Disney Channel Introduces its First LGBTQ Couple

Good Morning, loves! Happy Monday.

This weekend was sure an eventful one in the Pop Culture world. Yesterday night was the 56th Grammy Music Awards and although I don’t have the patience to sit through an entire award show, the performances were nothing short of amazing. Besides, thanks to my Twitter feed, I found out who won, who lost, and all the cute little gossip in between.

But I wanted to shed light on another phenomenon that was happening the same night. If you turn your attention to cable television, the Disney channel show “Good Luck Charlie” made a great stride toward gender equality by introducing an LGBTQ couple on the show. Basically the premise of the show focuses on the Duncan family and their shenanigans growing up as a middle class, White, American family. Charlie, the youngest of the kids, has a play date with one of her classmates Taylor. Charlie’s parents, Amy and Bob, talk about how Taylor’s parents are also coming over to hang out and they grow confused as to who Taylor’s mom is because they were introduced to two different people. When Taylor and her parents come over, lo and behold, they discover Taylor has two moms.

Before this episode aired, I remember distinctly seeing some articles floating around the internet about Disney introducing a gay couple and I remember thinking, “Wow. It’s about time!” Because most of the pop culture world tuned in to the Grammys last night, I felt like this event got lost in translation. We need to show Disney channel some love too! (Wow… didn’t think I’d ever catch myself saying that.)

Disney channel has always had a reputation for introducing squeaky clean child stars that for some reason turn into the hot messes of Hollywood, therefore becoming a questionable role model for today’s youth. However, I feel this important leap into gender equality just goes to show that Disney has still got it in them. I personally hope a lot of children and teenagers watch this episode because it’s about time we start introducing these archetypes into mainstream television. Especially mainstream television that KIDS watch because as we all know, they’re the most susceptible to internalizing the information they see in the media at this age.

Although I would have LOVED to see a colored family and actors that weren’t all stick skinny, I give Disney channel props for taking a step in the right direction. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that the fight against injustice is a long, winding road and we’re battling against centuries of oppression that has become normalized in our society. Any step counts and that’s all that matters.

I also find it ridiculously adorable that during the Grammys, hundreds of couples, whether they were gay, straight, bi, or whatever they identify with, got married during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance of “Same Love” with Queen Latifah officiating and Madonna making a guest appearance. My heart cannot handle all these feels, guys. I definitely cried during their performance and I am just so happy that people like them use their platforms to promote equality and change.

As one of my favorite Youtubers tweeted last night, “It was a great night to be gay.”

Click here to watch Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ performance of “Same Love” at the Grammys.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s