Two weeks ago, noted Cockney miseryfest EastEnders included a scene showing the soap’s gay male couple, Christian and Syed, in bed together. Last Tuesday the BBC was forced to release a statement on its complaints web page, defending the decision to include the scene, after people complained. To its credit, the BBC provided a robust justification, stating: “We approach our portrayal of homosexual relationships in exactly the same way as we do heterosexual relationships, ensuring depictions of affection or sexuality between couples are suitable for pre-watershed viewing.”
As Frances Ryan pointed out in the Guardian, some EastEnders fans will “happily park their children in front of fictionalised drug abuse, prostitution and murder without batting an eye, yet regurgitate their own dinner at the sight of two people of the same sex lying on a mattress.”
It’s a sad reminder, that despite achieving near-full equality under the law, gay people are still seen as “unacceptable” by many parts of society.
In any case, surely the bigger problem with this scene is that the couple actually look happy, which as any EastEnders fan knows, is an unacceptable emotion for any resident of Albert Square.