i think homosexuality has had benifits by being on tv but has also demeaned gay people because all tv shows show highly camp fashion obsessed men who are sluts and with women it shows lesbiens as highly butch who are obsessed with football, although having gay relationships on tv has helped its also been harmful to us as its one view all these couples are perfect and in that respect fake none are ugly or show any real problems that we do have to deal with, i know im not that good looking and seeing these couples on tv makes me feel thats how i should be but thats not how things work, media need to show the real case

Registered

In response to the debate going on here about homosexuality being a fashion statement, it's not. Sure there are some gay people who appear to have some sort of supernatural "make this look good power" but there are plenty of gay people with no fashion sense at all. Seriously I'm one of them, I didn't use a real picture of me on this site for a damn good reason! I think the way the media portrays gay people, creates and pushes a stereotype. And all the seemingly open minded straight people I know believe in this fashion based stereotype with disturbing conviction. People who can clearly understand that not all black people are in gangs, not all Mexican people can't speak English, and that not all Asian people know kung-fu, believe that all gay people fit the queer eye for the straight guy stereotype. And I think the way the media portrays gay people contributes to this.

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if str8 people can be on tv in love so can gay people

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being gay is like speshel*fashion has nothing to do with it

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yo guys!!! Stop being such spas!!! Yeah were gay and the females need the fashion advise and the attention but come on it sooooo works both ways!!! My BP is the best thing that has ever happened to me. We shop to gether go cinema eat out and do the things all friends do. She loves me for who i am im not her fashion accessory! PS as we all know gay love is hard to find whats wrong with the sexless love????? 
 
Love you all james xxxxxxxx

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yea, i agree.. i dnt think it is rite to say homosexuality is a fasion statement..  
I just think people need to grow and get more mature with things... we don't like wrong views upon gay ppl... stupid media role model thing... they could just kill themselves...!

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complete agreement. the fact that in the media gay men are shown as little more than a tokenized accessory for the ordinary straight women disgusts me. i\'ve heard several female friends say things like \"i wish i had a gay friend, then we could shop together\" (i\'m not out) shows what straights think of us.

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Yea i agree with this. When i came out to one of my female friends the first thing she said was, "so now we can go shopping and you can tell me what looks good and everything." and i seriously thought it was a joke but she was dead serious. It annoyed me how shes known me forever and just because media portrays gay people as flaming she assumes im secretly like that. I think that this type of exposure is negative exposure

Registered

gay men in the media do get a raw deal but gay women also have it pretty tough. either we\'re shown to be smoldering sexual predators or massively butch men-wannabes and i have to say im honestly neither. The media will always get it wrong because showing real people just isnt as interesting as sterotyping people into charicatures of themselves.

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A Little Ify On This..

Im Not Sure If Publicty Is A Good Thing or A Bad Thing.. I Mean on the good side it can help GLBT easier to be who they are and help confused people out and everything. But the media writes out what they think being Gay or Lesbian is about. We dont really see what homosexuality is about and thats wrong, what straight people see on t.v or in magazines and stuff sometimes makes GLBT look bad or fake! for example recently me and my sister(she is straight) were watching The O.C and there was a gay couple on there and they were all like "OMG" and "Like This Is So Random" and blah blah and my sister made a comment saying "Wow i didnt know Gay people were.. So Gay" and i explained to her that there not thats what the media and straight people portray it as, this really bugged me cuz i mean i have quite a few gay friends and only 1 of them acts like that. Im a big fan of The L Word and Queer As Folk i feel that they actually portray more of what being lesbian and gay is about. i myself being lesbian dont see many lesbians in the media and when i do its not even what being lesbian is! I think its a good thing for homosexuality to be in the media but it needs to be "fact not fiction" but hey i guess until we do something about it then it wont really change.

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A Little Ify On This..

the programmes also seem to show what have now become stereotypical views on what gay people are like only. 
 
loved queer as folk though!

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lol

brokeback mountain was just silly. It exploited homosexuality so it could be contoversial: which is a sure way to grab awards and cash. I do think the steretype needs to be changed but i also think that all publicity is good publicity. x

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Breakthroughs in television

Broke back mountain and will and grace, degrassi are all big breakthroughs in television i mean just 10 years ago homosexuality was never discused but now with these shows it is now a little bit easyer to be gay as there is more exposer to the rest of the hetaro world. 
 
-Hans

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revolution vs evolution...

when i look at a lot of the sterotypes of gays (not only in the media but everywhere) it seems that its all about superficial things... looks, accessories, camp etc...  
I cant say that i have ever seen the relationship side of gays widely spread around... and i agree that the stereotype that has been portrayed is damaging to gays...and i think that it is this stereotype that also creates a lot of anit-gay sentiment in society as we are viewd as sex-crazed superficial fags... 
But i also think that we need to be careful not to push the idea too fast... i believe that the true gay lifestyle needs to be attained in the media, but on the same hand we dont want to open public attacks against us unneccessarily. Rather than suddenly launching into a billioin different full-on gay movies and forcing it on people (revolution), i think that it needs to be slowly introduced and then pushed (evolution) - we just need to be careful that it is not pushed too slowly that this stereotype sticks forever, but not too fast that otherwise indifferent people become actively anti-gay. 
 
I have got to agree that the stereotype needs to be changed to show that we are not just the superficial fags that are often portrayed...and that currently it is doing us damage... 
 
--ric--

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definitely

we live in a society where homosexual, in spite of all, is something new. people are gradually getting use to it. i agree on how gay men have been shown as a cartoon; this makes the masses think everyone of us is a sissy -girlwannabe- which is not the case. any serious homosexual show will be controversial that is why they dont show it on tv. they want to show the funny part of it. they are not interested on the real problems of a homosexual, like family, dating, and facing a homophobic world. we have to break that barrier of being stereotyped as men who think they're girls - because, in the contrary, im only a man, just like many others, with feelings towards the same sex.

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i know

broke back mountain was a easy way to get awards. i don't think it is a breakthrough

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not sure

interesting article but theres always gonna be like prejudice and even though the portrayal of homosexuality in the media generalises it is better than bein completely ignored and brushed under the mat, just to have movies and programs made about the topic is a huge leap from the last two decades. i dont care aslong as theres a sequal to brokeback mountain to be honest

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not sure

Morgan got it perfectly. We're still in the process of being fully embraced by the media. When black folk first appeared in films, they were for the most part stereotyped. Besides that point, a person has to be really out of touch to believe that all gay men are bitchy fashion-savvy divas. I don't think it's important.

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A Homosexual Cinematic Storm Is Brewing

Not so long ago, pioneering film makers and script writers fought to push homosexuality into the celluloid world of cinema. Often, we could only be portrayed in dingy art house cinemas, in underground film movements. Homosexuals cried out to be given a place in mainstream cinema, and now that time does indeed seem to be coming, ironically all we can do is moan.  
 
Of course gay people are sterotyped in 'pop' culture, but give me one group of people who aren't. Popular film works on these sterotypes to share information with mass audiences, its the only way it works, and we shouldn't take it as a reflection on ourselves, but as every group (minority or majority) as a whole. Black people will always be portrayed the same way, as will action heroes and feminists, and teenagers, for god sake, we have our very own parady of teen labels in 'Not Another Teen Movie'.  
 
Gay consumers need to look back at a time when it was illegal to portray homosexuality in cinema, and think about the brave men and women who did it anyway, and very often paid the consequences. Their indie films paved the way for what we are going through today. A surge of gay popular culture. Whatever the portrayal, its a portrayal, we might moan at Will & Grace for being too camp, but we KNOW there are millions of 'Jacks' out there. We may moan about films like Bent, but we know also there are millions of down trodden and scared young gay people in the world. All portrayals, no matter how cliche are based on truth. If what you really are mad about is that there is no film out there to portray YOU, then it's time to go out there and make it yourself. But, of course, because you are an individual, and different to every other person, whether your bonded by skin colour or sexual orientation, then your film will be individual as well, as we'll be back to the grungy back street art house cinemas. Its one choice or the other people, you play the fame game, or you don't. It's up to you.

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Agreement

While we might not be the majority we still have to "put up with" heterosexual people. Not everyone wants to see a man and a woman kissing or making love but it is oftem displayed in movies and some shows. The way i see it if we have to see their sexual life they have to see ours. Something really needs to be done about the way they look at us. This publicity may be good for letting them know that we are indeed here but not good for helping them accept us.

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Agreement

While we might not be the majority we still have to "put up with" heterosexual people. Not everyone wants to see a man and a woman kissing or making love but it is oftem displayed in movies and some shows. The way i see it if we have to see their sexual life they have to see ours. Something really needs to be done about the way they look at us. This publicity may be good for letting them know that we are indeed here but not good for helping them accept us.

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I agree

I know! I mean I know gay guys who play rugby! Also, one of my best (guy) friends wears pink and is practically a blond Jack McFarland, and as far as I know he's straight.  
 
But I also have to say that at least people know we exist now. Rome wasn't built in a day!

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Here I go again....

Great Article! I very much enjoyed it. I feel that homosexuality is becoming the new, shall I say "it" item for the media. It's almost as if scrpt writers are thinking "hmm, this plots a little dull, lets add a gay guy." When LGBTQ people are protrayed in the media, they're often flakey, over-the-top and bimbo like. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the media, if used correctly could be a godsend in the general public's exceptance of homosexuality. There needs to be television shows and movies about everyday people who just happen to be gay, not about gay people with the show's soul purpose being highlighting their "gayness". The key to our acceptance is convincing people we're not sickos and aliens. When the general population can look at us and not care if we're gay, bi, etc.. I'll be happy.

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Again.....

Again I will voice myself. Also such movies and shows do not really see exactly how lesbians and gays are. We are just normal people, but like the same sexes. It's not like we act the same because we are different. That's like saying all straight people act alike. Which is not true. Everyone has different images and different personas. It all depends on who the person is, not what they are into or are like.

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Opinion

I don't know about other people out there but it seems to me that lesbians that are in movies, well play lesbians are what guys or some people want to see. What they like to see. Most lesbians I know and myself are the butch type. The guyish types are well known more then the model type. But this is all just my opinion.

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Opinion

The media is like the human digestive track; it uses the parts it can and discards the parts it can't. If gays and lesbians aren't portrayed the way they really are it's because the media can't use the parts that [I]don’t[/I] differ from straight people. In other words they're not going to focus on our 'real lives' (going through the normal every day 9 to 5 crap everyone goes through). The media focuses on what makes us different (i.e. butch lesbians, sexed up lesbians, flaming gay boys, bitchy gay boys). If we want a different image in the media it’s up to us to make sure [i]we[/i] ourselves aren’t furthering the stereotype.

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sterotypical

its true--- most lesbians that are shown on TV are the lipstick, big tits, im a model kinda girl. Its horrible to think that this is the only way media can portray lesbian's. I have many lesbian friends and only 2 of them are that kinda girl, the rest are masculine/butch... i hav a lesbian maths teacher at school.... she acts like a im a model kinda girl but her appearence tells otherwise.... is this not [I] actually[/I] societies stereotype?.... tell me... which is better to be portrayed as? model or butch--- pls sum1 tell me.

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sterotypical

I agree, lesbians don't often appear on TV and when they do, they're lipstick lesbians making out with a dozen other girls in a span of thirty minutes. The stereotyping is mixed with the fantasies of straight men.

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emoboichick

You're right, emoboichick, about lesbians in the media. I mean you can even taken TheGYC as an example; although it is FOR all gay youth (LGBTQ...) it still has a majority of boys on it and as such a more boyish image.

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emoboichick

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Mmm, but what about us girls?!

I personally think that there's plenty of gay boi's in the media, and that it's generally well portrayed in most cases.  
 
Stereotypically casting and scripting will always be a problem whenever a gay individual or relationship is portrayed on screen.  
BUT, rarely, do gay girls make it into media.  
Why? Because there are statistically less of us, and socially it is less accepted.  

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And He Shall From Time to Time...

The quiet minority usually reflects the reality of any social grouping. The truth and fact of the matter is that, thanks to this repackaging of homosexuality, that's exactly what gay boys are turning into; bitchy accessories who's thoughts and motivations seem to be about as substantive as a bite of cotton candy.  
 
We have parades and marches and protests where we demand to be "Accepted for who we are!" You know what? Most of the time I don't see myself represented at all. Gay men go to the most extreme frontiers of behavior (wearing, saying, doing all manner of things) and say "Accept me! I'm just like you!" Well, apparently that’s just what happened. The 9-5, bill paying, college-bound, I-am-pretty-much-like-everyone else gay boys are… just like everyone else. They can’t really make a TV show about that can they?  
 
Well I'm not like that. I buy my clothes from the Gap. I spend my weekends doing home work and hanging out with friends, watching movies, listening to music, writing and trying desperately to find out where I belong in the world. I don't own a pink suit or a leather g-string. I don't get super plastered and head to clubs every single weekend. And it is by gay people that I am accosted! "You're not proud of who you are!" "You don't support the cause!" "It's guys like you who are holding the movement back!"  
 
It's ridiculous. If this new image of the 'user friendly fag' bothers us then maybe it's time we made sure that it isn't absolutely false by not subscribing to the stereotypes they're promoting when Jack screeches about someone’s hair style or when Carson says something about 'a boys right to shoes.'  
 
I'm 20 years old. I'm a democrat, I'm liberal, and I'm all about the youth taking a stand and shouting it's voice at the top of its lungs. But why does it have to be sexual for it to be realistic? Why does it have to center on who I have sex with to be of substance? I want the movement towards equality to continue on until we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone else. But instead of blaming the media, the bible bangers, the conservatives and President Bush's Administration, I'm not afraid to say that our participation in the image might be to blame as well. 

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And He Shall From Time to Time...

I think that the article perfectly reflects how portrayals of gay people within the media have become a 'double-edged sword' in their attempts to adhere to how gay people can be acceptable to 'straight' mainstream society. Of course, I believe that the greater visibility of gay characters on TV is a positive, progressive step towards acceptance and gay equality, yet these portrayals consistently play up to demeaning gay strereotypes that only serve to reinforce homophobic cliches. Yet why does Coronation Street's token queer have to be depicted as a squealing, fluffy, asexual queen and why are Will and Grace's two resident gay boys both dubiously lacking in not just a boyfriend, but any discernible sexuality altogether. 
Writers and producers should be far more concerned by advancing current attitudes to homosexuality by creating 'ordinary', sexual gay characters with just as many flaws and emotional complexties as their hetero counterparts, rather than regurgitating the same tired line-up of fey pantomime dames. 
Ultimately, all that differentiates gays from straights is something so irrelevant and inconsequential as sexual preference, and until the media grasps this basic fact, it seems we're going to have to grit our teeth and tolerate it.

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yes i agree on this

People need to start breaking the boundaries and show the world what gays REALLY are like... not these prancing queens who squeeze chicks tits for fun and giggle. there was a special on oprah about gay guys recently.... and all the guys in there were all queeny types... when will people wake up and realise the majority of us arent like that??? its so frustrating.

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it is the best way

because people think that it dose not happen but it dose and lets get it out and if people are small minded it is their problem not ours.

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it is the best way

i agree 
people just arent comfortable with the idea that the kid next door might be gay, thus, the endless steriotypeing. gay men must be effeminate, fashionable, and above all sexless 
with lesbains it usually quiet the opposite. they must follow a very streamlined, barby-doll, steamy image of sexuality for the public too be comforable. look at that horrible show on fox The OC, the only lesbian couple on it were smolderingly sexy, no romance just sexuality. 
on either end of the spectrum they become stock characters. lollypop lesbians, and the campy gays; and dont you dare over step that comforting imagery.  
 
that being said, i think we have to take what we can get. its better then being burned, am i right?  
we simply need to keep pushing their comfort boundarys and not give up. i once had someone tell me that they didnt have a problem with gay couples, but that they had no right kissing in public. i say, lets get out there and make out on the side walk

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It Sucks

Personally, I have found that the negative conatations that gay media brings about are stronger than the positive. 
Since Brokeback Mountain came out, everyone has talked about it of course. If you're in a highly homophobic school like myself, then its horrible listening to peoples opinions. 
"The guy should have shot himself when he figured out he was gay" 
This comment lead to a female friend of mine assuring us that for a lesbian to like girls they MUST secretly want to be a boy. 
-rolls eyes- 
 
Yeah, sure, we're getting noticed. But Christ, it's also awful to listen to people say things like that constantly. I'd rather gay's were not in the spotlight for that reason. 

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U know its tru

Most television show do portray us all as the super queens who say omg every 3 words, but we're all not like that, and because of it i get hit with things like, you can't be gay, you don't wear pink, and they arn't kidding when they say it either...........................

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it may b gr8 but.....

It may be great to c a gay or gay couple in almost every show but.... 1 thing.... the 1st gay kiss woz shown in coronation street, yes?- this is all good but, where are the manchester gay couples now?- they've onli got shaun- who- mite i add.... is quite hot but a bit too camp 4 me..... we want ANOTHER gay kiss---- YAY!

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I agree

.. and what a fantastic article that was. I see the truths behind every issue raised and do believe that the gay steretypes are what sell in the media, rather than the true gay lifestyle. 
 
For instance, most are happy to watch Jack (Will & Grace) prance around on television doing whatever he does, but I'm not sure the same crowd would perhaps feel the same amusment if Elton John were to do it - he doesn't fit the stereotype! It's verging on hypocricy is you ask me. 
 
Very nicely written, 
Matt.

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