-key: neither of the men said anything, they didn't kiss on the mouth, and they walked off arm-in-side. It wasn't a "very-special-episode" type of thing, and it was really nice.

I also want to talk about how the media is focusing on CN "censoring" the kiss in their online articles. I got really annoyed when the articles I looked at, took an angle in which it sounds like CN did a bad thing by making Clarence producers make a scene showing two guys kiss on the cheek, instead of on the lips, to garner clicks and views. It's really not. In fact, it's clear that the execs supported this, but wanted the kiss to be toned down, and it's very obvious why its execs did it. It's a kids show, meaning mostly kids watch it. Showing two guys kissing will disgust the kids watching, and they'll tell their parents about it; then they'll be pissed and bombard the network's SoMed pages, and the television censoring groups will be up-in-arms, command CN to cancel Clarence and want it to disband. CN didn't censor the kiss to ruin the content or whatever idea the producers had to make a point. For the reason I've already explained, I want to just look at an article the way it should be: Cartoon Network Introduces First Openly-Gay Characters in Children's Cartoons.

I'm very proud of Cartoon Network for making the bold move of having an openly-gay couple on one of its shows. It really says that cartoons have become more open to more taboo things that have previously kept as taboos a few years ago. We've already have death, violence, words like "pissed" and "crap" being uttered and even male characters back cracks shown (including on this show). So it was a matter of time before this would finally be addressed.

But to be more honest, I don't care about the censored kiss in that sense or the big blow-up about the two gay men kissing. No. I'm more interested in those suits they were wearing!

Talk about dapper.
Anyway, I wish all of you a Happy Halloween, and I'll see you guys next month for...some things I may have planned.