Billy Crystal Doesn’t Want Gay Sex Scenes On Television Shoved In His Face

Via Entertainment Tonight:

Billy Crystal blazed trails in the 1970s by playing Jodie Dallas on Soap, the first openly gay character to regularly appear on a network television show. These days, however, the 66-year-old funnyman thinks that TV”s depiction of homosexuality has come a long way — perhaps even too far. Speaking to journalists at the TV Critics Association press tour on Sunday, Billy recalled the controversy of playing a gay man on television. “I did it in front of a live audience,” recalls Billy of Soap, “and there were times where I would say to [the actor who played his boyfriend], ‘Bob, “I love you,’ and the audience would laugh nervously, because, you know, it’s a long time ago, that I’d feel this anger. I wanted to stop the tape and go, ‘What is your problem?’ Because it made you sort of very self-conscious about what we were trying to do then. And now it’s just, I see it and I just hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our face — well, that sounds terrible — to the point of it just feels like an everyday kind of thing.”