Billy Crystal thinks that the depiction of gay sex on television has gone too far and said so at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena. The actor/comedian caused a bit of a stir with his comments and was later forced to clarify them.
He said, “Sometimes I think, ‘Ah that’s too much for me. I’ve seen some stuff recently on TV in different kinds of shows where the language or the explicit sex is really, you know, sometimes I get it, and sometimes I just feel like, ‘Ah, that’s too much for me.’… Sometimes it’s just pushed a little too far for my tastes, and I’m not going to get into which ones they are.”
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This was an ironic comment coming from a man who first became famous for portraying a gay man in a positive light on the hit 1970s sitcom “Soap.”
When “Soap” was on television it became not only the first show to have a regular character who was gay but to also portray him as being just another person.
No, Crystal is not on the side of all sorts of anti-gay groups which do not approve of the portrayal of LGBT people on television. He just does not like the graphic depictions of sex on television today.
After the inevitable outcry from LGBT groups for his comments, Crystal clarified them in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter saying, “What I meant was that whenever sex or graphic nudity of any kind (gay or straight) is gratuitous to the plot or story, it becomes a little too much for my taste.”
About playing television’s first openly gay character he said, “It was very difficult at the time. Jodie was really the first recurring (gay) character on network television and it was a different time, it was 1977. So, yeah, it was awkward. It was tough.”
“I did it in front of a live audience and there were times when I would say to [another man], ‘I love you, ‘ and the audience would laugh nervously. I wanted to stop the taping and go, ‘What is your problem?’ “
