When controversial TV topics hit, they often create a bigger fuss than their film counterparts. Television comes into the home, and unless you want to be that weirdo who doesn’t have television, the broadcast networks are always available. Over the years, the entertainment industry (both television and film) has carefully self-censored itself to avoid the government getting too involved. Even still, there is always someone (or a few thousand someones) who don’t like something and try to foist their views on the rest of the country. And when it comes down to it, what really speaks is money.
A lot of complaints can equal a lot of advertisers pulling their support for a show, which can equal a lot of lost money for networks. But it can also bring in a lot of new viewers, which means more eyeballs viewing the ads. It is a delicate balance, and oftentimes, networks play up the controversies.
We have gathered up some of the most controversial TV “firsts” in history. Many of these topics seem banal in today’s society, but at the time, they caused huge headaches. All of these “firsts” refer to broadcast television, since cable TV does not have the same restrictions.
Controversial TV Firsts
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First TV Pregnancy
This one is a little sticky. For a long time, I Love Lucy (1951) was considered the first TV pregnancy, but then an early TV series called Mary Kay and Johnny (1947) was discovered. Starring real-life married couple Mary Kay and Johnny Stearnes, the show was TV's first sitcom; they were the first married TV characters to share a single bed; and technically, Mary Kay was the first woman to have a pregnancy storyline written on television. The show was performed live, and eventually Mary Kay's real-life pregnancy couldn't be hidden, so it was written into the story. But aside from a few fragments of the series' final episodes, and a single 1949 episode preserved by the Paley Center for Media, Mary Kay and Johnny does not exist anywhere.
Which brings us to I Love Lucy, a far more well-known and better preserved sitcom, which is what most people think of when they think of "TV's first pregnancy." It was certainly better promoted, with Lucille Ball's real-life newborn, Desi Arnaz Jr. gracing the cover of the first-ever issue of TV Guide. The pilot episode was shot while Lucy was pregnant with her first child, Lucie Arnaz, but worried about turning off potential advertisers, the pregnancy was never mentioned in the episode. Ball became pregnant with Desi Jr. during the second season, and it was incorporated into the show. Famously, CBS wouldn't allow the word "pregnant" to be used, so "expecting" was used instead (and, in one episode, Lucy was referred to as "infanticipating"). I don't know the extent to which Mary Kay and Johnny used her pregnancy in the story, but I Love Lucy had several episodes that dealt significantly with her pregnancy, including the episode in which she tells Ricky she is pregnant; attempts to better herself so she can be a better mother; strange pregnancy cravings; and of course, Lucy going to the hospital to have her baby.
Fun fact: The episode in which Lucy gave birth aired on the same night that Ball gave birth to her second child.
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First African American-Led Series
There had been other TV shows with African American leads, but they were portrayed in stereotypical roles as servants. Julia (1968) was unique because the titular character (played by Diahann Carroll) played a nurse, not a cook or a maid. Interestingly, it seems that most of the controversy came not from viewers, but critics, whose biggest problem seemed to be that it wasn't showing the struggle African Americans faced. Julia was successful in a skilled job that required schooling, and lived in a safe, clean suburb. Carroll herself said in 1968 that the show was presenting "the white Negro." Similar complaints were levied against The Cosby Show (1984) more than two decades later. African American viewers also didn't like the fact that Julia was single (her husband was an Army captain who was killed during Vietnam). Many believed that without a black male lead, the series was "safer" and "less likely to grapple with issues that might upset white viewers."
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First Interracial Kiss
Ok, technically, Star Trek (1966) was not the very first interracial kiss on television. The first one was probably Hot Summer Night, a play that was broadcast on British television in 1959. There are about a half-dozen other minor examples before 1968's "Plato's Stepchildren," but Star Trek was the first kiss between a black woman (Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols) and a white man (Kirk, played by William Shatner) on a scripted American TV show. It was certainly the most popular show, and got far more publicity than other shows.
Few contemporary records exist to show what the response to the kiss was at the time. Nichelle Nichols maintains that she got more fan mail about "Plato's Stepchildren" than any other episode, and nearly all of it was positive.
NBC was worried it would offend viewers in the Deep South. Anti-miscegenation laws (which outlawed marriage between people of two different races) had only been ruled unconstitutional the year before, and as late as 1970, Mississippi banned Sesame Street for having an integrated cast, so it wasn't a farfetched idea. The network finally ordered two versions of the scene: one where Kirk and Uhura kiss, and one where they don't. The actors specifically flubbed every version of the non-kiss take, forcing the network to use the kiss in the episode.
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First Abortion
To this day, abortion storylines are rarely written into scripted TV shows, which makes this first-season episode of Maude (1972) all the more spectacular. The show, a spin-off of All in the Family (1971), starred Bea Arthur as the eponymous middle-aged feminist, a more realistic image of woman than was typical at the time. In addition to the abortion storyline, Maude tackled all sorts of social issues in a serious manner: alcoholism, suicide, prescription pill abuse, and domestic violence, to name a few. Yet the show was still a sitcom.
In a November 1972 episode (two months before the Roe vs. Wade decision), Maude, age 47, discovers she is pregnant. It is her daughter - a grown woman with a child of her own) who points out that abortion had recently been made legal in New York and suggests her mother consider it. Maude and her husband decide that they are too old to raise a baby, and at the end of a two-part episode, Maude decides to have an abortion. While the first abortion on television actually occurred in a 1964 episode of soap opera Another World, it was referred to only as an "illegal operation."
The network was understandably nervous, but Maude was a huge success so they let the episode air. To ease the network's concerns, and show that abortion wasn't the only option, writers added a neighbor who had a lot of children and was very happy. At the last minute, CBS refused to pay for the taping of the episode, until show creator Norman Lear told them that if they didn't, they would have to find something else to fill the time slot. CBS relented. The episodes were carried on all but two of CBS' affiliates and received 7,000 letters of protest.
Because of the controversy, and the relatively minor outrage, CBS reran the episodes the following year. This created a bigger problem. Nearly 40 affiliates refused to air the reruns, not a single corporate sponsor bought ad time, and the network received over 17,000 complaints. Catholic and anti-abortion groups protested. Several pro-choice groups tried to call for boycotts against the sponsors who were too scared to buy ad time, but the anti-abortion voices won out.
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First Rape Scene
1974's made-for-TV movie Born Innocent was the first to broadcast a rape scene - and a graphic one at that. Linda Blair, fresh off her star-making (and almost equally controversial) turn in The Exorcist (1973), stars as Christine Parker, a troubled runaway from an abusive home. She is arrested and put in a juvenile detention center, which turns out to be worse than her home life. While at the detention center, she is gang-raped with a broom handle by a group of other girls. The guards at the center don't care, and are often causing much of the abuse that is seen in the center. When Christine is finally released from the center, she has been changed from the intelligent, inquisitive girl with a future to a cold, violent, remorseless girl who is certainly destined for a life of crime.
While the TV film was meant to draw attention to prison reform, society's tendency to blame victims, and other social issues, the salacious advertising NBC gave it seems to have scrambled the message a bit. One of the biggest complaints heard from viewers was that Born Innocent aired at 8pm, when many children were still awake and watching television. Many believe that Born Innocent precipitated the "family viewing hour" after legislators complained to the FCC. (The "family viewing hour" was a standard that the networks put into place to avoid official legislation. The networks agreed to keep controversial, less family-friendly programming out of the 8pm-9pm time slots.) A woman in Northern California actually sued NBC and her local NBC affiliate when, four days after Born Innocent aired, her nine-year-old daughter was gang raped with a soda bottle. She contends that the assailants got the idea from Born Innocent. The California Supreme Court refused to declare the film obscene, and did not hold NBC liable.
NBC reran the movie the following year, airing it during the 9pm hour and significantly editing the rape scene down. A number of gay, lesbian, and feminist activists took issue with the TV movie and managed to get a number of advertisers to pull out of the second broadcast. One group, the Lesbian Feminist Liberation, saw the film as propaganda against lesbians, stating that "men rape, women don't." After the second airing, the National Gay Task Force argued that the edited version further emphasized the girls as "deviant lesbians." ABC later bought the telefilm for airing on their own network and incorporated the NGTF's suggestions, which included removing the film's references to lesbianism (thus making the rape seem less a rape by lesbians, and more a rape by criminals).
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First Gay Character
Gay characters have appeared openly on television since the 1970s. In 1971, the ever-daring All in the Family featured television's first openly gay character. The comedically intolerant Archie Bunker discovers his macho bar-buddy is gay. The first recurring openly gay character on primetime television was Peter Panama on 1972's The Corner Bar, a short-lived ABC sitcom.
The first openly gay character on television is often characterized as Jodie Dallas on 1977's Soap. In fact, Billy Crystal's character was the first openly gay main character on a primetime series, and the character spoke frequently of his desire to have gender reassignment surgery. The show was already under fire for its overall sexual content, so the idea of a gay character was just lumped into that controversy. Interestingly, in a Standards & Practices memo that was leaked to the press before the series aired, the network insisted that Jodie not be given "limp-wristed actions." In other words, they didn't want the character to have any stereotypical effeminate traits.
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First Character With AIDS
It's hard to remember that, when AIDS was first discovered, it was met with fear, confusion, and prejudice. It was also a painful, guaranteed death sentence. The first TV show to feature a character with AIDS was likely a 1983 episode of the medical drama St. Elsewhere, in which one of the doctors reveals he is treating an AIDS patient. The disease had only been discovered in 1980 and named AIDS in 1982. The episode escaped much controversy, as did An Early Frost (1985), a made-for-TV film that was the first major media representation of the AIDS epidemic. The most controversial representation of AIDS on television was an NBC drama called Midnight Caller (1988).
Midnight Caller was about an ex-cop, Jack Killian, who quits the force after he accidentally kills his partner in a shoot-out. A friend offers him a job hosting a late night radio call-in show, which often sent him back on the streets to use his detective skills to solve problems. "After It Happened..." was an early episode in the three-season run of the series, and interestingly, the majority of the controversy came from AIDS activists and LGBT groups.
"After It Happened..." follows a bisexual man, Mike Barnes, who is purposely infecting women with AIDS, including Killian's ex-girlfriend, Tina, who is also pregnant with Barnes' child after a one night stand. In the original script, Killian is on a mission to find Barnes and get him to stop infecting people. He is unable to, and eventually another woman, Kelly, who was infected by Barnes, kills him in a fit of vigilante rage.
Someone from the production leaked the first draft of the script to a number of AIDS activists, and they were the ones protesting the episode. Activists worried that the show villainized both AIDS patients and bisexuals, that there were no positive gay characters to act as a counterbalance, and the episode would encourage violence against those groups. Groups such as San Francisco AIDS Foundation, ACT UP San Francisco, and Mobilization Against AIDS disrupted filming of the episode (which shot on location in San Francisco). Changes were made to the script, including Kelly being arrested for the murder, thereby showing a consequence for her actions. Activists decided this wasn't enough and promised to continue interfering with the production, so the company filed a restraining order against the groups. They ignored the restraining order and interrupted filming again. At that point, producers agreed to more script changes, including not killing Barnes, and adding a scene with a gay bartender who explains to Killian that Barnes is irresponsible and reprehensible. The night the episode aired, several hundred protesters showed up to the San Francisco affiliate, insisting they not air the episode. "After It Happened..." aired, and to the best of my research, did not face any advertiser backlash.
The next season, Midnight Caller featured a "follow-up" episode, titled "Someone to Love." Learning from past mistakes, the writer met with some of the activists who protested "After It Happened..." to get their input on how to make a sensitive follow-up. In "Someone to Love," Tina, near death, forms a support group with other victims of Barnes', and go on Killian's radio show to discuss the disease. Activists groups praised the "accurate and honest portrayal" of the problems faced by people with AIDS.
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First Nudity on Broadcast Television
Before NYPD Blue (1993), there had been nudity on television. Jayne Mansfield had a "wardrobe malfunction" during the 1957 Academy Awards. A PBS broadcast of a stage play, Steambath, aired in 1973 that showed partially bared breasts (it only aired on about two dozen PBS stations around the country). PBS would also air anthropological documentaries with nudity, and Roots had fleeting scenes of nudity. NBC received condemnation from a Republican congressman for airing Schindler's List unedited (which featured fully nude concentration camp inmates); he eventually apologized after receiving bipartisan criticism.
But NYPD Blue was the first primetime, scripted network TV series to show nudity (bare butts of both sexes) in sexual situations. The American Family Association, a religious conservative group, called the show "soft-core porn" and took out ads against the show, urging a boycott. A similar conservative watchdog group, Parents Television Council, was formed due to outrage about NYPD Blue's content. Of ABC's 225 affiliates, 57 (mostly in smaller markets) decided not to air the series - at least for the first few episodes. When it became clear that the show was a ratings success, it returned to the affiliates.
In January 2008, the PTC filed a complaint about NYPD Blue, specifically citing a 2003 episode entitled "Nude Awakening" which featured full rear nudity of a male and a female, and partial frontal nudity of a female. The FCC announced it would issue a $1.4 million fine against ABC. The network appealed on the grounds that the episode aired five years prior (and obviously it hadn't caused any issues) and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the fine.
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First Same-Sex Kiss
TV's first same-sex kiss was likely between Holly Robinson Peete and Katy Boyer in a 1990 episode of 21 Jump Street. But the most controversial was probably an episode of Roseanne from 1994 entitled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." In the episode, Roseanne, to prove she is "cool," goes dancing at a lesbian club with her sister Jackie, their bisexual friend Nancy, and Nancy's girlfriend Sharon. Sharon kisses Roseanne, which causes her much anxiety.
ABC initially refused to air the episode, fearing sponsors would pull out and viewers would boycott the show. Series producer (and then husband to Roseanne) Tom Arnold went public with ABC's decision. Roseanne threatened to take her show to another network, which was a bigger risk for ABC because it was one of the highest rated shows on television. The network eventually relented and agreed to air the episode uncensored, but with a parental warning at the top of the episode. After all the publicity surrounding the episode, ABC even advertised it as "the lesbian kiss episode" in TV commercials. Only one advertiser, Kraft, demanded that ads for its products not be played during the episode, but they didn't pull their support from the show all together.
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First Coming Out of a Lead Character
This honor goes to Ellen DeGeneres, on her 1997 sitcom, Ellen. Hailed by many LGBT groups as "possibly the most influential gay moment on television," the character Ellen Morgan coming out coincided with DeGeneres' own real-life coming out.
In "The Puppy Episode," (named to throw people off the scent), an old friend of Ellen's comes to town. Richard comes on to Ellen, but she awkwardly turns him down and seeks comfort from Susan, Richard's travel companion. When Susan tells Ellen she is gay and thinks Ellen might be, too, Ellen tries to have sex with Richard to prove her heterosexuality (she fails). Over the next few days, Ellen finally comes to terms with her sexuality and tells her friends she is gay.
The discussion to make Ellen Morgan gay began at the end of the third season, though "The Puppy Episode" didn't air until the end of the fourth season. The character, and the sitcom, showed a lack of focus and lack of direction. DeGeneres was a big ratings draw, but the writers were getting restless. The producers opened up negotiations with the network, ABC, who was surprisingly supportive of the plot. In fact, they rejected the first draft of the script for "not going far enough." Unfortunately, as word leaked about the episode, the backlash began. The studio received at least one bomb threat; producers received at least one death threat; and DeGeneres, on at least one occasion, was followed by a suspicious man on her way to the studio.
As per usual, conservative watchdog groups tried to pressure ABC into dropping the episode, and pressured advertisers to pull their ads. It had a very limited effect: J.C. Penney and Chrysler, who only occasionally bought ad time during the show, decided not to buy any during "The Puppy Episode." Only Wendy's pulled their advertising permanently. A Birmingham, Alabama affiliate asked to air the episode in a late night slot. When ABC refused, the affiliate pulled the episode outright. Locals in Abilene, Texas petitioned their affiliate to pull the episode, but they refused.
"The Puppy Episode" pulled in 42 million viewers, won two Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and a GLAAD Award. Unfortunately, the kudos wouldn't last long. After "The Puppy Episode," ABC put viewer discretion warnings at the top of every episode, which offended DeGeneres, who saw it as a statement on her own off-screen lifestyle. The fifth season of Ellen was to be the show's last, and it received some criticism from the LGBT community for being "too gay." Chaz Bono once said that "[Ellen] is so gay it's excluding a large part of our society. A lot of the stuff on it is somewhat of an inside joke. It's one thing to have a gay lead character, but it's another when every episode deals with specific gay issues."
