“No you don’t understand, we’re married.
Not to each other, to women.”
“And if I was gay I’d like to think I could do better than him.”
The time has come for us to talk about the sitcom Married With Children.
Though it was primarily concerned with the mating habits of heterosexuals, or lack thereof,
the show touched on LGBT life now and then with surprising sensitivity.
And even more surprisingly, it went so far as to air an episode featuring two married
gay men, just two months before a real-life lawsuit kicked off the modern marriage equality
movement.
All aboard and welcome to Matt Baume’s Culture Cruise, where we take a deep dive on LGBTQ
themes in the entertainment we love.
This month we’re heading to Chicago for, believe it or not, Married With Children -- which
you might not expect to be particularly gay, but it has some startling links to queer
culture, marriage equality, and characters that at times display a more accepting attitude
than some of The Golden Girls.
Culture Cruise is made possible by everyone who pledges their support on Patreon -- folks
like Samantha Owens, thanks Samantha!
Head over to Patreon.com/mattbaume to join the folks who make Culture Cruise possible
and check out the backer rewards.
Married with Children aired for ten years, from the late 80s to the late 90s, and was
basically about a nuclear family totally unable to function in modern society.
Al, the dad, is a slob who thinks he deserves everyone’s respect despite doing nothing
to earn it; his wife Peg is lazy; their kids are gross; and every episode is basically
a reminder of what John Waters warned us about in the movie Female Trouble.
“I worry that you’ll work in an office, have children, celebrate wedding anniversaries.
The world of heterosexuals is a sick and boring life.”
In the 1990 episode “The Dance Show,” Peg is feeling neglected, and wants to go
out.
“Let’s go to the movies.
I know one we’d both enjoy.
It’s Shirley MacLaine, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, and Sally Struthers in Woody Allen’s
Oh my Head.”
I know that movie is made up for the show, but I can’t stop thinking about how great
it would be if it was real.
Anyway, Al’s disinterested in Peg, so she goes out dancing with her friend Marcy -- played,
by the way, by Amanda Bearse, an actress who later came out publicly as a lesbian.
They head to a dance club that is truly bizarre -- everyone’s dressed like they’re at
a PTA meeting, the music is like something out of the 40s, and the neon sign on the wall
says ten cents a dance?
What IS this place?
A few months ago I talked about how the show Kate and Allie imagined that a gay dance looked
something like this … so I really have no idea what “going out” even was for adults
in the 1980s.
Anyway, Peg starts dancing with a pleasant man named Andy.
If he looks familiar, that’s because he’s played by Sam McMurray, who’s been approximately
eight billion different guest characters on various sitcoms over many decades.
And not to go on TOO much of a tangent, but three years before this episode aired, he
was in a short film entitled Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall, which imagined that businessmen
close deals while dancing romantically with each other.
That short actually won an Oscar, which was presented by Pee-Wee Herman, and he was attacked
during the ceremony by the evil robot from RoboCop and flew to safety in the rafters
of the theater -- which isn’t in any way relevant to this episode, I just want you
to know about it so you’ll have weird dreams tonight.
Anyway, back to the show.
Al is unconcerned that Peg has been dancing with another man.
His only worry is that he can’t feed himself and is starting to get hungry.
But then there’s a knock at the door.
“I just think you ought to know that your wife has been seeing my husband.”
Hey, it’s Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson.
He plays Pete, the husband of Andy, the man Peg’s been dancing with.
What’s interesting here is that while marriage equality wasn’t legally recognized anywhere
in the world at this point, the show repeatedly uses the term “husband” to describe the
couple.
“Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“You know you’re a guy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well then we got three guys who won’t touch my wife, what’s the problem?”
In 1991, there was no definitive legal status for same-sex relationships.
A handful of towns offered limited recognition, but if you traveled outside of city limits,
that legal recognition would likely evaporate.
Many same-sex couples used terms like husband and wife even without the legal status, which
often just confused heterosexuals -- so it’s surprisingly progressive that the show Married
with Children didn’t bat an eye.
Al doesn’t care that this guy is gay, which is nothing short of amazing, given the time.
In the 1980s, homophobia was TV’s hackiest punchline, and Married with Children thrived
on hacky jokes.
In fact, here’s how the show handled a gay character on an episode a year earlier:
“And they wonder why we call them queens.”
Okay, two things -- first, you don’t call us queens, we call ourselves queens because
we’re amazing.
And second, this guy’s look is absolute perfection.
He’s doing Peach/Bowser cosplay and nailing the look, so yes: Queen.
Obviously.
Anyway, it’s noteworthy that Al isn’t thrown by the use of the term “husband,”
since the world was still about a decade away from any country having full marriage equality.
In fact, the year this episode aired -- 1990 -- marked an important milestone in the fight
for the freedom to marry.
For literally years, queer activists had been arguing about whether they should even pursue
marriage equality.
A lot of activists thought marriage would harm queer people.
Just look at how the institution is depicted on this show -- patriarchal, unsatisfying,
mired in the past.
Many community leaders felt that queers could do better than marriage.
But the HIV epidemic exposed a crucial lack of legal protection for LGBTQ relationships.
When partners died, they often had no legal connection to each other, which left them
vulnerable to predatory family members, or laws that penalized them for being unwed.
So over time, it became clear that while it was crucial to be radically critical of the
institution of marriage, there was also a need for legal equality.
That strategy started to take shape in 1989, when courts in New York and California issued
rulings that same-sex couples could be recognized as families.
Then in December of 1990 -- just two months after this episode aired -- three couples
applied for marriage licenses in Hawaii.
(And by the way you can read their amazing personal accounts of how that all happened
in my book, Defining Marriage, now available on Amazon.)
The Hawaii couples established the foundation of all the legal work that happened over the
ensuing quarter century, leading up to the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2015 that finally
legalized marriage equality nationwide.
The entire legal strategy that eventually won started here.
Well, not here on Married with Children, but at this particular moment in time.
And this wasn’t the only episode of TV grappling with the issue.
A year earlier in 1989, the Golden Girls revealed that Blanche’s brother was gay.
And two years later, in 1991, her brother decided to get married -- an idea that was
met with some confusion.
“Oh.
Oh!
Oh?”
In the span of just two years, The Golden Girls went from showing gays coming out to
gays wanting their relationships recognized.
Other shows did the same, and went even further: Also in 1991, the sitcom Roc aired TV’s
first same-sex commitment ceremony.
By the way I have been searching EVERYWHERE for that episode, and I can’t find it.
It must exist -- so if you have a copy, please, get in touch.
So here we have Al, an icon of heterosexuality.
And he totally doesn’t care that Pete’s gay -- in fact, he kind of likes it.
He treats Pete nicely.
He’s sort of into him?
"You work, you cook, and you like sports?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
And then after Pete cooks dinner for him …
“Al, you've gotta help me. I want my husband back.
Isn’t there any way you can talk to him?”
“I don’t know Pete, what about us?”
Although this friendship seems to be predicated mostly on food, it’s still a relief to see
such a straight show adopt a kindly attitude towards gays.
We expect a sympathetic depiction on Frasier, but it’s a pleasant surprise to find it
on Married with Children.
There are also hints here of the character that Ed O’Neill would play many years later
on Modern Family.
On that show, he has a gay son, and although he’s not always the MOST inclusive…
“Part of going to the gym is the locker room atmosphere, and if I'm there with a
gay guy it’s not going to be the same.”
He generally does his best to be a good dad.
“My son’s getting married today.”
In the end, Al finds Andy at the weird dance hall that is probably unlike anything that
actually existed at the time, and convinces him to give his husband Pete more attention.
His words aren’t perfect, but still he’s at least supportive:
“You’ve got a good man at home that any man would be proud to call his wife.”
“You’re right, Al.
And if you don’t mind my saying so, you should tell your wife you love her.”
“Mind your own business.”
While the heterosexuals on the show are fundamentally incapable of relating to each other, the gays
actually wind up closer together.
The episode ends with the husbands reconciling -- albeit off-screen -- and with Al and Peg
reluctantly back in each others’ arms.
It’s a surprisingly tender moment… until it’s not.
“He was sexy, he was hot, he was …” “He was a homo, Peg.”
Ok, so this episode might not win a GLAAD award.
But remember, in 1990, a lot of shows were struggling to figure out how to talk about
queer characters.
And even on shows like Golden Girls -- which is as queer-friendly as TV could be -- you
still had characters expressing reservations about gay relationships:
“Oh look I can accept the fact that he’s gay, but why does he have to slip a ring on
this guy’s finger so the whole world will know?”
Blanche eventually comes around after a talking-to from Sophia.
But Al’s already way ahead of her, accepting that two men can be married and even helping
them patch up their relationship.
Oddly enough, Al Bundy comes off as more progressive on gay marriage than Blanche Devereaux.
Even if he doesn’t quite have the terminology right.
“Now you go home and tell your wife that you love her.”
As we see on Modern Family, these days TV shows are far less afraid to show queer couples.
Steven Universe even recently had a same-sex wedding!
But in 1990, the idea that two men could call each other husbands was to many people novel
and strange.
Some shows responded to that idea with bigotry or cheap jokes, but others decided that was
something that should be totally normal.
And it’s amazing that Married with Children, of all shows, was among them.
Land ho!
We’re pulling into port.
Thanks for cruising along with us!
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And now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to re-imagine this episode but with apes.
"He was sexy. He was hot. He was ..."
"He was a homo, Peg!"
"Huh?"