Media portrayal of LGBT people: Difference between revisions

"Popular television shows including ''[[Will & Grace]]'', ''[[Sex and the City]]'', ''[[Brothers & Sisters (2006 TV series)|Brothers and Sisters]]'', and ''[[Modern Family]]'' routinely depict gay men. Yet the common characteristic among most televisual representations of gay men is that they are usually white."<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite journal |author=Martin, Alfred L Jr |url=https://cinema.usc.edu/archivedassets/31_2/7_Martin.pdf |title=TV in Black and Gay: Examining Constructions of Gay Blackness and Gay Crossracial Dating on GRΣしぐまΣしぐまK |editor=Julia Himberg |journal=Spectator |volume=31 |issue=2 |date=Fall 2011 |pages=63–69}}</ref> Having both a queer and black or non-white character is creating multi-faceted "otherness", which is not normally represented on television.<ref name="autogenerated1"/> Additionally, while many shows depict LGBT people of color, they are often used as a plot device or in some type of cliche. [[Santana Lopez]], for example, from the teenage dramedy ''[[Glee (TV series)|Glee]]'', is a queer woman of color; however, she is often characterized as a Latina fetish and over-sexualized.<ref name="Jacobs, Jason 2014">{{cite journal |author=Jacobs, Jason |title=Raising Gays On Glee, Queer Kids, and the Limits of the Family |journal=GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies |volume=20 |issue=3 |year=2014 |pages=319–352 |doi=10.1215/10642684-2422692 |s2cid=145109923 }}</ref> In Season 6 of ''Glee'', Santana Lopez marries [[Brittany Pierce]], a white bisexual. Along with these two characters, [[Blaine Anderson]] and [[Kurt Hummel]] are two important LGBT characters in ''Glee''. [[Darren Criss]], who portrays Blaine, is half-Asian, while [[Chris Colfer]], who portrays Kurt, is white. In conjunction, [[Callie Torres]], who was one of the first bisexual Latina characters on mainstream television, was first depicted as a "slut", and this Latina stereotype was used as much of her single plot-device.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Meyer, Michaela DE |title=Representing bisexuality on television: The case for intersectional hybrids |journal=Journal of Bisexuality |volume=10 |issue=4 |year=2010 |pages=366–387 |doi=10.1080/15299716.2010.521040 |s2cid=145197012}}</ref>

 

 

As queer politics continue to become a defining part of the decade, television continues to reflect that. Starting with hits like ''Modern Family'', gay homonormativity is becoming a mainstay on broadcast television. There has been a cultural shift from white, gay men being depicted as non-monogamous sex-seekers, stemming from the AIDS epidemic to being "just like everyone else" in their quest to be fathers.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Cavalcante, Andre |title=Anxious Displacements The Representation of Gay Parenting on Modern Family and The New Normal and the Management of Cultural Anxiety |journal=Television & New Media |year=2014 |doi=10.1177/1527476414538525 |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=454–471 |s2cid=145537621}}</ref> This Hollywood trend, while expanding LGBT representations on TV, is really only giving a single-story of LGBT communities and completely neglecting other LGBT stories.