Ah, Gay Television

I as a gay person, I know my fair share of queer media and have come to the conclusion that it can be categorized into a few basic categories. (Warning: There are spoilers ahead.)

Straight Shows Being Inclusive

This category usually occurs within television shows. They designate an episode or two where they throw in some gay people. This way they can make some gay jokes and show how supportive the straight characters on the show are. Sometimes this is done really well and we get some great episodes of television like in the episode "We Will Rock You" from That '70s Show.

.

This was a bitch to find. Googling "Gay" and "That '70s Show" just leads to Laura Prepon.

We not only got respectable gay jokes, but we also got a Brady Bunch joke to make everyone happy.

Other times we get episodes not so great like that episode in the last season of Scrubs where Turk's patient is a lesbian. The episode sucked for many other reasons (mostly being that the last season just sucked), but a half hour of Turk being unable to talk to them like actual people was pretty much torture. There might actually be a circle of hell where watching that episode for all eternity if the punishment.

My personal favorite examples of this are the straight main character gets hit on by a gay person. The hilarity of a slightly homophobic (but not the offensive slur slinging type) occurs before they have a discussion with the gay person about how they're flattered, but not interested and they'll still be friends.

Remember this episode.

Then that character is never mentioned again and everyone just pretends that that never happened.

By all means kudos to any show that wants to throw in some gay characters regardless if it's only for an episode. Representation is a great thing, but it gets really frustrating when you are trying to find a show to binge watch where you feel represented. Of course you could just watch every episode of every show with gay themes in a row, but this possibly leads to insanity.

The Ratings Booster

These are the episodes that generally appear around the time when a series is starting to dwindle. (That's not always the case, but it happens often.) What do producers do when they want to make people watch? They throw in a lesbian kiss of course. The most notable example of this would be Heroes.

Seriously, the hell was this?

 I enjoyed Heroes (well as much as anyone did), but the plot point of the lesbian roommate both went nowhere and was slightly creepy. It was there to add unnecessary drama and everyone really would've been better off without it. Either that or they should have actually done something with it. I don't know about you, but I feel like murdered roommates, a chick with superhuman regeneration, and everything to do with the carnival was enough convoluted drama for everyone. (And that's just the Hayden Panettiere story lines)

Another notable episode would be in the Friends episode "The One With Rachel's Big Kiss." This is a much better episode than the one mentioned above. Far be it from me to complain about a kiss between Jennifer Aniston and Winona Ryder, but that episode sort of has a really depressing ending sandwiched between two kisses so we forget all about it.

Yay! Big Lesbian Kiss!

Slightly depressing yet still kind of funny moment trying to act nonchalant like she didn't just confess her love.

Yay! Lesbian kiss!

There like a million and four other episodes of television with big gay kisses sandwiched in there just for the sake of it. Some don't even have as much plot around it as Heroes managed to muster. Sometimes there is no reason for the kiss. It's literally just there because. (*Cough* Crossing Jordan *Cough*)

The Depressing True Story

Let's step away from television for a moment and take a look at all those movies based off of true stories. There are a lot of them and just about every True Story about a gay person is guaranteed to depress the hell out of you. If someone doesn't die or at least contemplate suicide at some point then I can almost guarantee that you are not watching a true story about a gay person. There are good legitimate reasons for this, those mostly being that the true stories they are based off of involve actual hate crimes. I definitely get the need to tell those stories and I will be the first to admit that movies like Milk and Boys Don't Cry are amazing, but is it to much to ask for a true story film about an LGBT person that wasn't brutally murdered?

Let's start with a film on Jackie "Moms" Mabley, one of the first female trailblazers in comedy. Comedy and Drama! It would be wonderful!

Hollywood, you have your next assignment.

The Questionable Material

These are the movies and television shows we watch because we hear that it's about gay people and then proceed to have a love hate relationship with it that rivals a Buffy/Faith storyline. The most notable one I can think of would be the lesbian series The L Word. Here are the stages of watching The L Word.

     Stage 1. This isn't so bad.
     Stage 2. Jesus Christ! Why is everything so dramatic?
     Stage 3. I'm done. Not watching anymore.
     Stage 4. Eh, might as well finish it so everyone will leave me alone about it.
     Stage 5. Bawling eyes out.
     Stage 6. Was Jenny always this annoying?
     Stage 7. God, I love the hell out of Alice
     Stage 8. What the fuck was that story line?
     Stage 9. Why am I still watching this?
     Stage 10. That was actually a really well done episode
     Stage 11. Will no one put Jenny out of our misery.
     Stage 12. Lucy Lawless! Cue more excitement than all previous seasons combined.
     Stage 13. I would've killed Jenny if you hadn't?
     Stage 14. Well that was the cheesiest ending ever.
     Stage 15. I am never getting those hours of my life back.
     Stage 16. At least all my friends will leave me alone about it now.

This series is beyond questionable. Had it not been for the fact that we craved any sort of representation on television I have a feeling this series would have died right around the time we were listening to Alice bawl about Dana over the radio. But boobs are a powerful force, so the series went on and we got some really amazing episodes from it. Unfortunately they were hidden amongst Jenny Schecter being obnoxious enough that everyone wanted to murder her in a swimming pool and various other plot points that were just plain painful. It's a show that every lesbian is supposed to love, but mostly we just pretend most of it never happened.

Truth.

The Terribly Dramatic

I don't know what it is about gay media, but damn it is dramatic. There is about a 70% chance that the LGBT character you have just grown to love will die. I get that we want the audience to feel, but can we please kill someone else for a change. There are straight people to spare. Please shoot them. (Preferably not in reality. No heterophobic violence please.)

I feel that there are a few underlying factors as to why in every piece of pop culture we are the go to person to kill. The first one would stem from the days of lesbian pulp fiction where the only way to keep it from being labeled as porn was for it to have a moral message, so at the end they would either die or turn straight. Our society still hasn't gotten used to not writing that ending, so it's dead lesbians as far as the eye can see. The second one would probably be that writers in general are pretty dramatic. I know I'm dramatic as all hell. The mere mention of pizza, puts me in a melodramatic state of bitch and moan.

Tomatoes are evil! Just sayin'.

When you combine those two factors the default reaction when you ask yourself who should I kill? You go straight for the jugular with the significant other of the main gay character, if not that character them self.  It took me a year to figure out which one of my characters I should kill off in order to destroy everyone's hopes and dreams, without making it the gay person. (Writers really are kind of terrible people.) 

The writer decides that more tears are needed, so he decides to kill someone. He contemplates it for a bit and the next thing you know we're watching Tara get shot and Willow turns evil. Whedon deserves extra credit for covering those two core stereotypes of lesbian pop culture back to back. The one thing I will give Buffy The Vampire Slayer credit for is that everyone's significant other dies at some point in this show not just the lesbian's.

The same can't be said for Pretty Little Liars however. When the series killed off Maya, I was so pissed I was actually on my feet yelling at the television. It's not so much that they killed her off, it's the fact that every single one of the straight main characters gets an incredibly romantic and adorable scene with their boyfriends. Then they're all walking home and what romantic gesture does the gay character get? "Uhm, someone murdered your girlfriend in your backyard." Then the next season, "Oh, yeah, and before I forget, that guy you hang with, killed your girlfriend and is about to kill your new one." (Cue maniacal laughter from writing staff.) Unlike Buffy, the writers get no kudos since all the important people everyone who is straight dates always remain alive. (Also just a passing observation, but every black character that has been on the show is now dead.)

BONUS EXAMPLE
For an example that doesn't involve people dieing and that I just find to be endlessly entertaining. Grey's Anatomy. The show actually made a complex and healthy lesbian relationship and didn't mess it up with stupid crap. In order to do that they were relying on all the drama of everyone else on the show, but the writers managed to work out  most of the relationship drama they had created leaving all the characters relatively happy. So, what do they do? They crash the mother fucking plane! Yes, people died and it was sad and they made you believe for almost an entire episode that they killed off the lesbian (and we all believed it because that's what we expect). The writers actually made a couple so perfect that it took a plain crash, the death of two close friends, and a lost limb to give them serious relationship problems. That is is just the most beautiful example of over dramatic writing I have ever seen.

Just, seriously writers? A plane crash?

The God Damn GBF

Everyone is familiar with the concept of the GBF. The Gay Best Friend. The ultimate status symbol of a straight person that needs to prove how awesome and open minded she is. This concept makes me want to curl into a hole and die just a little bit. Partially because I spent part of high school as the new and improved Best Friend: Lesbian Model, but mostly because it is just plain annoying.

One show we can really thank for this is Will & Grace. Don't get me wrong I like Will & Grace. Mostly in small amounts spread months apart, but it's not really a bad show. It just plays up the gay jokes, so much I wan't to punch my TV. (The show averages at about seven gay jokes an episode. That's one every four minutes if you count commercials.) The jokes just get old so quickly. Seriously, how many times can you reference flannel?

It should be noted that I own no flannel, but my straight sisters do.

Will & Grace is great because of all the representation it's got going. It's not so great in the fact that it runs off gay jokes and stereotypes (there is also alcohol).


The concept of the gay best friend is everywhere. Hell, the beginning season of Glee, which now has a more diverse cast of characters than my entire home county had Kurt start off as a pretty stereotypical gay best friend type character then sprinkled in the complexity later.

The GBF at it's finest.

My guy friends that happen to be gay do enjoy musical theater. My guy friends who are straight also enjoy musical theater. (Okay, I met them all doing musical theater.) However one of those friends is a dedicated science fiction nerd and the other is into cars. The science fiction guy's a bit into clothes, but is far more content wearing a snappy catchphrase t-shirt than a sweater vest and tie (what is with that by the way?)

Now what the world needs is a television series with the best friend who happens to be gay, loves musical theater and is a big fan of something entirely random and not typically associated with sexual orientation. How come television characters never have more than one interest?

Everything We Love

There is a fair amount of LGBT movies and shows out there, you just have dig through them all to find the gems you love. It's hectic, painful, and really dramatic, but eventually you will find something to watch. However if you never do find something to watch then help to create it because damn it I can only cry so many times over the dead girlfriends of fictional characters.