I know when people say "interracial" they often specifically mean "white vs Black", and there are often good reasons for that It's still nuts to give Star Trek credit for the "first interracial TV kiss in history" when Ricky and Lucy were casually kissing ALL THE TIME in the 50s
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Okay, yes, by "interracial" people really mean "against the laws of the Jim Crow South" And I would be more willing to hand Star Trek the title if 1) the backlash they expected had actually happened 2) the episode weren't a cringey mess 3) Roddenberry and Shatner weren't tools
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The episode has them kiss while under the influence of EVIL ALIEN MIND CONTROL It's doing the Hays Code thing of signaling as hard as it can that "This thing that's about to happen is HORRIBLE and we're only showing it to you because it's HORRIBLE Don't try this at home kids"
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Also they don't actually kiss Watch it again, Kirk spins Uhura around so they're doing the high school auditorium stage kiss thing where their mouths are blocked off and you can't see it They're obviously lip-hovering, it's really distractingly visible
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Anyway look okay I Love Lucy was far, far from being "progressive" by today's standards either And yes I know a racist of the time obviously would not view a Cuban mestizo in the same light as a Black American character But come on it was 1951
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The studio fought Lucy pretty hard on this and there were a lot of famous white dudes with a background in comedy they would've preferred - Desi was more known as a musician - but Lucy had enough clout to make them suck it up and hire her rl husband anyway That's impressive
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Gene tried to make them hire his rl girlfriend (Majel Barrett) and they were just like "Ha ha sorry buddy no" That's one of the major reasons the show almost didn't get made, they thought Gene putting his girlfriend in the show made the whole thing feel like amateur hour
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Anyway I stan Lucille Ball, who is also the reason Star Trek got made, and honestly deserves more credit for everythinghttps://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/star-trek-is-back-heres-how-lucille-ball-once-saved-the-show-loved-by-many/ar-BB17EwS5 …
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Replying to @arthur_affect
The BFI also, evidently, claims that the first white-black kiss on TV was actually in 1962, and the woman was white sooooopic.twitter.com/CJfwMvmbNJ
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This was British TV and therefore doesn't count
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I guess you can get away with a lot if Mississippi doesn't know about it
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Replying to @Nymphomachy
UK TV was generally classier than US TV at the time thanks to the dominance of the BBC, this particular show was a televised staging of a play
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