14 DAY TRIAL // It’s only days that ABC seemed to have made a first step towards putting an end to the Adam Lambert controversy by asking him to appear and perform on The View, but the network is back again in the crossfire with the media and fans. Barbara Walters’ special on this year’s 10 most fascinating people aired last night and, according to TMZ, it managed to cause a stir again by a clear refusal to air Lambert’s AMAs kiss.
The problem is not that Walters, and implicitly ABC, refused to show Adam’s spontaneous kiss with one of his backup musicians, but rather that neither seemed to have a problem with showing a kiss between Lady Gaga and one of her female dancers. In doing so, the network became guilty not only of homophobia and hypocrisy, but also of playing the game by enforcing double standards that it’s ashamed to own up to.
“[Lambert] also turned the music industry inside out, doing things we won’t show you here,” Walters said when introducing the American Idol star. Nevertheless, there seemed to be absolutely no problem with talking of the kiss in question or, as noted above, with showing similar footage with female protagonists. Even if the interview also has Adam saying that it doesn’t really matter who he’s romantically involved with because only the fact that he can sing should be put in the balance, that alters in no way the impression that ABC is homophobic, critics say.
Clearly, this is a claim that the network wants to have nothing with. Taken out of context, things could certainly be seen this way, ABC says in a statement to TMZ, but that’s not to say they were actually meant to come across like this. “It was an editorial decision to show very little from the performance and focus on the fresh, new interview with Adam Lambert. The Lady Gaga kiss was used quickly in context of things that upset her father. ABC never had a problem showing the kiss. In fact we did not edit it out of the west coast feed of the AMAs,” ABC says.
As the controversy rages on, Adam Lambert is keeping his cool, like he’s done so far as well. In his own words, “It doesn’t really matter who I’m sleeping with, what matters is my singing, my voice.” Below is a promo for Barbara Walters’ ABC special on Adam Lambert, refusal to show the kiss included. Enjoy.