Changes

As that great sage Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast.”  Sometimes it is hard to see how fast things are changing because they are changing so slowly; sometimes it’s hard to see because they are changing so fast.

Back in 1977 a show debuted on ABC called Three’s Company.  The plot, shocking at the time, was that a man was living platonically with two women.  And he wasn’t married to either of them!  It caused a national outrage; heaven knows what might have happened if there had been an internet back then.  But the key point here is that the relationship between Jack Tripper (the late John Ritter), Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) and Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers; yes, her character’s full name was Christmas Snow) was entirely platonic.  There was no hanky panky.  Compounding the outrage was the fact that Jack got away with living with two women by pretending to be gay; even a fake gay character on TV caused a fuss.

After the show’s run ended in 1984 the producers tried to keep the ball rolling with a spin-off called Three’s a Crowd.  In this show Jack was now living non-platonically with his girlfriend Vicky (Mary Cadorette) under the watchful eye of her father, who was also their landlord.  So now a man was “living in sin” with his girlfriend, no euphemisms, no sly winks at the camera.  They were shacking up.  And guess what? America yawned and the show didn’t survive the season.  A lot had changed in seven years.

The recent release of Will Smith’s latest movie demonstrates some other barriers are breaking.  In 2005 Smith starred in a film called Hitch, which co-starred Eva Mendes as his love interest.  Smith commented at the time that Mendes was chosen partly because she was Hispanic; a White love interest would have killed the American box office, and a Black love interest would have sunk the international box office.  So they compromised (not that there is anything wrong settling for with Eva Mendes).

Smith is out with another movie with a one-word, five letter title, Focus.  His romantic interest now is Margot Robbie, who is quite blonde and quite pale.  She is also half Smith’s age, but half the romantic comedies ever made star a male actor with a woman half his age.  But the point is, things changed in ten years, and mixed race romantic couples are no longer taboo.

It wasn’t that long ago that there were laws against miscegenation, even if “liberal” places like California. These laws were struck down in 1967 in a case with the wonderfully appropriate name of Loving v. Virginia.  It only took 33 years until the first Hollywood blockbuster featuring an interracial couple that was not about an interracial couple.  Its name?  Mission Impossible 2, with Tom Cruise and Thandie Newton.

Michael Sam, the first openly gay football player drafted in the NFL will be on Dancing with the Stars next season.  Back in 1977 John Ritter pretending to be gay was controversial; now a really gay man is starring on a reality show.  He’s partnered with Peta Murgatroyd, a White woman.

I guess teaming him up with another man is something America isn’t ready for.  Yet.