You know what made me smile recently? Lifetime has their Christmas movie lineup and there was mention of one of those movies showcasing a gay couple as the main focus of the movie, something Lifetime has never done before. You ever stop to think about the movies and shows that came before? I feel like minorities always think about what’s come before because once upon a time, we didn’t see ourselves in television shows or on the big screen of a feature film. That’s changed.
Let’s start with this, I Love Lucy. You know what I never understood about that show? Why did Lucy and Ricky sleep in separate beds? Later in life, I watched a few specials and it was explained that that was proper for television at the time but what I didn’t get is did people who watched this show sleep in separate beds? Also, how did Lucy get pregnant in a separate bed? See how this could confuse people? Also, Ricky and Lucy were married. Alright, I’ve spend enough time explaining my confusion, but you get where I’m coming from. We went from sleeping in separate beds to being able to see two men making love on TV (shouts out to Pose). Did the scene with Ricky, coincidentally, and Pray Tell make me uncomfortable? Kind of and I can admit that but it wasn’t the context of the scene or the people who were in it. It was because I had never seen that in a TV show along the lines of Pose before and I have to think about those gay men who also had never seen that before.
You know what I’m also seeing? A lot more black love and the celebration of black love. There are more stories that speak to all walks of life surrounding a black couple, educated struggling, young, old and any combination of scenarios. I feel like, and I could be wrong, there were only a certain amount of black couples on TV and in movies and they only reflected a certain aspect of the vastness of who we are as a people. Now, I feel the richness of black love and not we have to put these two characters together because they’re black or we have to we have to have a black couple so people don’t complain (didn’t stop Friends but I digress).
I also remember watching a documentary where Sidney Poitier being in love and kissing a white woman on screen was a MAJOR no-no. We all remember learning, sometime around Valentine’s Day, about the Lovings and their fight to love each other. As a native of the “Virginia is for Lovers” state, I learned quite a lot about this couple. I also started to think of all the couples that were like them that didn’t really see themselves in a show or movie in the fullness of themselves. Not everyone hated a black woman and a white man together or vice versa or any variation we can think of, and again, I think we have gotten to a point in our lives where we don’t have to show an interracial couple and go through “the world hates them because they don’t understand it” phase. We can just see an interracial couple and move on about our lives. Now there was that commercial where the little girl had an interracial couple as parents that had a bunch of people up in arms which didn’t make sense to me. Maybe we haven’t come as far as I think we have but it’s better than it was which is progress to me.
So as you kiss your sweetheart at the toll of midnight on what will hopefully be the end of the worse year most of us have had on this planet and into a new year that doesn’t suck, think about how far you and your significant other have come. You’ve made it through 2020 so there’s that. Go from there and say all good stuff (this is more so for the guys because sometimes y’all just don’t know what to say out of your mouth).
BLACK WATCH 