Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who played Mitchell Pritchett on the iconic sitcom Modern Family, recently opened up about being the only openly gay main cast member on the show and the pressure of representing the entire LGBTQ+ community. The situation was more complex for Ferguson because his on-screen partner, Eric Stonestreet, was straight. He said there was a lot of “noise” around his role.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson felt pressured ‘from the gay community’ for Modern Family role
Jesse Tyler Ferguson received significant critical acclaim for his role in Modern Family as one half of the show’s central gay couple. In a recent appearance on the StraightioLab podcast, he opened up about his experience on the series. He revealed that he faced immense pressure to represent the LGBTQ+ community on the show.
“I felt an immense amount of pressure [for] several reasons,” the Mitch actor explained. He noted that he was the only gay member of the cast, “Eric Stonestreet [is] straight. I felt an immense amount of pressure as the gay cast member, but also as part of this couple on network television. It’s like… the golden doors had been opened to us, and we were able to enter people’s living rooms and show them what a gay couple was.”
The actor felt a lot of pressure, specifically from the gay community. He admitted that “mostly I’ve had nothing but a lot of support from the LGBTQ+ community.” However, he could still recall that there was “a lot of noise about how we weren’t doing things right.” He went on to explain, “or we weren’t representing what certain people thought we should be representing.”
Ferguson recalled one such instance. He explained, “One of the things I do remember was that they were upset, and I actually kind of agree with the LGBTQ+ community about this, [that] Mitch and Cam weren’t showing a ton of affection.” The show addressed this issue by the end of the second season.
“I loved the way that the writers dealt with it,” Ferguson said, “We had these other kind of hyper-sexualized couple. Jay and Gloria were having their whole thing going on. But I kind of liked that this couple that on paper you would think would be the most sexualized because they’re gay, weren’t. They were kind of the boring couple. I liked that.”
Modern Family continues to be regarded as one of the most popular sitcoms.
