Advocate editor Jon Barrett slams Good Morning America for cancelling Adam Lambert appearance

Even though its sister publication, Out, had a little war of words with Adam Lambert last week, Advocate editor Jon Barrett has just published a commentary slamming ABC’s Good Morning America for canceling its live concert with the singer scheduled for Wednesday.

Here are some excerpts from the piece, How Gay is Too Gay for GMA, which you can read over at Advocate.com:

… Now GMA has jumped headfirst into the debate that has consumed pop culture-loving Americans this past week: Is Adam Lambert too gay (or, if you ask some, not gay enough)? And the show’s producers have come down definitively on the side of “too gay,” canceling the singer’s concert, which was scheduled to air live on the show Wednesday morning.

Just as ABC’s decision to protect its morning audiences from Lambert’s homosexual high jinks reeks of hypocrisy, so too does the network’s decision to edit out portions of his Sunday night performance for its West Coast feed. If it weren’t for provocative performances like his, awards shows like the American Music Awards would be snoozefests. Lambert, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Madonna are lifeblood for these shows — and producers probably peed themselves when Glambert pushed the envelope. By editing the West Coast version of the show, they got the best of both worlds — publicity from the live show and supposed moral standing for the edited one.

I don’t disagree with GMA producers in one respect — simulated oral sex probably isn’t the best thing to have on TV when you’re getting the kids ready for school. But then neither are lesbian three-ways or breast-exposing wardrobe malfunctions, and GMA has featured performances by Spears, Aguilera, and Janet Jackson and shown interviews with Madonna. I can only assume producers understood that these women are adults and know the difference between an evening awards show and morning TV. At the very least, they trusted that if they, say, asked, “Miss Jackson, can you keep your top on this morning?” she’d have enough control to not be nasty. But GMA’s not giving Lambert the same respect. They don’t trust that this guy, who performed live twice a week for months on end without upsetting censors while he was on American Idol, could give a concert appropriate for the morning audience.