Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Roseanne)

Did You Know?

• The episode was directed by Philip Charles MacKenzie.
• The plot involves Roseanne Conner going to a gay bar called "Lips" with her sister Jackie and friend Nancy and Nancy's girlfriend Sharon.
• Roseanne is kissed by Sharon, played by guest star Mariel Hemingway, causing Roseanne anxiety.

Reception and controversy

ABC had cold feet about broadcasting the episode, worried about how viewers and advertisers would react. Executive producer Tom Arnold took the network’s hesitation public in a Variety interview, saying ABC brass told him that a woman kissing a woman was unacceptable because it was bad for children and could cost the network up to a million dollars in ad revenue. Roseanne Barr fired back by threatening to take her hit show to another network. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation pushed ABC to show the kiss without cuts, while the conservative Media Research Center called the episode an insult to families.

ABC eventually gave in, airing the kiss uncensored and even marketing it as the lesbian kiss episode, though they added a parental advisory. Kraft Foods, one sponsor, sent out a memo telling affiliates and ad agencies not to run its commercials during the episode. Michael Goff, then-publisher of Out magazine, said that move came from a fear of dealing with America as it really is. A week before the broadcast, Barr criticized network standards that find a woman kissing another woman shocking but allow constant scenes of women being raped, mutilated, and shot.

New York Times critic Frank Rich described the episode as a small step forward for integrating homosexuals into the American melting pot and a sophisticated half-hour that turned homophobia on its head. The episode drew 30 million viewers when it first aired. ABC received about a hundred phone calls in response, most of them positive. Writers Stan Zimmerman and Jim Berg earned a Writers Guild of America nomination for their work on the episode.