How one gay kiss on 'Dawson's Creek' changed television forever
Picture it: May 24, 2000. The millennium had just dawned, Britney Spears was still a girl, not yet a woman, and the world of teen television was about to serve us an iconic queer pop culture moment we'd never forget.
Dawson's Creek, notorious for angsty teens discussing existential dilemmas with a vocabulary beyond their years, showed the first passionate kiss between two men on primetime network television.
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Jack McPhee, the charming, gay heartthrob played by Kerr Smith, made history when he shared a heartfelt and unabashed kiss with Ethan, portrayed by Adam Kaufman. The brief scene was filled with courage and vulnerability, full of real and raw energy.
For many queer teens watching, it was the first time we'd seen ourselves genuinely reflected, without caricature or comedic sidekick status, in a scene that mirrored our deepest hopes and fears. Jack wasn't comic relief; he wasn't a cautionary tale. He was a teenage boy navigating love, rejection, and self-discovery in the season finale, just like every other character on the show.
Of course, the Creek was a primetime soap that didn't entirely reflect the real world. In a 2001 Entertainment Weekly article, Kerr Smith admitted that, while proud of helping to "break TV taboos," he drew the line at same-sex snogging once a year. "That's as far as I'm going to take it," Smith said, "I don't think teenagers need to see two guys kissing on a weekly basis." But that kiss proved that queer teen romance deserved space, visibility, and validation on mainstream television.
The CW
From that moment forward, the landscape shifted. TV execs realized queer stories weren't just groundbreaking—they were necessary. That brief kiss opened the closet doors of queer teen storylines we see today.
Unlike Dawson's Creek, Ryan Murphy's Glee presented queer romance with exuberance, complete with show-stopping musical numbers and dazzling theatrically. However, the essence of that groundbreaking moment in the fictional Massachusetts town has been woven into every storyline since then. Netflix's hit series, Heartstopper, captured the innocence of first love. The power of Jack's kiss has even rippled through genres beyond teen drama. Most recently, in HBO's gritty, post-apocalyptic series, The Last of Us, Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Dina's (Isabella Merced) relationship is central to the second season's storyline as showcased in the video game. Ellie's moment of romance amid a desolate world still shared that Dawson's Creek essence, full of vulnerability and unflinching honesty.
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Nick and Charlie kiss in 'Heartstopper'
With one groundbreaking scene, Dawson's Creek established a legacy that enabled queer teen love stories to flourish boldly in mainstream media. But even more importantly, the show taught us that queer teens deserve to see their experiences woven seamlessly into the fabric of pop culture.
Today's viewers, steeped and versed in diverse queer representation, might see Jack and Ethan's kiss as tame, perhaps even quaint, by compasrsion. But let's never underestimate the power of the "first." That kiss permitted countless other stories to bloom.
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