“I spoke to Danny Strong one of the creators along with Lee Daniels, and Danny had told me that actually the very first scene when Jamal was kissing his partner, the test audiences that they showed this to — the ratings plummeted," she added.
"They did not like that scene at all. Danny was asked later what should we do about it and he said, ‘Absolutely nothing at all. Why should we take this off just because people are uncomfortable? We wanna push buttons with this show, we wanna deal with real issues.’”
‘Absolutely nothing at all. Why should we take this off just because people are uncomfortable? We wanna push buttons with this show, we wanna deal with real issues.’”
Amazing show, I can only imagine the afro-american homophobes getting chills and screaming at their TVs seeing a gay kiss right after a Cookie drag or some thug/ratchet scene, their poor brains must had been so confused.
But THANK YOU! This is what I'm saying. People think the answer to be accepted is to conform and shy away from it, but we have to be bold and "in your face" in order to normalize it. I applaud shows like Empire and HTGAWM for being bold.