Preach it: Billy Crystal says graphic gay sex on TV has gone ‘too far’ and that the industry mustn’t ‘shove it in our face’

Daily Mail: Actor Billy Crystal has said graphic scenes of gay sex on TV have gone too far, and the industry must take care not to ‘shove it in our face’. Crystal, who became one of network television’s first gay characters on comedy show Soap in the 1970s, said contemporary programs are ‘pushing it a little too far’. He declined to cite any examples, but implied that intolerant attitudes he struggled with while playing Jodie Dallas from 1977 to 1981 have now swung the other way. According to The Wrap, he told an audience at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, California: ‘Sometimes, it’s just pushing it a little too far for my taste and I’m not going to reveal to you which ones they are. I hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our face… to the point where it feels like an every day kind of thing.’ He had earlier described how audiences were slow to accept openly gay moments in Soap while it was being aired on ABC – particularly when he was interacting with on-screen boyfriend Bob Seagren, who played Dennis Phillips. He told the audience: ‘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.



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