Are gays present in movies and on TV in larger numbers than they are in the general population?
Well, I’ve never noticed that.
My impression is that they are.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that adding a gay character is a cheap and easy way to work in mistaken sexuality jokes, drama over outing themselves or being outed, and helps fill “diversity” roles.
Are more than 10% of TV and movie characters gay? If not, then the answer is no.
I wouldn’t necessarily say over-represented, but more mis-represented. Most gays do not resemble the cast from Will & Grace or the bunch from Queer Eye.
Gays are overrepresented, IMO.
Lots of groups are overrepresented on TV: police detectives, firefighters, lawyers, soldiers, etc.
Being gay is dramatic. Our society and the way that it treats gays is complicated, dynamic, funny and disturbing all at the same time. It makes sense that they are fodder for comedy and drama alike.
And how about mud loggers? Way underrepresented, IMO. I worked as a mud logger for ten years, and I’ve never seen even one on TV.
I don’t consider being the punchline for a joke to be “representation” in any meaningful sense of the word. I don’t consider a character to be representational unless he or she is at least somewhat integrated into the ongoing storyline. By any reasonable standard, gay characters are underrepresented in mainstream entertainment.
Gay people in real life have a habit of being gay 24 hours a day, and seven days a week. Gay people on TV, on the other hand, tend to be gay for only half or full hour stints. So it averages out eventually.
As much violence that there is on television, a group that I find entirely under-represented is dead people. There are way more dead people than are represented on television. Especially sitcoms. But then again, the dead aren’t a very vocal group. And they won’t be, until that comet does a near earth pass and sprinkles the Earth with that mysterious microbe…
Wikipedia could use your help as their current article on the topic doesn’t meet quality standards.
It’s also a cheap shortcut to “characterization.” Hack writers who want to make their characters look or sound different – or who want to give someone a deep, dark secret – are apt to turn to homosexuality as way to give further dimensions to the characters in question. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does display a certain lack of imagination, IMO.
I am not sure if they are over-represented or not, but I imagine much of the drive for gay characters in the media is because they were supressed and taboo for so many years that it is offers fresh story avenues.
No, I think they are underrepresented but becoming about on par with what makes sense in the real world.
I mean, there’s not many gays making an appearance on Everybody Loves Raymond, but then again what suburban Italian Catholic family is going to hang out with gays?
While on some shows where you might have expected to see more gay characters (Seinfeld/Friends) I think less were shown because it was still somewhat taboo then.
Personally I think any show set in a major urban area probably should have at least a few gay guest stars, depending on the show’s content. Gay culture is prominent enough in most cities that anyone who lives in a major city has happened to have an encounter with a gay person. Law & Order seems to do this pretty well, although it seems half the gay people are murderers and the other half are dating murderers.
No way. Not a chance.
How many gay characters can you think of on all of TV? Now every single other person on TV is not gay. My guess is that gay characters make up a smaller proportion of TV characters than their representation in the real world.
Though, honestly, it could be that compared to some places there are more gays on TV than there are out/obvious gays in the general public.
A person might not know that people around him/her are gay, or there really might be no gay people around him/her, leaving the impression that there just aren’t really any/many gays.
In my seven person office there are two gay men I work with. In the evenings I do theatre, and so stereotypically I have a lot of gay friends through that work. My roommate is a lesbian. I have friends of almost all genders/orientations that you could think of. When I see gays on TV I see the same distorted, TV-ified perspective that I see applied to every aspect of life that becomes fodder for mass entertainment. I don’t ever think I’ve felt that there are more gays on TV than there are in the real world.
Isn’t that true of ANY group on Law & Order?
There’s only so much you can do dramatically with that kind of porn.
I think they are both misrepresented and under-represented.
C’mon, they’re never going to get that kind of sick, twisted filth past the network censors.
What’s a mud logger? My fetid imaginings are conjuring up all kinds of perversion.
Gay people represent about 10% of the population. Does every show have 10 characters who are recurring or semi-recurring? If so, every show should have one gay character. They do not. The number of shows that have several gay characters don’t balance this out IMO. Thus, I think gays are underrepresented.
As other posters have noted, a number of gay characters are one trick ponies who are only characterized in terms of their gayness. There aren’t too many shows like The Wire or Six Feet Under, who have gay characters whose gayness is just one part of who they are as a fully realized creation. Until they do, gays will be underrepresented and misrepresented, just like any minority group .
In comedies, I always figured that gays are like the new blacks. In the old days, if you wanted a quick laugh, you’d show a black guy doing stereotypical black things (old cartoons are filled with this sort of joke). Nowadays, you show a gay guy doing stereotypical gay things.