A kiss too gay for morning TV

CBS' "The Early Show" blurs Adam Lambert's AMA kiss but doesn't censor a clip of Britney and Madonna locking lips

Published November 25, 2009 7:40PM (EST)

When CBS' "The Early Show" played a clip Wednesday morning of Adam Lambert's controversial performance at the American Music Awards, I gasped and clutched my (imaginary) pearls. It wasn't his "erotic" moves, as the segment put it, that shocked -- no, no, it was the fact that the network blurred out the rocker's kiss with a male band member. It's understandable that the show censored footage of Lambert repeatedly shoving a dancer's face in his crotch  -- but a kiss, really? CBS left little room to debate whether or not this was the result of a homophobic double-standard: Just ten seconds earlier, the network had played a clip of the infamous Britney-Madonna kiss from the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards -- completely uncensored.

This was all part of a lead-in to the "The Early Show's" interview with Lambert, in which anchor Maggie Rodriguez implored him to think about "the children" and desperately tried to get him to apologize to his "child fans." Thankfully, Lambert got a chance to talk about the double-standard behind the uproar: "If it had been a female pop performer, I don't think there nearly would have been as much of an outrage." When Rodriguez asked whether it was an issue of being male or being gay, he replied: "Both. I think it's a double-whammy." Then she came back with: "But, but, I don't think people have said specifically that they were upset about the fact that you're gay or that you're kissing a guy." Right, people have generally been savvier with their prejudice -- unlike CBS.

You know what? My sensibilities have been deeply offended by this "Early Show" segment -- when do I get my apology from Rodriguez and and CBS?

 


By Tracy Clark-Flory

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