Yet, as characters, they were still defined by their homosexuality, or rather how their homosexuality ranked against each other’s. Diverse body types, different careers, a plethora of interactions with friends and family that reached out further than sex and sexuality. Seeing themselves represented fairly and honestly on television could improve the well-being and happiness of a whole range of people with different sexual and gender identities.Ī show like Looking in America seemed to be a step in the right direction. Gay men, by the way, white gay cisgendered men like me, have it easier than people of colour on the LGBT spectrum, than all trans people, when it comes to representation on television. The heterosexual character might get a meaty storyline the homosexual character will struggle to realise he’s homosexual, then come out, and then there will be the months of fallout from that coming out, and then he might do something else that revolves around him being gay. A heterosexual character in a soap might be a murderer, or a liar, or a thief a homosexual character is simply that: homosexual.
Elsewhere, the Continuing Dramas still use sexuality as a character trait, as a storyline.
And that’s what partially motivated his crimes, his desire to keep things quiet. I half-watched two different detective shows last year where the suspect turned out to be hiding a secret: he was gay.
What of British TV though? If only our problem was that we were being killed with kindness. And either way I certainly had to be thin.įagmalion aired more than a decade ago and things, particularly in the US, are changing, with shows such as Glee and Looking attempting to be more diverse and progressive in their portrayals of gay life. This left me feeling that I had to either be rich (which I wasn’t) or promiscuous (which seemed like a much more achievable goal). Growing up as a gay lad in Barnsley – before social media or dating apps and without an educational policy that could inform and educate students responsibly – I did rely on episodes of Will and Grace for my initiation into the gay world.
There is some truth in the theory, although the examples cited seem American-centric and dated (old classics like Will and Grace, Sex and the City, and the role of the “gay best friend” in films like My Best Friend’s Wedding).