Dawson’s Episode that Changed American TV Forever: Protests on Set 26 Years Ago!

A Groundbreaking Coming Out

Twenty-six years ago, television viewers witnessed the 15th episode of the second season of “Dawson’s Creek” titled Careful, A Man May Hide Another. Introduced in season 2, Jack is a teenager surrounded by rumors of his potential homosexuality, despite being in a relationship with Joey (Katie Holmes).

During an argument with his father, Jack finally confronts his truth and comes out. He breaks up with Joey but remains friends with her, and later shares his first kiss with a man (Ethan, played by Adam Kaufman) in the season 3 finale, Wedding at All Costs. This marked the first kiss between two men on a national television network.

Today, twenty-five years later, it’s hard to imagine just how explosive this kiss was. Kerr Smith, who played Jack, vividly remembers. He shared on the November 3 episode of Pod Meets World: “There were protesters outside the set screaming and yelling. A brick wall separated me, while I was eating my lunch, from a crowd of angry people. If I had gone out, they probably would have beaten me up. And being in the Southern United States didn’t help.”

Kerr Smith’s Response

Kevin Williamson, the creator of the series, drew from his own experiences for this character and knew he was treading on thin ice, as he recounted to Hollywood Reporter in 2018: “We always planned for him to come out and be gay. I hadn’t told everyone because, as a gay screenwriter in Hollywood, I was afraid that this plot would be rejected.”

Therefore, when Kerr Smith joined the series, he was unaware that his character was gay. He admits he was “very very scared” at the time and even thought it was “really a pity”: “I told them, ‘Listen, can you give me a day or two, because I need to make some calls and talk to all the people I respect’.” He had to “make the right decision, because in 1998, it was tough.”

Now, he’s glad to have been part of changing minds: “Looking back, I want to say that I am extremely proud of what we accomplished, because as you know, the face of television has changed, and I think the acceptance of others, their sexuality, or any other issue is much broader and more open these days.”

Kerr Smith continued to portray Jack until the sixth and final season of the series. Since then, the actor has appeared in Life Unexpected, Charmed, The Fosters, and Riverdale.