Gay and lesbian stereotypes in the media

Not all gay men behave like Jack or Will, two of the most notable gay males on television

By HEATHER WADOWSKI
Staff Writer

t's officially the new millennium and so far it has brought us school shootings, a reality TV craze so absurd that the latest show actually has four men chained to a woman and gay activists protesting outside the Grammy Awards for Eminem's controversial duet with Sir Elton John. To quote that old Pepsi catch-phrase, "we've come a long way, baby" and it shows.

Is my sarcasm too subtle? Well it shouldn't be. The new millennium promised Americans that we would be stepping away from the past and moving into the future, but has anyone actually noticed a differenceespecially when it comes to Hollywood?

Hollywood has praised itself for being "gay- friendly," spotlighting the sitcom success of "Will & Grace" and making it Hollywood's poster child for the millennium. Entertainment Weekly even recently released an issue devoted to high-paid, powerful and famous homosexuals in the business, with the cover featuring (what else?) "Will & Grace." Hollywood is practically screaming how it has come out of the closet, yet if one looks closely they really wouldn't notice a difference.

When various USC students were asked to name recent films that dealt with homosexuality, most were stumped. Some replied with "My Best Friend's Wedding," while others went so far back that they mentioned "The Birdcage." No one remembered last year's Academy Award-winning "Boys Don't Cry" or a handful of other titles, including "Center Stage," "Cruel Intentions," "Chasing Amy," "In and Out" and "But I'm a Cheerleader."

Television is another story. Numerous students thought of the hit shows "Will & Grace," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Dawson's Creek," while many thought of past shows like "Roseanne" and "Ellen" that dealt with homosexuality. Some students thought of Showtime's "Queer as Folk" and the recently canceled "Normal, Ohio."

Still, for the number of shows that have homosexual characters, how many of them actually deal with homosexual relationships? Sure two of the main characters on "Will & Grace" are gay, but when was the last time viewers watched Jack and Will share a passionate kiss with another man? In fact, despite Jack and Will being public about their sexuality, network writers have Jack marrying a woman (for greencard purposes of course) and Will sharing an intense kiss with his female best friend, Grace.

"The entertainment industry is an industrynot a business of raising social consciousness but a business of raising quarterly earnings for shareholders," said USC professor Charles Fleming, who teaches entertainment reporting. "The broadcast executives who program these shows, and the standards and practices geniuses who answer to them, and the writer-producers they employ are all doing nothing more than reflecting a conservative version of what the audience is telling them it likes."

Those who are open about their real life sexuality fall into the same trap of having networks too conservative to write their stories.

Even among the gay characters that are televised, many are stereotyped as flamboyantly gay or butch lesbian types. And while not every man who is gay acts like Jack from "Will and Grace," many films and television shows tend to focus only these gay stereotypes.

The few shows that do show homosexuals as everyday people also deal with same-sex relationships, and ironically tend to get pushed off network television and onto a more adult-oriented station like Showtime or HBO. Is this because the general public isn't ready to see gay relationships yet?

Or is it because the networks aren't ready to show homosexuals as equal to heterosexuals? Is that why shows like "Normal, Ohio," which was awarded this year's People's Choice Award for John Goodman's portrayal of a gay man, got canceled before they begin, even when there is obviously an audience interested in the show? Shows like "Party of Five" are renewed for seasons at a time in hopes that their ratings will go up, but "Normal, Ohio" isn't given a chance.

"Has Hollywood come out of the closet? No," Fleming said. "Does Steve Martin's Oscar night patterso peppered with coy references to homosexualitymean the industry's public stance about homosexuality has changed? I don't think so."

The sad thing about all this is the fact that "Roseanne," still remains one of the few shows that accurately portrayed homosexual characters of both sexes in a way few films and television shows have been able to do today. Sure, "Dawson's Creek" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" have occasional episodes involving gay characters, but so did "Soap." And while "Will &Grace" made headlines because one of its title characters is a homosexual, so did "Ellen." "Roseanne" was that rare TV show that had homosexual recurring charactersboth young and old, male and femalein relationships, and even aired a lesbian kiss.

"ŚRoseanne' was certainly ahead of its time, or at least was very different for its time," Fleming said. "I think what it showed is that most Americans will accept any kind of character that is given to them, if the character is delivered to them in a sympathetic way and in a show that is well-crafted. I think the public would absolutely accept an openly, actively gay character if the character were set up properly in a show like ŚFrasier' or ŚNYPD Blue.'"

Will the networks finally give us these types of characters in the new millennium? Will Ellen DeGeneres' new show stay on for longer than her last one after she came out of the closet? One can only wait and see if Hollywood will finally treat homosexuals equally in their programming.

Copyright 2001 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 142, No. 56 (Wednesday, April 11, 2001), on page 8.