14 DAY TRIAL // The other day, of two major networks, only one came out as a winner for taking the “risk” of having Adam Lambert over for an interview and a mini-concert early in the morning, despite his performance at the American Music Awards 2009. That network was CBS that, in extending the invite to Lambert, showed ABC that it was not promoting homophobia – and then the network went and blurred Lambert’s kiss at the AMAs.
As the interview with the American Idol was being conducted, a clip of said performance was shown. Some scenes had been blurred beforehand, and among them was also the one in which Adam kisses a keyboard player / dancer, another man. Shortly after the clip, CBS aired the image of the famous Madonna and Britney Spears kiss on MTV and, this time, there was no blurring. As a spokesperson from CBS tells Extra, the decision was a reasonable and not a homophobia-driven one.
According to a statement just released, choosing to blur the Lambert kiss was more a matter of considering what the audiences were accustomed to – and clearly, they were deemed “unfamiliar” with this type of imagery. In Madonna and Spears’ case, on the other hand, that image had already had massive exposure in the media so, clearly, no one could actually be shocked by it anymore, the statement also says.
“We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences,” the CBS spokesperson says for Extra. Still, several prominent groups, including GLAAD and The Advocate publication, insist that the network’s decision to blur said kiss cries double standards, homophobia and, last but not least, hypocrisy.
Adam too believes that censorship of any kind of his performance can only equal discrimination, as he said shortly after it aired on TV. “It’s a shame because I think that there’s a double standard going on in the entertainment community right now. Female performers have been doing this for years – pushing the envelope [...] – and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out. We’re in 2009; it’s time to take risks, be a little more brave, time to open people’s eyes and if it offends them, then maybe I’m not for them. My goal was not to [expletive] people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom,” Adam was saying a while back, as we also reported.