Backstage at Emmys: Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen talk about gay-friendly ‘Modern Family’

Modern Family won the outstanding comedy Emmy for the second consecutive year. Co-stars Ty Burell and Julie Bowen, who both won in the supporting categories, talked backstage about the show having a positive influence on society’s attitudes about homosexuality with the gay characters of Cam and Mitchell (played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet) given equal time and treatment as the show’s straight characters.

“It feels very very good to be on a show that seems like it’s slowly changing a lot of minds,” Burrell said. “Eric and Jesse obviously deserve all of the credit for that, along with our amazing showrunners. It’s a great thing to just peripherally go to events or talk to family and have them start to talk about those characters like the same way they talk about the rest of the characters. It’s pretty cool.”

Bowen joked: “As a straight woman and part of a straight couple on the show, I feel marginalized.”

She added: “I’m happy that where it is an issue, we are helping to change minds.”