It’s all the rage, again: Same-sex kissing done for laughs.
This week, on the MTV Movie Awards, there were two same-sex kisses. The first was between Russell Brand and Jonas Hill, stars of the new comedy “Get Him to the Greek.” The two showed up on the “Kiss-Cam,” which highlights a couple in the audience encouraging them to kiss. Other couples who showed up on the kiss-cam included “High School Musical” costars Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, Shaun White and his date and, also for laughs, Clark Duke from “Kick Ass” and “Hot Tub Time Machine” with Ashley Greene from “Twilight,” who accompanied Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino (from “Jersey Shore”), which resulted in a pissed-off Sorrentino chasing Duke out of the theater.
The second same-sex kiss was between Scarlett Johansson and Sandra Bullock, while the former was presenting the award for Best Kiss to the latter. This isn’t the first time Bullock has kissed a woman at an awards show. In January, she locked lips with Meryl Streep at the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards.
(Interestingly, one of the kisses up for an award in the Best Kiss category was between Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning in “The Runaways.”)
Also this week, actors Dustin Hoffman and Jason Bateman showed up on the kiss-cam at game one of the NBA finals in Los Angeles, and smooched for the crowd.
So why is same-sex kissing funny?
On one hand, the fact that a same-sex kiss showed up at an NBA game surely demonstrates progress in the fight for LGBT rights. In a sport where there are no openly gay players, it’s certainly better for the crowd to cheer two men kissing than to beat the shit out of them.
One the other hand, the kisses, particularly those during the MTV Movie Awards, are disconcerting in that they portray same-sex kissing — and therefore same-sex relationships — as laughable. While the kisses between the opposite-sex couples were (mostly) sweet, the same-sex ones were either a joke or a guy’s fantasy. (That Duke’s kiss prompted Sorrentino to “protect” Greene’s honor is a topic for another column.)
So what is it about same-sex kissing that makes mainstream audiences laugh? Is it just so unthinkable that two guys might kiss that it’s hilarious? Or is it really just the characters involved?
Most likely, it’s a bit of both. And while one mitigating factor might be that MTV isn’t exactly known for high standards, the network’s poor taste in humor isn’t helping the cause of LGBT rights.