Gay Marriage on Married with Children

The time has come for us to talk about the sitcom Married With Children. Though it was primarily concerned with the mating habits of heterosexuals, or lack thereof, the show touched on LGBT life now and then with surprising sensitivity. And even more surprisingly, it went so far as to air an episode featuring two married gay men, just two months before a real-life lawsuit kicked off the modern marriage equality movement.

[williamjones]

In 1990 I referred to my husband as my HUSBAND. At that point we had been together 5 years. We ended up being together a total of 33 1/2 continuous years until he died from the complications of a stroke August 11, 2018. I miss you Otis.

[ChadDenton]

"Married...With Children" was more subversive than people today realize. I even did the homework and found that it had more women writing for the show and producing it than "The Simpsons" and even "Golden Girls".

[fangsabre]

I cant help it, I laughed at the line "so that's 3 guys who won't touch my wife so what's the problem"

[moonlily]

I don't know why Al is an icon of heterosexuality. He never wants to have sex and frequently implies he dislikes it. He really can't stand women and has an adoring bromance with Marcy's pretty boy second husband Jefferson. He would probably look at gay men and say, "yep, totally get it" and in fact be a bit jealous.

[Anele]

My theory is that these clubs were so bizarre because portraying a night out in the 80s accurately would involve literal _mountains_ of cocaine, and TV just wasn't ready for that yet

[allis_o]

Are you telling me that Queen comment, with the guys outfit in question, was NOT a Freddi Mercury "I want to break free" reference? Seems to fitting to be coincidence.

[GreenCloveR]

"Ten cents a dance" was a famous song sung by Ruth Edding, Ella Fitzgerald, Doris Day and many others.

[howardjones]

I think the joke was, the guy looks like Freddie Mercury, from the band "Queen". Notice how he said said Queen singular not Queens or even drag queens.

[exchangediary]

Straight guy: You should be happy with that husband of yours and treat him right
Gay guy: okay your right, you should tell your wife you love her
Straight guy: mind your own business


IDK but that is just so hilarious

[TheGoddamnJefe]

I remember watching this episode when I was about ten years old, after Al said his “homo” line in the end, I walked to the living room where my sister and her high school friends were. I asked what “homo” meant. They were trying their best to explain to me the definition without being too obvious about it. What they didn’t understand is that I already knew (because of my peers at school and television) that gay men had relationships to one another; I simply did not know that the term “homo” was associated with being gay in any way. I was ten and had no problem with it at all. I just found it really funny that they were trying to beat around the bush on a topic that I was already familiar with.

[X-any-all]

To be fair, Blanche and Al are of two different generations. Blanche is a retired senior citizen, and Al is a middle-aged working man.
But yeah, even for an early babyboomer like Al, it was impressive how accepting he was.

Also, let's not forget the one episode when Marcy's lesbian cousin comes and visits, and Al has an _amazing_ friendship with her! I've never seen Al express such mutual respect and comradery to any other woman.

[fabianhebestreit]

To be fair to that Queen-joke, the end of the scene makes it clear that the joke is on the bigots.

[brettjohnson]

I remember watching this episode as a kid and it had never occurred to me that two men could be married, I was very young at the time. Funny that 24 years later I was getting married to my husband six states away from home because it would still be a year before it was recognized nationally. Good for the writers and cast of the show for realizing it was such a normal thing!

[MagnusSkiptonLLC]

1:20. Doing nothing to earn it!? Don't you remember: he scored four touchdowns in one game at Polk High!


Awesome episode as usual!

[dmikewilcox]

Matt, thanks for another great video. As a father of two LGBTQ+ teens and as a human being, I appreciate the work that goes into your videos and the value they have to help map out the ongoing narrative around societies perception of homosexuality and gender identity, in a way that an outsider can understand. You should be proud of yourself.

[EdtheComicGuy]

I’m not too surprised that MWC pulled this off. Despite often being pretty lowbrow, the show is all about parodying traditional family values and poking fun at our concepts of masculinity. Al may be the heterosexual, man’s man poster boy; but a lot of the jokes come from his downfall at the hand of his own hubris.

[sajrocks]

great vid! the guy's look at 4:48 is strikingly similar to Freddie Mercury's drag in Queen's "I Want to Break Free" video, banned in the U.S. from 1984-1991 because of the crossdressing.

[jpe]

In 1989 I had to write a paper for an English class and for some reason I wrote about why same-sex marriage should be legal. I got a B for the paper, but when this episode of MWC aired a few months later I somehow thought I was part of the vanguard of something. Ah, the hubris of youth 😀
I imagined that we would have same-sex marriage rights by the late 90’s if not sooner. How foolish I was.

[snailysaurus]

Boy this brought back memories; memories of a time when marriage equality seemed so beyond our reach. I used to attend a gay men's "rap group" when I was at UCLA back in the late 80's and we would occasionally talk about legalized same sex marriage. Many of the men in the group were adamantly against gay marriage, arguing that we'd simply be "aping" heterosexuals, yet I still wanted it. I didn't think I'd ever see same sex marriage become legal in my lifetime; man, things have changed.

[snailysaurus]

This brought back a weird memory of an episode of "The Love Boat" which I found offensive even at the young age of ten (I was pretty sure I was gay even then). Two men board the boat and are staying in the honeymoon suite, garnering lots of weird looks from the crew. The upshot is that one of the men had been left standing at the altar by his bride and so had decided to go on what had been booked as his honeymoon cruise with his best man. The male members of the crew, though, think they're a couple and try to distance themselves from them and, of course, there's plenty of innuendo and double entendre. I just remember how much this episode bothered me at the time as the (supposedly) male couple were looked upon by the crew as if they had some kind of disease. We've really come a long way since 1978.