Producer Greg Berlanti was honored with the Governor's Award at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night, and he reminded us all about some of the groundbreaking queer TV moments he's been responsible for.
Berlanti, who produced shows like Dawson's Creek, Arrow, Riverdale, Everwood, You, and Supergirl just to name a few, was honored for his groundbreaking work in the area of queer representation on TV.
He was presented the award by Matt Bomer and Joshua Jackson, who brought up the
historic gay kiss on
Dawson's Creek between Jack McPhee and another boy, Ethan.
In 2000, the kiss was something actor Kerr Smith said "was a part of history."
Jack's gay storyline was created by Berlanti and the show's other queer creator, Kevin Williamson.
In his acceptance speech, Berlanti talked about growing up without queer representation.
"Like so many Gen X kids in the '70s and '80s, the one color TV our family could afford was on around the clock at our house and I watched and loved all of it. There wasn't a lot of gay characters on television back then, and I was a closeted gay kid," he said. "Back then the only way to tell if another kid might be gay was if he also watched Dynasty, and Dallas and could name all four of the Golden Girls."
Now, thanks to him, a whole generation has plenty of gay characters they can see on TV!