Coronation Street boss calls out Good Morning Britain host Kate Garraway after she calls gay kiss 'shocking'
GMB host tried to point out the first kiss between two men on EastEnders was 'shocking at the time'
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Your support makes all the difference.Kate Garraway received criticism from Coronation Street boss Kate Oates after the Good Morning Britain host referred to an on-screen gay kiss as "shocking".
The ITV producer was on the show to discuss whether the beloved soap was getting "too dark", ahead of a storyline involving a gay sexual assault.
During the interview, she called out Garraway after she listed the first gay kiss on EastEnders as "shocking TV".
Putting her comment into context, Garraway said: "I suppose what parents might worry about is it feels like Corrie is getting more and more shocking. I remember - because I am very old - the first lesbian kiss on Brookside and the first gay man kiss on EastEnders.
"Now in tonight's episode of Coronation Street we're going to see the character David Platt drugged and sexually assaulted... That feels like an exponential increase in the explicit nature of what's going straight into family viewing living rooms. It will be very clear, won't it, what's going on for youngsters watching?"
Appearing on screen via a video link, Oates took issue with Garraway's comment.
"I've got two points to address there really," she said. "First of all, you used a gay kiss as an example of shocking television and it's really, really important that nobody thinks a gay kiss is shocking television."
As Garraway tried to insist it was "shocking at the time", Oates added: "Exactly, and now [a gay kiss] has been normalised - and quite rightly because to think that a gay kiss is shocking for television is really, really disturbing."
Stressing the importance of the male rape storyline involving the character David Platt, Oates pointed out how 1 in 10 rapes that occur in the UK involve a male victim, and men can take up to 25 years to disclose what happened to them.
"This needs discussion and it's important to shine a light on these subjects," she said. "Do it carefully and do it with consideration because we don't want to upset people. We are a drama but we want to inform people."
The Coronation Street plot follows the aftermath which takes place after David Platt [Jack P. Shepherd] is drugged and sexually assaulted by his new friend, the mechanic Josh Tucker [Ryan Clayton].
After waking up and realising what has happened to him, David feels ashamed and struggles over whether to report the crime - with Josh insisting to him that the encounter was consensual.
Oates said previously that she wanted to tackle the "culture of silence" around male sexual assault.
"Over the next few weeks of Corrie, our message is to talk: it's hard to speak out, but if you're suffering in silence, there are people out there willing to listen and support you," she said.
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