Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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Does TV Stereotype Gay Couples?
One of my favorite shows on TV right now is Modern Family on ABC. Mitchell and Cameron are a gay couple who just adopted a baby girl from Asia. I find them hysterical and pretty realistic. The adoption is of course a comedic jab at all these celebs adopting children from other countries. Mitchell is the uptight, type A personality and Cameron is the more "flamboyant," carefree partner who loves football.
I was excited to have my friend, a gay man who reminds me very much of Mitchell, to see the show. Unfortunately, he was not as entertained as I am by the show.
I thought showing a committed, happy gay couple would make him happy. As opposed to the popular show Will & Grace, which had similar type of gay men who were single unable to find a mate. He said that they were a more dramatized versions of a real couple. However, isn't that true for the heterosexual couples featured on the show as well? It's a comedy... it's going for laughs.
Do you think there has been any gay couple positively portrayed on TV? Do you like Mitch and Cam on Modern Family?
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- From: Kimberlee
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Comments (26)
TV stereotypes EVERYTHING.
@live_for_love@xanga - That's what I was going to say, too.
@live_for_love@xanga - Same, beat me to it. I figured it was a common knowledge sort of thing.
I think featuring more gay couples is definitely a step in the right direction.
I've never heard of this show, but I'm grateful for any positive depiction.
I love that show. And the whole thing isnt like your typical hetero or homo family. Its even confusing.
i have mixed feelings about this.
and yes, i'm queer.
If it does stereotype, who cares? It's TV! It's all for an entertainment factor, if everything was totally realistic it wouldn't be as interesting to watch.
@live_for_love@xanga - i agree with that, stereotypes everything, you only need eyes to know that
I'm really just happy the LGBT community seems to be being put in a better light and that in Modern family unlike most shows I see with gay men has them as parents rather than single men just looking for fun. Which I seem to see everywhere. I mean yes they are stereotyping, but it's in a sort of positive way that tv usually doesn't show. I just wish lesbians on tv had a more lasting role it seems every time I get my hopes up for a lesbian storyline in shows one of the girls goes straight or magically disappears into the abyss.
How can you positively (without lying, as all these shows pushing and promoting 'homo-sexuality' and constantly having "gay" storylines, do) portray something that is completely NEGATIVE?
The fuck-wits "living" these selfish, inverted, homogenised 'lives' stereotype THEMSELVES!
This shit should not be happening at all, and should NOT be shown off on TV !
@IronicBox@xanga - The so-called "L/G/B/T" "community" is a bunch of selfish, irresponsible, arrogant hedonists that parasitically feeds off the true human community. This behaviour is WRONG and CANNOT be shown in a "better light"...no matter how many countless shows feature 'same sex' storylines and "gay" or "lesbian" characters, in order to boost ratings and rake in the bucks.
If I might put a very fine point on it....FUCK "lesbians" on TV! I'm fucking SICK-TO-DEATH of seeing this evil shit going on in the world, let alone switching on the TV set and having this foul "lesbian" shit shoved in my face on every second drama, sit-com and music video.
If they don't change back to being Straight, even more quickly than they turned "lesbian", then these girls should all be thrown into the abyss!
They don't even show realistic HETEROSEXUAL couples on TV. However, the best LGBT couple I've seen on TV was Paige and Alex from Degrassi. However, regardless how there is a stereotype of lesbians being "butchy", the media portrays them as porn star-quality girls. What?
While I am glad there are more gay people in the media, they seem to have cookie-cut personalities. However, it's a start to making people more aware of the LGBT community.
@IronicBox@xanga - I know, right? I hate how that happened with Paige and Alex. They broke up and Paige went straight again. D: No more lesbo-time.
- Kunoichi
I personally think that gay women don't get treated the same as gay men.. They are looked at as a novelty in the media (not that gay men aren't, but they are taken more seriously as big characters than gay women). When they want to shake things up for higher ratings and a hetero romp won't cut it, they bring in two hot young girls to make-out on screen and called them both (or sometimes just one of them) lesbians. A couple people on here nailed it right on the head, directors and writers have turned the lesbian lifestyle into a playboy fantasy for horny guys. Just like with the stereotyping of gay male relationships, gay female relationships get a "one-trick-pony" wrap. To quote Law&Order, when a guy finds out that you're a lesbian, he thinks one of two things, "how disgusting" or "can I watch". I know a couple lesbians, and they don't behave like minxes in high-heels and short skirts, they behave like normal, everyday women.
While I understand why someone would be annoyed at the stereotyping...at least homosexual couples are getting "better" stereotyping than they were before (i.e., they're not all over-sexualized flamboyant pansy men anymore). I'm still waiting for South Indian characters who aren't science/math nerds and who do something more significant than discovering scientific stuff that pushes the plot forward for all the more important characters, or rattling off scientific information like encyclopedias so that the more important characters can progress with the storyline (Suresh from Heroes came ever so close, but got too close to the sun and was destroyed). And dark-skinned black women in non-BET shows who aren't loud and/or grossly overweight and/or dumb and/or bitchy and/or despised by near everyone else on the show for being wastes of human life. But at least Indian people and blacks are on television now, and we need to look at the characters from that perspective as well.
The gay couple in TSLOTAT
well for the most part everything on tv is stereotyped.
I seriously doubt televisions ability to realistically portray any couples gay, straight or other.
That is my absolute favorite show on right now!!
Most male homosexual couples on TV usually consist of exactly what you said. One is the "uptight, type A personality" and the other is "flamboyant" and "carefree". Or sometimes they are both flamboyant.
It's really annoying more than anything to see this stereotype being shown everywhere. It's like the writers or whoever can't bother to make these characters have their own personality so they just use some set "idea".
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~Mayu
http://surveylady.xanga.com/706163066/the-survey-sites/
@live_for_love@xanga - I agree with that statement. I think tv makes the gay characters more flamboyant than they need to be.
This is the first I'm hearing about Modern Family. I think that its good that television, and even movies, are willing to explore homosexuality in more positive ways. But, it still falls short from stereotypes.
I think the problem some people have with it, despite that it is a comedy, is simply that with heterosexual couples its not such a big deal if there are stereotypes. Because, the majority realize that isn't really how most heterosexual couples are. That's why its funny. However, when you get a group that is already stereotyped in such a way that the majority of people do believe that such stereotypes are real, they are laughing at the group itself because they feel its true about the group and finally others are seeing it and putting it up there to confirm it. That may not be the intent, but that is often what people who believe in such stereotypes think while watching shows like that. So then the laughs are less light-hearted, and perhaps bordering a little on rude and maybe even a little malicious. Laughing at you, not with you. Ya know?
And I think that for the majority of these things, that's how these are going to be for a while. Television and movies are just beginning to focus on homosexual couples like this, where they are not just the effeminate sidekick to the girl who needs fashion/love advice, but rather a major player in the shows and movies, or even the main characters. That is a major step up.
So, right now, this is fairly new for them and they're testing the waters with these couples. I'm hoping that soon they will start getting more accurate depictions of homosexuals and homosexual couples on television and movies. We'll see. :)
The two gay guys off of Will and Grace were nothing a like though. I think this article is a bit of a reach.
I loooooooove Modern Family!
I agree that all of the couples on the show are over-the-top versions of "normal" couples. The gay couple happen to be my favorite, and I adore Cameron!
why is it that we can stereotype all married straight couples as unhappy, sexless, and fat and still have a laugh about it, but the second we stereotype a gay couple people have gotta go get all pissy? it's tv, it's for entertainment. no one wants to watch every day people live their lives, it's not entertaining.
as i've said before, make fun of everyone or make fun of no one. people are way too sensitive.