lydia: yes. pamela adlon: if you put something in your show that's shocking and radical. the hope is in five years' time, it's going to become more normal. elena: who even decides what latinx looks like? i look latinx. penelope: of course you do, you're beautiful. i always thought you looked like anne hathaway. elena: oh no, no, no! emily vanderwerff: the future of the family sitcom to me is most present in shows like one day at a time; telling stories about an america you don't always see on television, elena: yeah! in ways that are funny, and fresh, and invigorating... and if you look at the best family sitcoms on tv right now, that's what they're doing. elena: anybody else wants to know what's up? this latin american family is headed to their american home. patron: that is so cool. anne hathaway just totally stood up for those mexicans.

fleabag: i'm not obsessed with sex. i just can't stop thinking about it. dan levy: sexuality has come a long way in sitcom history. larry: can you donate a penis to a person who's transitioning? michael gross: laughter is a great way to deal with a very tricky world. george: daddy horny, michael elizabeth meriwether: sitcoms talk about sex... claire: my underwear. phil: my god. elizabeth meriwether: and about relationships. issa: i'm breaking up with him tonight. margaret cho: these shows changed the way that we think about sexuality. man: for god's sake ellen, tell them you're gay! adrienne barbeau: you're talking about gay rights. you're talking about women's rights. dan levy: gender diversity. isabella gomez: dismantling the patriarchy. barry livingston: you know, sexual revolution. samantha: so, i'm officially out of men to [bleep] i have to get married or move. adrienne barbeau: but if you can make them laugh, then maybe we'll watch it again.

♪ dre: anything and everything. let's get our sex talk on! andre jr: oh, mom covered it all pretty good. dre: maybe about the birds and the bees but i'm your daddy, son and i'm here to keep it 100. despite the fact that your mother thinks that i'm uptight. cray-cray right? isabella gomez: sitcoms are a great place to talk about taboo, awkward subjects like sex, because it's disarming, and people just want to laugh. jack: i want to go home to my own room to sleep in my own bed. i don't want another beer. waitress: would you like another beer? jack: oh, yeah. constance wu: but it's always been from like, the straight, white man's point of view. linda lavin: i remember early sitcoms. i saw a mother, a wife in a cocktail dress all day long. and we sit there going, who the hell are these people?

it was a denial of reality. lucy: ethel, we're going to have a baby. linda lavin: and we got to see a pregnant woman on television wearing a dress that started from the neck and was like a tent. eve plumb: are we afraid of seeing a pregnant woman in the 1950s because it means that she has had sex? as if we didn't all come from a pregnant woman. patrick gomez: and in the 60s, sitcoms were still stuck in perpetuating this 1950s suburban housewife mentality. patrick gomez: but then it's this really interesting dynamic where you see tv trying to address the gender war that was coming. ♪ barbara eden: i definitely think i dream of jeannie is an escape for many people. tony: i could eat a horse. barbara eden: you know. she's, she's this entity who's trying

to do the best she can in the world that she's come into. jeannie: thou may ask anything of thy slave, master. barbara eden: yes, she said, 'master'. but of course, she was the powerful one. she's magic. i mean, when you have magic, you can do a lot of things. tony: what are you reading jeannie? jeannie: i'm reading a scroll: the emancipation of modern woman. what does it mean? tony: jeannie ... ooh, you don't have to worry about things like that. laura morowitz: but you have this character who is the absolute epitome of male fantasy. jeannie: i want to understand your way of life so that i can please you. tony: you please me very much. matter of fact, you're perfect. laura morowitz: there's an episode called 'the americanization of jeannie' where she dips a toe into the waters of female liberation. jeannie: i have been studying the emancipation of modern woman. tony: oh that. i guess you got so caught up in it you forgot to do the housework, huh? jeannie: i did not forget. i decided to let you do it.

tony: what, me?! jim colucci: i think there were female viewers and young girls who were watching at the time who were empowered by seeing jeannie. laura morowitz: but tony doesn't find it attractive. he's turned off by it. tony: a woman doesn't act the way you did tonight. your behavior this evening was absolutely disgraceful. oh and let me tell you one more thing ... barbara eden: sitcom television has changed with the times. but there was a lot more comedy than just jeannie and her master. there was a lot more going on. [rock music] activist: we demand freely available childcare facilities that will give all women an alternative to confinement in the home. patrick gomez: you have this interesting moment, because in the real world, the women's liberation movement is pushing female equality further than it had ever been. laura morowitz: and then these magical powers

that jeannie possessed... jeannie: that is the real you. laura morowitz: ... are kind of transformed to shows like that girl, where power doesn't have to be magical. man: is there anything else i can do miss? ann marie: well, there are about 4,000 things to do around here, but i can do them all myself. pamela adlon: come on, that's my girl. that girl. oh my god. with her little crunchy voice and her cute face and her hair. herbie j pilato: you had marlo thomas as really one of the first female independent, self -employed career women. judy: are you a couple? ann marie: no i'm a single. marlo thomas: the premise of that girl was a young girl who wanted to be somebody. man: how would you like to be an actress? ann marie: an actress? i am an actress. marlo thomas: and that's what made it, you know, so earth shattering at the time because we hadn't really seen a girl with a dream. ann marie: people actually seemed to recognize me

in the subway coming home! judy: ann marie - girl television star! marlo thomas: but we were really puritanical on television, we could not even appear to be having sex. donald: how can a plant have a trauma? ann marie: it's a living thing! it's probably very sensitive. donald: we better go in the next room and talk so it won't hear us. ann marie: donald, anything you have to say to me you can say in front of my plant. marlo thomas: it was all happening on the street, but it wasn't happening on television. not at all. i mean the standards of practices watched us like hawks. marlo thomas: this went back to lucy and desi. they were married and they had to sleep in separate beds. marlo thomas: donald always went home, yet it was a time of free love. it was a time of woodstock. it had nothing to do with where society was. jim j bullock: marlo thomas, oh my god, she punted the ball

to mary tyler moore and mary tyler moore ran with it. mary: i remember why i broke off with howard. pamela adlon: mary tyler moore was just so massive to me. having her job and dealing with like all of these men. mary: i have been dating since i was seventeen. i'm thirty-seven. that's two decades of dating! herbie pilato: mary richards was actively having sex. mother: don't forget to take your pill! father & mary: i won't! loni anderson: what you've got in the 70's is women not embarrassed that they don't have a husband who takes care of them and they have to stay home, and that really made a statement. sally struthers: and along comes bea arthur playing maude. that couldn't have been done in the 50s or 60s, it just wouldn't have been done. maude: feminine fulfilment tells you to be cute and frilly and perky and pamper your husband and just cater to his every whim. vivian: right!

walter: didn't they used to just call that being married? adrienne barbeau: we started filming maude in july of '72 and roe v. wade had passed, and so abortion was a big issue for me. jim colucci: the episode 'maude's abortion' aired in november of 1972 as a two-parter, and that was very early to be talking about abortion on television. carol: mother, i don't understand your hesitancy. when they made it a law you were for it. maude: of course! i wasn't pregnant then! adrienne barbeau: there were stations all throughout the country that did not air those episodes. carol: we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our own bodies. maude: alright, then will you please get yours into the kitchen. adrienne barbeau: we had a platform, but we weren't shoving it down anybody's throat. we were making them laugh and hopefully making them think.

jake: you know i'm a pretty open-minded guy so why don't you stop by the shop sometime? david: ok jim j bullock: lgbtq representation in sitcoms is important because we're all in this together, you can't leave that out - anymore. man: i'd like to begin with a fact.

a simple yet shocking fact. it is this. homosexuals, lesbians are threatening to pervert an entire generation of our american children. patrick gomez: the history of lgbtq characters in sitcoms is actually very similar to the history of lgbtq people in america, they were always there. they just had to be hidden. uncle arthur: there's the understatement of the century. eric mccormick: we had paul lynde on bewitched, we had that cliche. uncle arthur: don't you get it dumb dumb? jim j bullock: and jane hathaway on the beverly hillbillies was gay. nancy: this beautiful daughter of yours is going to win this palm springs beauty contest without even trying. dan levy: you had people who were essentially seeing themselves depicted on screen, but not all the way. samantha: what are you doing in there? uncle arthur: i've been framed, ha ha. emily vanderwerff: uncle arthur gives off a tremendous gay man energy that if you are in the know, is unmistakeable, but if you're not you're just like,

oh, look at that kooky, odd ball. i hope that he has a wife who loves him very much. jim colucci: it was like so many things in gay life... you had to read between the lines. jim colucci: and give that little wink, but it was never acknowledged. and so that's a step, but it wasn't the step that later shows would take. news reader: the bar patrons who rioted in greenwich village after a routine police raid on a gay bar, the stonewall inn in june of 1969 could not have known that their wild insurrection would enter history as the birthday of the gay liberation movement. matt brennan: in the 60s and 70s you see an explosion in fighting for rights, queer liberation. emily vanderwerff: to the credit of someone like norman lear and the many people who worked with him, they put people with lgbtq identities on television and to treat them as characters, not punchlines. norman lear: we haven't seen a gay character. why haven't we seen a gay character?

i mean, they exist. archie: get a load of this. my son in law and his pal tinkerbell. michael: excuse me would you mind ...? rod: hey steve. steve: hey rod michael: hi mr. bunker. norman lear: they bring their own stories to families all the time. michael: kelsey, are you trying to tell me that steve is... kelsey: i just wouldn't want my place to become no hangout. norman lear: i mean there was story material there. archie: oh steve you're going to want to bust him wide open when i tell you this. i don't know where they get these brain storms, but he thinks you're a... i can't even say this steve. steve: he's right arch. archie: huh? margaret cho: these shows were changing the way that we think about queerness and otherness. george: excuse me, i thought this was eddie stokes room. edie: it is. george: oh are you his wife? edie: no. george: same old eddie. edie: well, you see -

george: oh, i got it, you don't want me to know he's here so you're supposed to say he ain't here but he is here. in there. patrick gomez: in 1977, we got a very ground-breaking episode of the jeffersons titled, once a friend. edie: it's me eddie, only i'm edie now! george: say what? jim colucci: george can't wait for eddie to come to town, his best friend. and when eddie comes to town, eddie is now edie and is a trans woman. edie: take a good look. jacquelline coley: but the advancement of black queer stories is something that exists on a separate timeline from both lgbtq representation and black representation. sarah rodman: representation matters because if you know and like this person that's fictional, how can you not know and like this person in your real life. woman: when we were younger, i used to hate you. you steal my clothes. jodie: you had such nice things.

margaret cho: soap i think was so raw. woman: what do you people drink? jodie: you mean new yorkers? we drink... woman: no, no, homos. jodie: we drink your basic heterosexual drinks. margaret cho: there was something very delicious about the gayness of billy crystal's character. it was like mainstream television, wow, this is actually happening. this is actually real. sarah rodman: if you look back at it now, there were moments that were incredibly sensitive. and it was an important character. jodie: i mean, you hate me because i'm gay, right? mary: well? burt: i guess, if you need a reason, that's a good one. jodie: burt, it's a terrible reason. i mean look at me, i'm a person. emily vanderwerff: i do think that people watching that character thought for the first time about the possibility of gay men being real people. danny: you don't look gay. jodie: i'm still me. emily vanderwerff: that said, that show kind of didn't know what it was doing.

mary: now when i'm finally used to you being a.... jodie: homosexual. mary: you're going to get a sex change operation and be a girl? emily vanderwerff: i think that the use of stereotypical characters like jodie in soap is a double-edged sword. it creates a sense of what is funny about me is that i am deluded. and that i should, you know, sort of glom back onto society. that's changing and now people are more open to trans identities. sarah: dad? maura: hi girls. joey soloway: but even when i started making transparent and like going, ok, there's trans women and lesbians here. this is never going to fly. sarah: dad, what are you wearing? joey soloway: i was confused. i was confused about what america could handle. maura: i have something to tell you.

and they're all coming? those who are still with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings.

light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. maura: are you ok with me? sarah: oh god yes. no, i'm happy. maura: yeah? emily vanderwerff: transparent is an interesting case because joey soloway is nonbinary. they fall under the trans umbrella, and they were telling a story about their own parent who had come out as trans to them. joey soloway: i had major misunderstandings about transness, and the learning curve

i had to go on to really understand. oh, this is, these are who cross dressers are, and they're not the same as drag queens and they're not the same as trans women. maura: out of all my kids, you're the one... you can see me most clearly. joey soloway: the family was trying to understand maura and i was trying to understand my parent. it felt very much like kind of real time therapy. emily vanderwerff: transparent is about how people can change. people can get better. people can come together. people can build a better world together and i appreciate it on that level. it normalized a lot of these concepts. maura: my whole life i've been dressing up like a man. joey soloway: but maura pfefferman was played by jeffrey tambor, jeffrey was a cis man who was dressing up as a trans woman. kind of dangerous, actually, because there's danger out in the world for trans women, where if they want to use the women's restroom, somebody thinks they're, quote unquote, faking it.

woman: excuse me, are you a man? because this is the ladies' restroom. sarah: yeah, we're aware of what it is. thank you. joey soloway: but ultimately, i do think it made transness one of the things that somebody in the family could be and life goes on. emily vanderwerff: but for a long time, the sitcom was primarily driven by what makes us different is what makes us funny, especially in those 70s and 80s shows. it creates a sense of... abnormality. amy: oh hello girls. come on in girls. it's nice to see you girls . hi guys. peter scolari: a man dressing as a woman in 1982 is not at all a man dressing as a woman in our culture today. kip: i feel like a completely different kind of man. joel zwick: the premise of bosom buddies was 'some like it hot' which was the jack lemmon tony curtis movie where they got into, drag, in order to pass themselves as female musicians.

emily vanderwerff: now we can point at the use of drag as a comedic device, that's not quite lgbtq representation. it's just kind of in this weird, liminal space of things that might be queer. woman: are you two farm girls? i mean you're big. really big. dan levy: throughout the years, a lot of gay characters, queer characters, were people that were created by primarily heterosexual people to be a laugh line. stanley: what are you doing? jack: i'm loosening up my wrist. stanley: i didn't know you guys had to practice. pamela aldon: i mean that's how you said gay in three's company. hello jack... mmmm. peter scolari: in some ways, i mean three's company was kind of a terrible show. and boy did you want to be around them. it's a little light, right? but we find out that we can care about these people. suzanne somers: nobody was trying to hurt anybody.

we were just trying to make you laugh and feel good. patrick gomez: as a gay man, i look at a character like jack on three's company and part of me says, you know you're allowing this straight man to say he's one thing and he's not. but at the same time, hearing those words on television was important at the time to say he's willing to become part of a community that is an other. ♪ ♪ come on knock on our door ♪ ♪ we've been waiting for you ♪ ♪ where the kisses are hers... ♪ zooey deschanel: where the kisses are hers, and hers and his, three's company too, be boo, be boo ... patrick gomez: three's company emerged at a period in time that america was saying, i don't want sex to be a taboo subject anymore. jack tripper: that's a lovely mole you've got on your thigh... zooey deschanel: three's company is a sex farce in a lot of ways. suzanne somers: two girls and a guy living in an apartment and the landlord is ok with it because he thinks

john ritter's character is gay. jack tripper: how long do i have to go on letting him think i'm gay? janet:: ooh, as long as you live here. it's the only way he will allow it. lorraine ali: three's company is such the perfect 70s into the 80s show, just in terms of the total sexism. jack tripper: i've been walking behind you since you got off the bus. janet: why didn't you say something? jack tripper: i was enjoying the view from the rear. lorraine ali: men were running the show. many of those men were putting women in the roles they wanted to see them in. chrissy: you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can. suzanne somers: the way chrissy snow became queen of the jiggle was, in that first year, chrissy got very excited and jumped up and down and bounced back and forth. that's when boobs were real. and i noticed in the scripts from there on in, that the writers would add the line "and chrissy jumps for joy". [laughs] jim colucci: it was just a sign that america might have been burnt out on the social issues. we had been through the vietnam war, it had only recently ended.

suzanne somers: my era was the era of losing friends in that war, going to funerals. and so maybe this was the comic relief we needed. michael schneider: three's company was a massive hit out of the box. it was empty calories, but it was still delicious. jesse tyler ferguson: i was watching these characters at a point in my life where i was also scared of who i was. certainly, as an adult i can look back at them and i have a certain fondness for them, because even though they were coded or a little over the top, it was something that like, subliminally was really important. monroe: good night, good night... [knocking] ha ha, the closet! jim j bullock: i look at the time when i was on too close for comfort. and i think monroe sort of fell into that asexual thing where i never was supposed to be gay but come on,

you'd have to be brain dead not to know that monroe was gay! jim j bullock: but i was in the closet. i was terrified that, you know, it would ruin my career or whatever. you know? and then, you know, in 1985 i discovered that i was hiv positive. there was really not any treatment for it. i was terrified.

dan rather: congress opened hearings today on aids, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome and what the government is doing to fight it. geri jewell: i lived in paranoia in the 80s. absolute total paranoia. geri: name that handicap! geri jewell: when the aids outbreak started, i was terrified of people finding out that i'm gay. there was no way i could be openly gay at that time. it would have been career suicide. jim j bullock: i think being gay was admitting to someone that you could have aids. patrick gomez: ultimately we didn't see very many lgbtq characters in sitcoms in the 80's. for most lgbtq communities it was a very dark time.

dorothy: seems you had a transfusion while you were there. the hospital thinks the blood may have contained hiv antibodies. rose: hi...v- wait a minute. you're talking about aids! jim colucci: the golden girls, being about older characters, gave the show license to go further and really show how the women reacted to important issues. rose: damn it. why is this happening to me? i mean, this isn't supposed to happen to people like me. you must have gone to bed with hundreds of men. jim colucci: and blanche says a line that i think america needed to hear, which is - blanche: aids is not a bad person's disease, rose. it is not god punishing people for their sins. rose: you're right blanche. blanche: you're damn straight i'm right. jim colucci: it was something that in 1990, so many people needed to hear. and the golden girls were able to deliver that message because of who they were. anita sarkeesian: our media doesn't exist in a vacuum,

so when we do see these moments in sitcoms, it's because there have been activists trying to normalize and humanize folks who have been not humanized for so long. jerry: i mean it's fine if that's who you are. george: absolutely. jerry: i have many gay friends. george: my fathers' gay. journalist: look i... jason alexander: and then you've got the outing. elaine: you know, just because you two are homosexuals... so what? jason alexander: the premise of that episode was a journalist was following jerry to do some sort of piece on him and got it into her head that jerry and george were gay lovers. george: what do you think of this shirt? journalist: it's nice. george: jerry said he didn't like it. jason alexander: and the minute that we understood that that was the impression we were giving; we went into overdrive to try and prove to her that that was the farthest thing from true. jerry: it was a joke. george: look you want have sex right now? do you want have sex with me right now? let's go! michael schneider: they really nailed the satire of the so-called gay panic. jerry: it's not true! it's not true!

not that there's anything wrong with that. dan levy: the more we see things, the more normalized those things become. man: hello.. dan levy: whether it's sexuality, whether it's gender diversity, you know, we got to just put it all out there because we've just seen one kind of thing for so long. man: how about your boyfriend, mr. feel this. feel this! feel this! jim colucci: throughout the 90s, the gay community started making at least baby steps. lorraine ali: but when ellen came on the air, there was no lgbtq representation at all. ellen: not a big deal. lois: of course it's a big deal. it's a very big deal. eric mccormick: ellen's show didn't start as a show about a gay woman. paige: was that a cute dentist or was that a cute dentist? ellen: yeah, he now my cutest health-care provider jim colucci: it was about this goofy, amiable bookstore owner and her friends and it was becoming a hit for abc, but ellen wanted to tell her truth

and have the character also do so. paige: ellen are you coming out or not?! joe: yeah ellen, quit jerking us around and come out already! come on! ellen: what is the big deal? i've got a whole hour. patrick gomez: i don't think you can overstate, what was at stake for ellen degeneres in terms of coming out. she had a fantastic career as a stand-up. she was having not just a tv, but film career at the time. jim j bullock: this pressure cooker had been just mounting and her show really was what blew the lid off of it. ellen: susan, i'm gay. jim colucci: it was an incredibly pivotal moment in television when ellen morgan, ellen degeneres' character came out. and it coincided with ellen degeneres' own coming out, which was a brave thing to do when you're the lead of a sitcom. ellen: if it wasn't difficult, i would have done it a long time ago and everybody else who's closeted and in this business would do it.

jim colucci: it really became a national event. ellen: that felt so great. and it felt so loud. woman: she must have felt this huge relief. lorraine ali: she was us. she was america... but she just was gay. matt brennan: but conservative and religious organizations objected to the idea of a gay person coming out on national television. ellen: oh paige, you wild and piteous fool. anchor: the abc sitcom ellen is being cancelled just one year after the main character came out as a lesbian. larry king: in entertainment weekly you said you were dropped or fired basically because i'm gay. is that a correct quote? ellen: i believe that because the show was so gay yes. geri jewell: the fact that the show didn't continue must have been extremely traumatic and hard on her. dan levy: ellen was driven out of the industry for a while after that episode. so there was a backlash.

jim colucci: i think that threatened to put a chill on development of any more shows with gay characters, because you could always find an executive who'd say, look what happened with ellen.

ellen: that felt so great and it felt so loud. dan levy: ellen played such a formative role in shifting the conversation but there was still a landscape of fear. daniel fienberg: in the 90 's there were gay men and women who wanted to have their stories told. warren littlefield: we were afraid of alienating an audience, but norman lear told us that not only is it a good thing to reflect the world you live in, but it's wildly successful... and so i think what it said is, don't be afraid. eric mccormick: this is december of '97. i wanted to be anybody on friends. i wanted to be anybody on seinfeld. i wanted to be must-see tv. so, when that script arrived, i thought, oh, boy, oh, i hope there is something in this for me. will: did you buy anything?

grace: yeah, i got a great camisole will: sexy? danny: i'm going to sleep. grace: ask me in the morning. will: was that danny? grace: yeah, you jealous? will: honey, i don't need your man. i've got george clooney. jim colucci: the story was the relationship between a gay man and his female best friend. grace: sorry babe, he doesn't bat for your team. will: well, he hasn't seen me pitch. eric mccormick: did i have nerves about it in 1998? yes. but i had played several gay characters in the theatre and on television. karen: now eddie, she says that you and grace should get married. will: haha, grace and me? eric mccormick: what i saw on the page was charming leading man. but unapologetically an out gay man. grace: this would be us three weeks in... honey, i'm having an affair. will: me too. grace: his name is donald. will: me too! eric mccormick: i didn't get to be david schwimmer or matt leblanc, but i knew i could do it with empathy and dignity.

patrick gomez: when it started off, and everyone was like, how gay can it be? jack: grace, did you know i was gay when you met me? grace: my dog knew. patrick gomez: and the answer was, apparently you couldn't go gay enough. jack: ladies and gentlemen, fresh from forty-five minutes of butt- robics i give you... my ass. patrick gomez: there was two openly gay men who were very different, and we were able to see, oh, being gay isn't just one thing. jack: i just want to know how long i'm going to have to wait until i can see two gay men kiss on network television. man: not as long as you'd think. constance wu: humor i think is a great way for anyone to connect. will: i just can't believe we did it. jack: a lot of people out there owe us a big fat thank you. caryn james: it was kind of risky at the time, but the network found out, yes, there's an audience for this. dan levy: i think that really changed things for people because they fell in love with these characters and they realized, "well, what's the prejudice?" joe biden: i think will and grace probably did more to educate the american public than almost anything

that anybody has ever done so far. grace: can you believe it? they're getting married in four days. i love weddings. will: well, it's not strictly a wedding. it's a same sex civil union which affords many of the same rights as a marriage. grace: right. where are they going on their honeymoon? will: well, it's not strictly a honeymoon, it's a same sex vacation with a lot of the same events as a honeymoon. daniel fienberg: it's hard to remember now but during the obama administration, barack obama said he was opposed to gay marriage... but people's opinions change. valerie bertinelli: modern family came at the right time. and it came in right on the heels of will and grace, and it just kept the engine rolling, which is very helpful. cam: you just made a little girl very happy. mitch: yes, well i can see that. jesse tyler ferguson: i think a lot of people really loved mitch and cam together and it was very heartwarming to, to hear from people who, you know were in straight relationships saying, my husband is just like mitch. or my wife is just like cam. steven levitan: all they cared about was raising their daughter well and they loved each other, and they were sweet to each other.

cam: you're this amazing looking guy. mitch: i am not amazing... really? cam: i wouldn't change anything. jesse tyler ferguson: we were like this trojan horse that came to their living room. i think, their hearts accepted us before their minds did. and why wouldn't you want them to be married? anchor: on the steps of the supreme court, jubilation among same sex marriage supporters as the court cleared the way for same sex marriages to resume in california. steve levitan: the whole mitch, cam getting married was sparked by that supreme court decision. jesse tyler ferguson: mitch is on a computer sort of watching and people are celebrating in front of the supreme court. mitch: can you believe this finally happened? patrick gomez: modern family created this whole new level of comedy that you wouldn't necessarily get in a traditional male -female relationship. mitchell: you wouldn't really like if i proposed to him. cam: i've outdone myself gloria. i booked the restaurant from our first date. mitch: cam, tire cam: oh my gosh. oh. oh my god. oh my god! patrick gomez: and then, of course, it ends with them ah on the side of the road trying to fix a flat tire...

mitch/cam: yes. steve levitan: that's what i think humor can do. it can open up people's minds and people's hearts. lorraine ali: and i do think that modern family could probably take some credit for making america more comfortable with the idea of same sex marriage. ty: you may now kiss your husband obama: this morning the supreme court recognised that the constitution guarantees marriage equality. jacqueline coley: and then now with shows that are on some of the streamers, we are beginning to see stories like the thanksgiving episode from master of none and that is only because these lqbtq creators from the black and brown communities have been given platforms to tell their stories. denise: being gay isn't something black people love to talk about.

dev: why? denise: some black people think that being gay is a choice. and when they find out that their kid is gay they try and figure out what they did wrong. jacqueline coley: it takes someone going through the door for us to have the representation. denise: ma, i'm gay. catherine: what? jacqueline coley: so, lena waithe, winning an emmy for writing the thanksgiving episode, which was essentially her coming out story. that's revolutionary. denise: i've always been gay. jacqueline coley: you don't have to sacrifice anything to still be both entertaining, thought provoking and, you know, spark conversations. catherine: i'm happy for you.

dre: hey pops, how come you never gave me the talk? pops: i most certainly did. what do you think that box of condoms i left in your bedroom was about? dre: that was it? pops: oh, you wanted a hug too? daniel fienberg: the american people are collectively a little bit conservative when it comes to issues of sex. pops: don't get all caught up in this having open dialogue with your kids' hoopla. it's not natural! show me one place in the bible where a kid talks!

daniel fienberg: we want to be able to laugh about sex for the same reason, we want to be able to laugh about anything that scares us or disturbs us. frankie: so, i'm sure you've had sex with my mother, which is fine. max: oh my god! frankie: but are you using protection? patrick gomez: and it took a long time, but sitcoms really opened the door for us being able to tell stories about sex and laugh at them. without three's company, you don't perhaps get golden girls and that leads to shows that are being super open about sex and sexuality. man: i think i know you from somewhere. samantha: it's very possible we [bleep] man: no, i think i know you from college. samantha: then we probably [bleep] in college. darren star: i felt it was time to kind of like, lighten up about sex. miranda: what's the big mystery? it's my clitoris not the sphinx. caryn james: in the 1990s we hadn't seen shows that are frank about women's sex lives, about their romantic lives. caryn james: the biggest change came with the explosion of cable.

darren star: what i loved about hbo is that their criteria was only quality. it wasn't network censorship or anything like that. carrie: tell me exactly how he worded it. darren star: i wanted to explore this world of sex and relationships from a female point of view and do something really really frank. charlotte: we've been seeing each other for a couple of weeks, i really like you and tomorrow night after dinner... i want us to have anal sex. anita sarkeesian: it feels a little funny to call it a sitcom, and i think the reason for that is because, it really pushed a lot of barriers around talking about sex and relationships in ways that sitcoms certainly didn't do. samantha: so, how big was it? waiter: fresh pepper? valerie bertinelli: my guiltiest pleasure was sex and the city. samantha: you men have no idea what we're dealing with down there. teeth placement and jaw stress and suction and gag reflex. honey, they don't call it a job for nothin'. valerie bertinelli: i felt a little naughty watching it. joan: ok ladies, take note.

soraya mcdonald: but at the time, shows that often center black women, were still pretty much a rarity. joan: i haven't had sex in a year. maya: ooh. damn girl. you sure you still open for business? you know what happens when you don't wear earrings. mara brock akil: at the time, sex and the city was on, as much as i enjoyed it, i didn't feel like black women were being invited to that party. mara brock akil: they didn't include women that looked like me. so being raised not to complain, but to see an opportunity, i pitched girlfriends. joan: you know i'm about to make junior partner. i've got a great house, but i just don't have anyone to share it with. soraya mcdonald: it was like a network version of "sex and the city", but with four black women in los angeles instead of new york, and, you know, we see how their lives are different. joan: i'll tell you what i'm going to do to you, big boy. william: oh yeah, who's your daddy, bitch? joan: what? mara brock akil: girlfriends started to deal with subject

matter that black women are really dealing with. from the light and fluffy stuff... toni: my friends are perky tonight. mara brock akil: ...to the tougher stuff. joan: black women need to be supporting each other not tearing each other down. mara brock akil: we had bigger dreams than just finding the man. joah: you are the bitch that i have always wanted to be. soraya mcdonald: i think women in sitcom history, have become much more vocal in advocating for themselves and they have now progressed in their careers and made their own shows. hannah: who are the ladies? shoshanna: obvi, we're the ladies! jessa: i'm not the ladies. shoshanna: yeah, you're the ladies. jessa: i'm not the ladies! joey soloway: girls comes along. girls resonates. you go ok, they're not pretending to be anybody else, they're themselves. hannah: i don't want a picture of your dick, because i live very near you so if you wanted me to look at your dick i could just come over and look at your dick. lorraine ali: it wasn't about their fabulousness. it was about them being kind of a mess

and trying to find their way being a mess. judd apatow: nothing was off the table. people were shocked at what she was doing. hannah: it's so good, i almost came. jacqueline coley: but it was still a very, i think, narrow vision of america. and it wasn't the reality for most of americans. issa: i think your pussy's broken. molly: what? jacqueline coley: insecure centers in on the characters, the identity and the culture that shows like sex and the city and girls had nothing to do with. issa: what that dick do? or do it don't do? molly: oh no, it do. it definitely do. tawny newsome: for the first time maybe, a lot of white people are learning that, like there's a lot of different ways to be a black woman. there's a lot of different ways to be a millennial black woman. there are a lot of different ways to be. fleabag: this is my favourite bit. meredith baxter: fleabag was just a revelation. fleabag: hi. guy: hey david crane: it felt dangerous. bus rodent: and i'll be sure to treat you like a nasty little bitch. david crane: sitcoms don't usually feel dangerous.

fleabag: there's always a stage when someone's falling in love with you that they lose their erection. matt brennan: fleabag is intensely personal and intimate and raunchy. fleabag: honestly you made me cum nine times. man: honestly? meredith baxter: she wanted you to experience the craziness of what she's involved in, she's looking at the camera, and she's having sex with some guy she really doesn't care about. fleabag: he's wasting me. lorraine ali: fleabag was just saying and putting out there what we were all thinking right? who didn't fantasize about obama? she was just being honest. priest: we're going to have sex aren't we? lorraine ali: she slept with a priest. fleabag: yeah. meredith baxter: oh, that's intimate. patrick gomez: it's fascinating to track the evolution of female sexuality in the sitcom because you start off with beds that had to be separate. you couldn't say the word pregnant. fleabag: and i've had a lot of sex outside marriage. patrick gomez: fast forward to now when we celebrate it,