• SaraTonin@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    They entertained TVs first interracial kiss

    This is not true, in several ways.

    Firstly, it needs the modifier “American” in there. The UK’s first interracial kiss on TV, for example, was in 1962.

    Secondly, if we’re defining “interracial” as specifically between someone Black and someone white, then Nancy Sinatra & Sammy Davis Jr. preceded Star Trek by a year.

    Thirdly, perceptions of race change. The studio which made I Love Lucy was extremely hesitant to allow Ball & Arnaz to portray themselves as a married couple, precisely because the fact that Arnaz was Cuban meant that the marriage was “interracial”. The kiss they shared in the first episode - in 1951 - would have been seen at the time as an interracial kiss.

    Fourthly, even without a changing definition of race there had been previous interracial kisses on the lips on US television - William Shatner himself had previously twice shared a romantic on-screen kiss with someone of Asian descent, once actually in Star Trek.

    None of this is to diminish the importance, impact, or progressiveness of the Uhura/Kirk kiss, but it is often overstated. It doesn’t need to be the first ever interracial kiss on TV to be significant. If it really does have to be the first ever something, then it’s the first ever kiss on the lips on US television between a Black person and a white person.

    • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      I absolutely love when people troll (intentionally or not) by mentioning Uhura/Kirk as TV’s first interracial kiss. It makes me giggle to see these extremely “well actually” pedantic responses. Yours is great! Do you have that saved as a copy paste?

      Do you have one for Rosa Parks? You might be surprised to learn she wasn’t the first. She was “chosen” as flag bearer for the fight because she had a cleaner image.