Media & ArtsAnyone else bothered by gay stereotypes in media not going away, and in some times being heightened?

submitted by lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]JulienMayfair 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Part of it is simple laziness. Writers know that they can get laughs with portrayals of gay men as fussy, shallow, obsessed with fashion and pop culture, etc...

The perennial problem with writing interesting gay characters is that unless you're navigating social disapproval in the script, being gay, in and of itself, does not move plots forward. A lot of gay men live pretty average lives, so the question is how do you bring attention to the character without resorting to flamboyant stereotypes?

My personal least favorite is the character of Leonard, the gay curate in the UK show Grantchester. He's perpetually simpering and looks as though he would screech or faint if he saw a mouse. Of course, that show is pretty bad overall.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

On the other hand, how do you write interesting straight people without drawing attention to their sexuality? With them, you don't have to. It's assumed they're straight and therefore you can expand other parts of their character without ever having to touch on the fact that they're straight. But then if it turns out they're not straight, it's often treated as a twist and their character immediately becomes defined by being gay.

It's a Catch-22. You can make the character interesting without mentioning that they're gay, but then it's assumed they're straight. If you reveal that they're gay, then the character becomes gay and anything interesting about them is immediately attributed to them being gay as opposed to them being a complex character, which they would be considered to be if they were straight.

[–]JulienMayfair 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Fair points. I recall the gay couple on the TV show Northern Exposure, back in the 1990s, and the salient thing about them was now average they were and the fact that they shared so many interests with Maurice, the town's resident conservative crank. They did run an upscale B&B, so I guess there is some stereotyping there, but it was obvious that the writers were trying to play against previous stereotypes.