Gays and the Media

[sparkindarkness]

The Sparky has been pondering this for some time as it is an issue that he and Beloved actually disagree on.

This is difficult and shows reality is broken. Here‘s the thing: since Sparky is naturally perfect in every way all reasonable will agree with him. At the same time, Sparky (being perfect in every way) would not possibly have an unreasonable partner for as many years that he and Beloved have been together. Therefore reality is broken (see, it‘s just that simple).

However, since reality doesn’t appear to be falling apart at the seams and there are no gaping black holes in my bedroom floor, I think I will look at this more closely.



Beloved's Point: gays in the media is nearly always a good thing



Beloved’s point: gays in the media is nearly always a good thing. It doesn’t even really matter how they are portrayed, what they are doing or what their personality is like - the point is that they are gay and they are visible. Every gay theme, every gay plot, every gay character, unless outright portrayed as pure evil (say, predatory paedophiles) is a good thing.

Why? Because a large part of gay people’s problem has been (and continues to be) invisibility. We’re not on most people’s radar, we’re not on most people’s mind, our issues are non-issues to the vast majority. We don’t stand out and most of our numbers are still in at least semi-hiding. And as long as people can turn a blind eye to us then all kinds of crap can and will rain down on us with most people NOT KNOWING or caring. That’s part of what Pride Parades are all about, reminding everyone that “hey, we actually exist!” Some of these programmes focus on gay issues really well (he always points to a Will & Grace episode where Will’s dad did a huge hurtful faux pas that my own dad had done to me some time before) and bring them to light to people who would never even consider them.

Secondly, and pretty majorly, one of the worst ever things about being gay and growing up being gay is the endless oppressive feeling that YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE! Everyone else in the world is straight and you are the freak (who is probably evil and wrong anyway - after all, whenever the other kids at school say something is bad they call it “gay”). It’s good that these poor kids can look somewhere and see gay people - even if it’s a less than perfect representation.

Thirdly - it’s a major step. Go back 30 years and the idea of homosexuals being openly in major media was just alien and insane. Sure, it’s not perfect, but by encouraging it now we open the door to more and more accurate portrayals. One step at a time.

Fourthly - even if it doesn’t show gays perfectly, the media DOES generally show us as non-threatening. That reduces the fear of the unknown, reduces the fear of the different and generally makes life safer for all of us.

They’re good points. Reasonable points and I have to agree with them... but not the conclusion.




My point: I’ll be happier when the media lets gay people be people first and interesting freaks second, if at all.




Because I find it very rare that I see gays on television. Not gay people. I see caricatures. Whenever you see a gay person on television I can tell they’re gay within 2 seconds of watching them. Why? Because they might as well wave big feather boas and have linked mars symbols dripping from every extremity. Most of them are uber-camp over the top caricatures like Graham Norton or Julian Clary (a brief aside. I understand and respect that there are some, even many gays who are just like that - and all credit and respect because they probably get more grief than I do. But the media holds them up as an OTT representation of all gays). Then we have teams of people who just try to prop up every empty stereotype there is (Queer Eye of the Straight Guy, Queer Mates for Straight Dates? Yeah, I’m rolling my eyes so much I’m actually getting friction burns).

These aren’t portrayals of gay people. They’re Freak Shows. They’re programmes so that straight people can point at gay people and say “lookit, gay freaks!” The whole CONCEPT of these shows revolves around the idea that gay men are so weird and freaky that straight people will tune in and watch. It’s like some kind of nature programme, all you need is David Attenborough in the background “and here we have the Greater Mincing Homo, see his over the top demonstrative gestures, his obsession with clothes etc etc.” It’s the same mentality that had bearded ladies on display. Seriously, I don’t see a difference between this and having an Asian presenter on a chat show whose schtik is having buck teeth and saying “Me rike you vewy much!”

It’s not emphasising gay issues or gaining us prominence because it just portrays us far too much as OTT silly stereotypes, something to be amused by but certainly not to be taken seriously. As to reassuring young gays that there are other gay people out there? Major media treats you like a modern day freak show. Yes, because THAT gives you a sense of security and belonging doesn’t it?

And even when you do get actual gay characters in a programme you know it - almost instantly. Because even if they aren’t a walking stereotype they’re still just walking avatars of teh gay. Everything they do, everything they say, every plot line involving them is about homosexuality or a gay issue or a gay stereotype. You just don’t see someone who is a doctor/policeman/general person in a TV programme who, BTW, is gay or a lesbian and has a boyfriend/girlfriend/civil partner at home but on the whole is a normal person. No, if someone is gay then that is the TOTALITY of who they are. They are a walking avatar of the gay their lives will be nothing but gayness usually in exaggerated proportion. Ok, this is better than the excessive stereotype shows but they still have the freak show factor - there is still an air of “there are gay people here, come look at the gay folks,” and the fact that the homosexuality of the characters is driven home so hard gives the feeling of “we have a gay, milk it for all we can!”

It does put gay issues ion focus more, which is a good thing, but it just emphasises the outsider, the “other,” in short the “freak.” These aren’t people - they’re gays and they have only a vague relationship with people - they have different issues, different lives and are just different.

And I think that’s the whole thing with gays in the media - it all focuses on how different gays, even exaggerating and emphasising difference. Gays are always “other” and often in a less than flattering way.

I’ll be happier when the media lets gay people be people first and interesting freaks second, if at all.

Comments

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I'm looking forward to the day the film shows the astronaut touching down and being greeted by his boyfriend/her girlfriend and absolutely nothing is said about it. To my mind, that is when we will have 'arrived.'

[jrho.livejournal.com]

I think your beloved's point of view is a necessary stepping stone to your point of view actually happening. Yes, progress has been/is being made, but there's still room to grow.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Positive propaganda is not a bad thing. Black people were portayed by the media. That and the fact that the local black community had better people than they were portrayed by the local rednecks blunted the cultural programming I would have received from it. The last bit that kept that from being absolute was my parents, they may have been country but did not push that bigotry on me.

A concerted orchestrate effort would be the best way to go about it. You're trying to weaken an indoctrination system. If you make them flinch and change channels you've lost them.

Best scene on TV that I recall? The scene on the XFiles with the two gay men having a domestic dispute. Nothing brutal just loud. It came across as "just another couple fighting".

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

jrho is right. So you and Beloved aren't actually disagreeing, just concentrating on different parts of the problem.

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

This is ALWAYS the progression. For blacks, for gays, goths, for ANYTHING that the 'mainstream' finds threatening. It's a process of acknowledgement (whispered hey, this exists), de-sensitization (hey look how weird it is, until the shock wears off), mockery (ain't it funny?), and then acceptance. This process can take CENTURIES... but we have already seen considerable progress in our lifetimes.

I concluded fairly early on, actually, that shows like Jerry Springer were actually quite a positive force. Yes, they're obnoxious, stereotyped, and aggravating, with freakish crap like the guy who chopped his own dick off so his gay neighbor would leave him alone... but over time, the shock wears off. Within a couple seasons, the audience no longer gasps and jeers at the mere mention of gay behavior-- and actually begins to cheer for, say, bi love triangles that decide to get along, stuff like that. Twinges of sympathy, glimpses of something human. Then, you get to shows like Queer Eye where it's portrayed as a -positive- thing. Still a charicature, still obnoxious, but a less fringe circus that actually is willing to allow for some positive traits. Even in these distorted shows, the individuals are still recognizeably different-- it brings up discussion, gives SOME this-one-isn't-like-that-one, and-they-don't-all-have-boas, perspective. And then from there you get the fads, where it's cool to be 'metrosexual' or whatever, where people who want to be 'edgy' talks about being bi even if they're not, and the obnoxious shows where the gay character is an unrealistic trendy ideal. And so on.

No, it's NOT ideal. No, it's NOT all that helpful or constructive... but this is how society adjusts. Slowly. Every baby step IS a good thing, and it's in motion. So you're both right. You can chill.

Probably some of the best, most realistic portrayals I've seen on TV would have to be Tales of the City-- and that came out in 1993. People were mailing tapes to Congress trying to get the thing banned, and PBS was getting bomb threats. Granted, this was a show that addressed the gay issues fairly directly, but given the times (it was written starting in 1978), it's pertinent. The characters aren't JUST gay, a statement is made.

But the thing is, on TV you STILL don't even get characters who are normal and JUST -happen- to be, say, of other-than-white ethnicity. Hell, you don't get TV characters who are normal and JUST happen to be... I dunno, doctors, or teenagers, or with certain hobbies. The media is one ongoing freakshow, most of the stuff you complain about here can apply all around. "there are girls here, come look at their boobs", "We have a girl, milk the boobs for all we can!" Everything on TV is distorted. EVERYTHING. There's no reason to put a trait on a character unless it's going for a certain effect. It'll be a while before society gets over its general bigotry. Bleh.

[procris.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I haven't watched a lot of TV in the last five years (higher education will do that to a person), but one of the better representations of a gay man I've seen came from a Coupling episode (british version, not the ghastly American remake) that is more than a couple of years old.


It's either first or second season, Jane is at a bar with a male friend who happens to be gay. This only becomes an issue because Jane thinks she's on a date with him. I think memorable lines include:
Male: "I like guys"
Jane: "Well, I do too... we have something in common!"

and

Male: "There has been some confusion, this is NOT a date"
Jane: "there has been some confusion, this is a date."

The one that was portrayed as crazy was Jane, and she was ridiculed for quite a few episodes of that show for not understanding gay culture, or what it means to be "gay" or "bi."

If nothing else, that show has an entire episode dedicated to the very question you and your beloved are debating. I believe it's called "Lesbian Spank Inferno" and is well worth the watch.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

This is true of every single non-mainstream group portrayed by the media. Ever. Always. Gays are getting a lot of the worst of it just now, but any odd, unusual, or significantly minor minority group will be portrayed just the same way, as a caricature with a single dimension. I get it with Mormons and with Furries, though happily Mormons seem to have finally gotten mainstream enough that the tendancy to caricature is starting to wear off.

It only took us 160 years or so! (Well, that's not entirely true, really. For a good chunk of that 160 the media didn't really notice us at all, we'd gone too far west. Civilization had to catch up with us again.)

Anyhow, what everybody else said, it's a step, at least, that you're out there. But it'll be a bigger step when you start being seen as just normal folks.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You know, when I think gay people in the media and gay characters on TV, I think of three things.

#1: The Kids In The Hall (Canadian cultural icons. Very much worth watching), where Scott Thompson occasionally went for an extreme over the top super-swishy character, but, for the most part, simply was who he was, played who he played, and was openly gay, out, and everyone was perfectly happy about it.

#2: Carter from Spin City, a passable but otherwise unremarkable sitcom where he played a gay man. There were cracks about his love life (but no more so than about the other characters), there were episodes devoted to him being gay and that causing problems (but not noticeably more than other characters with their quirks) and, for the most part, he was simply accepted as just another character.

#3: Sir Ian McKellan. You know, Gandalf and Magneto, among others.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the media is capable of rising abouve caricature for any group, mainstream or not.

It's a puzzling question, really. Where do I want "queer" to fall in the spectrum of charactization. If one is writing a TV show, I being by thinking that making a character gay should have more implications than requesting that the character be tall or short. But really, should it? Okay, it will change the gender of the love interest. So? Should it really make any difference if Pete Protaganist goes home to Larry or Lucy Love? Part of me says that it does. It changes the story in certain ways -- not wrong ways, but ways. Another part says that it shouldn't do so. I'm not sure.

In general, I side with Beloved on this issue. Having non-straight folk beamed into Middle America or whatever the local conservative area in England is is a Good Thing even if those folk are viewed through a very warped lens. As long as the lens is getting less and less warped over time, I think it will ultimately help us get to the point where gay is just another character trait and isn't a caricature.

[wyrdrune.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one, but then I suspect anyone who knows me could have worked that out from my previous posts.

Just remember, while gay portrayals in the media are usually sterotypes (albeit non-threatening ones), bisexuality is never portrayed as anything other than a threat to established relationships.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

In general, I side with Beloved on this issue. Having non-straight folk beamed into Middle America or whatever the local conservative area in England is is a Good Thing even if those folk are viewed through a very warped lens. As long as the lens is getting less and less warped over time, I think it will ultimately help us get to the point where gay is just another character trait and isn't a caricature.

What they said. that.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

Captain Jack?

[dranon.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure whose side I really agree with on this issue. On the one hand, I'm happy that it's out there in the media, but I'm not fond of gay being the identifying characteristic of a person instead of person who happens to be gay. That still doesn't mean that I care at all for shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which strikes me as perpetuating all the stereotypes, but it does get out there in the public mind that yes, there are gay people.

I do like reading a lot of your posts, so I hope you don't mind if I go ahead and friend you.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I cannot wait for that day

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I thiunk that's a point but I have the feeling that we've... stalled maybe

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Positive propagnda isn't a bad trhing and it is a lot better than it used to be... but we don't seem to be going forwards anymore. As someone said on another forum, if it were bblack people it's like we've finally reached a popint where Trevor McDonald is the face of serious newscasting... but in 30 mins he'd be followed by a Black and White Minstrels production.

Perhaps we need to be more organised and think about this in moving on rather than just being happy about gays, any gays, for any reason, being in the media

Aye, they're rare, but occasionally you can find them - which is what frustrates me - because we ARE ready for the next step

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

maybe we're heading forwards, but I can't sayIO like all the transition steps

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

There is a progression, but I wionder sometimes if it doesn't stall. Eventually the shock wears off... well, aren't we4 past the shock phase yet?

We''ve moved on, homosexuality has moved on from being OMG TERRIBLE! to more normalised and even positive in certain circumstances - so can't we move beyond the freak show yet?

I felt the need for all these programmes - 5, maybe 10 years ago. But it isn't changing from there.


But then, as you say, women , religions and ethnic minorities get the same shit after decadews, so what should I expect?

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

hmmm, I'll ahve to look out for that

It's just that for every good example, there are 20 bad

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, true enough, I'm bitching but women and minorities have been having this crap for a long time

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

1) See, ott "swishy" gay is no problem if someone is naturally that way and not exagerating it - but even then, if someone is effeminate and camp, that's all well and good, but if we're watching them, they're in the media BECAUSE they're effeminate then it isn't.

2) Carter actually i had issues with the few times I watchede the programme. Because ANY episode that actually involved him as anything more than a bit character seemed to either be about his sexuality or his race. That's part of my point - it may be well portrayed, but he's still a walking avatar of teh gay.

3) Different issue really, he's a gay ACTOR. The media isn't portraying him as gay, none of his characters (to my knowledge) are gay. He's just a stunningly good actor who happens to be gay

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

That's where I'm torn as well, obviously being gay is going to cause a few more character differences than just a different gendered partner (the way culture treats gays alone will mean that)... but at the same time, not everything about that character. It's like, no gay character in the world ever worries about credit card debt, or being made redundant, or having their house broken into, or winning the lottery - it's always about being gay. And there will be issues in their lives that ARE about being gay - and it woudl be fake and contrived if there WEREN'T gay issues in his life (because you've just taken a straight character and decided to call him gay) but he should have some parts of his life that aren't all about his (or her for that matter) sexuality


I can agree with beloved in that we need to work on it - but 1) I don't have to like the intervening steps and 2) I think we should be moving on now. We've done the "awareness" thing now can we try for some realism?

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

yep, all bi people are out to steal your husband/wife/both *sigh*

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

The higher profile is good... but we need more than that now I think. And we've reached a point where we can do more than that

And if we ARE still at a point where we need shows like Queer Eye for prominence... fine, but I still don't like them,


By all means! The more the merrier!

[enigmatism75.livejournal.com]

If you really want an oppressed minority try married stay at home mothers.
We really think we're the only ones cos we never get out of the house. I can't recall one instance of a positive TV image, all mothers appear to be working ones, generally divorced or single. We don't get parades for the wonderful unpaid work we do.

We don't even get our own colour when certain others are running amok with an entire rainbow. :-(

On a serious note I agree with you Sparky. People are people. Some are interesting caracters, some are not. Their sexuality should only be an issue if you're after dating them.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Aye, another caricature that is never treated as a person and certainly not in a positive light

But the rainbows are still ours :p

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Work for the long term. 300 years is not unreasonable to achieve a lasting goal. Blunt as best you can the fear mongering religious shit wipes that are trying to get permanent constitutional laws in place. (in US) Continue working at influencing the young.

I personally see no use in changing religion, dispense with it, marginalize it , neutralize it. Since some people need religion encourage them to embrace one that is not hostile to gays.

Also continue influencing large businesses. Raytheon has a pretty damn good benefits package with health care covering a domestic partner. That was a major point cited when our legislature refused to start the process of ammending our state constitution.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I was an absolutist. I did not believe in compromise at all.

Others did. While I'm stuck complaining about certain laws. Others worked to get a foot in the door with a milder compromise. Now that it's there other laws are following. All of them favor in a limited way what I was an absolutist about.

You'd probably disprove of what the laws accomplished but that is the point. It happened in an environment quite hostile to my POV but somewhat open to the lesser one and it looks as if the lesser one will lead to what I wanted to start with.

[gnarlycranium.livejournal.com]

Oh, it stalls, or at least slows. Some people are absolutely NOT over the shock yet (a friend was just telling me yesterday, about how his mother was ranting on about gay people after an afternoon trip to San Francisco). Some slices of society, still a minority I'd say, are mostly desensitized-- many others are way behind. It's something on TV, it's not -real-. The way people have been voting makes this pretty clear. I sure hope that things will be speeding up, what with the way information spreads nowadays, but it's hard to tell.

And I mean... even back in countries/periods where homosexual behavior was accepted, even encouraged.. like, say, the ancient Greeks or Romans, it was STILL distorted and handled bizarrely-- all that sex with little boys, and women being filthy baby-factories with no souls, etc. It takes more than exposure or acceptance, it takes people in general being NOT assholes. No wonder it takes so long.

[lightbearer.livejournal.com]

As an utter and complete side note, Gods and Monsters (1999). Ian McKellan playing James Whale, the director of Frankenstein, and Brandan Fraser as his gardener and love interest. Possibly some of the best (understated) acting Fraser's done. McKellan won Best Actor for the Brit Independent Films, but was snubbed at BAFTA. He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but lost.

I never saw it in the theater (a travesty that would never happen now), but I stumbled across it on some channel or another a couple of years later and watched, fascinated, and caught the whole thing when it replayed later that evening. It's not The Most Compelling Movie Evar, but it's solid.

And it's McKellan playing an overtly gay character. Yes, the movie's about his being gay and not just 'oh, he happens to be gay', but sometimes, that's the sort of movie that gay actors and gay directors make. I mean, Bill Condon also made Kinsey and Dreamgirls.