Luckily Will & Grace debuted in 1998 and the groundbreaking NBC series convinced many that gay people might not be so toxic (and wouldn’t scare off advertisers) - so much so that Vice President Joe Biden later credited it with changing his mind about same-sex marriage. RELATED: How TV is Putting the ‘B’ in LGBTQ - And Why It Matters
It may appear quaint now, when we have TV series like Hulu’s Love, Victor (about a Latinx teen exploring sexual fluidity) or Netflix’s Bonding(about sex work and alternative sexuality), but the great gay panic set off by Ellen DeGeneres coming out on her sitcom in 1997 was a bombshell that didn’t necessarily convince the networks that they’d open the gates to LGBTQ experiences. That left a great swath of humanity desperate to see something that resembled their lives. And yet, for decades, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people rarely ever saw displays of affection. Who hasn’t learned to kiss from watching others do it onscreen? Before the internet and everyone having a device in their pockets, that was the way most of us casually absorbed images of desire and love.
