Before presenting the awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin slow danced in matching tuxedos and shared an affectionate kiss. Not that anyone saw it. Turns out ABC’s cameraman chickened out and pulled the camera away to an extended shot of Penelope Cruz for almost the entire while.



While ABC does feature Brother and Sisters, a show with openly-gay characters that kiss, they’re also the broadcasters who cancelled Adam Lambert’s appearance on Good Morning America after his unrehearsed gay kiss at the American Music Awards. Gay entertainment blog After Elton reached out to ABC to comment on the Brolin-Bardem kiss; they responded with no comment. Best to keep their feet out of their own mouths.

But while ABC may have been trying to protect the delicate eyes of fogeys who didn’t plan on seeing teh gay during their otherwise wholesome awards show, the broadcaster obviously cares not for the Oscars’ queers audience and took the “safe” and incredibly boring road of showing a woman sitting rather than two men being affectionate.

A photo string on After Elton‘s comment boards reveal that Bardem and Brolin have long been physically affectionate friends and that Bardem’s kiss probably has more to do with his relaxed attitudes about male affection and masculinity and less to do with going gay.

But as satirist Bill Maher once said, “Let’s face it. When people talk about homosexuality being unnatural and an abomination, they’re not talking about the women. No, no, they’re talking about the men. Nobody seems to find anything so abominable about Britney Spears tonguing Madonna. Or Gina Gershon in bed with Jennifer Tilly… No, in America, when a man puts something in another man, it had better be a bullet.” Ouch!