The Gay Cliches of Mainstream TV
The Entertainment industry sort of sucks when it comes to queer male
characters, particularly TV.
Yes, it's great that TV puts gay characters out there for everyone to see. But even in more recent enlightened times it seems we still see the same cliche gay characters.
TV is all about extremes. There's no interest in subtly. Just ask the owners of A&E, a network that used to show recordings of Shakespeare plays. Now they show a nonstop stream of shows like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Shakespeare was shoved off stage and for good measure they sent a bear after him.
In the extreme world of TV there's little room for ordinary guys who happen to be queer. Which sort of sucks for the young queer guy or older guy who's just figuring out he's queer. Guys like that pretty much only get the message: Gay is...Drag, divas, fashion, drag, celebrity worship, clubbing, drag, endless one night stands, bitchiness, and drag.
A guy pondering his identity who doesn't identify with Will or Jack or Ugly Betty's nephew or most everything on the Logo channel and a good bit of everything on the Here channel can be left wondering "OK, I'm not like this but I like guys so what the hell...Am I gay or what?"
I've talked with guys who didn't clue into their queerness until their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s and the main reason most of them were befuddled is they didn't see any guys like themselves whenever they looked to mainstream gay culture or mainstream media's depiction of gay men.
"Oh that's ridiculous!" my imaginary reader scoffs, "A guy knows how he feels, he just chooses to ignore it out of self loathing."
Yeah, I can see that. But what I heard from these guys is that they knew they were kind of or way into guys, they just didn't see anything in the World-O-Gay that made them think they could be gay. And I'd guess many of these guys took a lot of their cues as to what the World-O-Gay was like from TV and movies.
"TV is fake, even the real stuff on TV is fake. People shouldn't look to TV to find themselves!"
That's true, my other imaginary reader, but TV is still more pervasive in our culture than any other form of entertainment. And even smart people draw conclusions from what they see on TV shows. Intelligent guys will probably figure out that if they can't find themselves in the queer characters on TV they should look elsewhere. The general masses will figure that all queer guys love night clubbing, shopping, and dishing gossip with the girls over pink cocktails.
Yes, I've heard there is one character on one CBS or ABC sitcom who isn't a gay cliche and I've also heard there's a remake of a BBC show that has some less than "Fabulous!" characters on it. Here recently broadcast the very good web series Eastsiders which had gay main characters of the sort not typically seen on TV.
Yay!
But for the most part the overwhelming mainstream TV message as to what it means to be a queer guy currently comes from the two cartoon gays on Modern Family and all the boys in dresses on Ru Paul's Drag Race.
And I understand why it's like that. Ordinary people are boring. Gay "You go girl!" guys are fabulously entertaining and TV viewers want to be entertained fabulously.
Yes, it's great that TV puts gay characters out there for everyone to see. But even in more recent enlightened times it seems we still see the same cliche gay characters.
TV is all about extremes. There's no interest in subtly. Just ask the owners of A&E, a network that used to show recordings of Shakespeare plays. Now they show a nonstop stream of shows like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Shakespeare was shoved off stage and for good measure they sent a bear after him.
In the extreme world of TV there's little room for ordinary guys who happen to be queer. Which sort of sucks for the young queer guy or older guy who's just figuring out he's queer. Guys like that pretty much only get the message: Gay is...Drag, divas, fashion, drag, celebrity worship, clubbing, drag, endless one night stands, bitchiness, and drag.
A guy pondering his identity who doesn't identify with Will or Jack or Ugly Betty's nephew or most everything on the Logo channel and a good bit of everything on the Here channel can be left wondering "OK, I'm not like this but I like guys so what the hell...Am I gay or what?"
I've talked with guys who didn't clue into their queerness until their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s and the main reason most of them were befuddled is they didn't see any guys like themselves whenever they looked to mainstream gay culture or mainstream media's depiction of gay men.
"Oh that's ridiculous!" my imaginary reader scoffs, "A guy knows how he feels, he just chooses to ignore it out of self loathing."
Yeah, I can see that. But what I heard from these guys is that they knew they were kind of or way into guys, they just didn't see anything in the World-O-Gay that made them think they could be gay. And I'd guess many of these guys took a lot of their cues as to what the World-O-Gay was like from TV and movies.
"TV is fake, even the real stuff on TV is fake. People shouldn't look to TV to find themselves!"
That's true, my other imaginary reader, but TV is still more pervasive in our culture than any other form of entertainment. And even smart people draw conclusions from what they see on TV shows. Intelligent guys will probably figure out that if they can't find themselves in the queer characters on TV they should look elsewhere. The general masses will figure that all queer guys love night clubbing, shopping, and dishing gossip with the girls over pink cocktails.
Yes, I've heard there is one character on one CBS or ABC sitcom who isn't a gay cliche and I've also heard there's a remake of a BBC show that has some less than "Fabulous!" characters on it. Here recently broadcast the very good web series Eastsiders which had gay main characters of the sort not typically seen on TV.
Yay!
But for the most part the overwhelming mainstream TV message as to what it means to be a queer guy currently comes from the two cartoon gays on Modern Family and all the boys in dresses on Ru Paul's Drag Race.
And I understand why it's like that. Ordinary people are boring. Gay "You go girl!" guys are fabulously entertaining and TV viewers want to be entertained fabulously.
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