The representation of LGBT characters in literature, film, and TV

Abstract 

Societal attitude towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community is evolving positively. Tolerance towards LGBT individuals and relationships has increased significantly over the years. The younger people have been at the forefront of the changing attitudes towards the LGBT community, and the older generations are trying to adjust as per the changing times. This study analyzes societal attitudes towards the LGBT community over the years. The study also examines media representation of the LGBT community and how media representation has influenced societal attitudes. The paper concludes that the society is more accepting of LGBT today in comparison to the previous decades. However, societal perception and views of LGBT vary according to the age and interaction with LGBT community. 

Introduction 

The Netherlands was the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001. Many nations have followed suit and legalized same-sex marriage. The US became the 17th nation to legalize it in 2015. Many countries legalized same-sex marriage because of the changing perception towards it. Modern society is now characterized by liberal views, especially among young people who are more accepting of same-sex relationships (Ayoub & Garretson, 2017). Another reason is the increasing contact with gay people, either in real life or through the media. As individuals continue interacting with the LGBT community, they realize that they are the same as heterosexual individuals, and they change their opinion towards LGBT. 

Brief History of Same-Sex Marriage 

The history of same-sex marriage in the western culture is quite long. Same-sex marriages/ relationships were uncommon in older civilizations, and LGBT individuals were viewed as immoral because they deviated from the society ’s understanding of masculine and feminine roles. Traditional societies emphasize marriage as a means of procreation as per the Judeo-Christian beliefs, and sexual immorality, including same-sex relationships, was frowned upon (Lewis et al., 2017). As the society progressed, marriage was no longer seen as a union for procreation only, and people began marrying for love and companionship. The feminist movement also changed the perspective of marriage as women started working and deviating from traditional gender roles. As the society’s attitude towards marriage was changing, the society’s stance towards LGBT relationships was also evolving. 

A research paper by Evans (2016) investigates the changes in global attitudes towards the LGBT people since the 1980s. Evans (2016) utilizes the World Values Survey and European Values (WVS and EVS) that were used to evaluate public opinion towards homosexuality as early as the 1980s. WVS and EVS rated homosexuality on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 representing extreme negative attitudes towards homosexuality and 10 representing positive attitudes. The surveys were conducted in the Netherlands and Denmark in the 1980s, and they scored 5.5 and 5.48 respectively, which explains why the Netherlands and Denmark were the first countries to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Other developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the US were still not accepting of the gays. According to Peter Tatchell Foundation (2018), there was intense homophobia in the UK in the 1980s sanctioned by the upper class, government, church, police, and tabloids. The government was in a war against LGBT individuals, and conservatives used the themes of "family values" and "Victorian values" to campaign against homosexuality. In the US, there was also intense homophobia, and the gay community was blamed for the AIDS epidemic. The gay subculture had gained visibility in the US in the 1980s, especially in San Francisco. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay member in the San Francisco politics, was murdered in 1987. 

The 1980s was a great era for the LGBT community. In the early 1980s, homophobia was still high , which sparked the rise of activism against discrimination towards LGBT community. The gay community protested the government’s indifference to AIDS plight affecting them (Peter Tatchell Foundation, 2018). Lesbians and gays came together to fight to be acknowledged and recognized by the government. Celebrities and other influential people championed the rights of the LGBT community. In the 1990s, LGBT issues became common in American and global media; they were mentioned in talk shows, TV, and movies. 

The Representation of LGBT characters in Literature, Film, and TV. 

Media consumption, mainly the visual culture, is prevalent in almost all households in the form of television. Television genres range from soap operas, drama, comedies, news to talk shows. Commercials are also a part of the mass media. The media influences human behavior in different ways. Viewers relate to the fictional characters in the media, and sometimes these characters affect their behavior. 

LGBT representation in the mainstream media has made strides since the 1990s, but the group is yet to achieve total equality in the media. With the advent of same-sex marriage legalization, the media has been more open to using LGBT characters in TV shows than before because the viewers are also more accepting of the LGBT community (Lewis et al., 2017). Nonetheless, the conservatives argue that a “gay agenda” is being forced on them. 

The media portrayal of the LGBT community has had many positive effects on the LGBT community. Media portrayal has made same-sex couples to be accepted just like heterosexual couples. The society is now exposed to LGBT lives, and the viewer gets to know and understand that gay individuals have the same experiences as heterosexual characters on TV. Before exploring the effects of LGBT representation in the media, it is essential to identify the TV shows that introduced gay characters to the mainstream media. The Corner Bar is one of the pioneer TV shows to include a gay role as a recurring character on TV. The gay character is Peter Panama, a set designer who was a recurring character in the Corner Bar; the show aired on ABC from 1972 to 1973. Before the Corner Bar, there were other TV shows with gay characters, particularly Bewitched from 1965 and All in the Family from 1971 (Ayoub & Garretson, 2017). The TV show Soap became the first TV show with an openly gay main character in 1977. The show Will & Grace became the first popular sitcom with two gay friends as the main characters. 

The first TV show with a regular lesbian character was called Heartbeat ; it was a short medical series with a lesbian nurse living with her lover. The first lesbian kiss on TV was in 1991 in L.A. Law when a bisexual lawyer kissed a female colleague (Cook, 2018). The conservatives were up in arms against the lesbians kissing on TV, which is why it took another two years for another lesbian smooch in the teen show Picket Fences in 1993. In 1996, viewers saw the first televised lesbian wedding in Friends when Ross’s ex-wife married her lover Susan. The most significant lesbian moment in TV was in Ellen when the main character Ellen Morgan comes out of the closet. 

By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, viewers were used to lesbians and gays on their TV. The TV show the Modern Family was created in 2009, and it incorporated a gay couple into a family story. Mitch and Cam are two gay couples who normalized gay relationship and later marriage. Cam and Mitch adopted a baby, and the TV show focuses on their life raising a child and their interaction with the rest of the family. Alternatively, the TV program Orange is the New Black changed society’s view of lesbians and transgender. Set in a female prison, Orange is the New Black has altered society's perception of lesbianism (McMillan, 2016). Most of the characters are lesbians, and the series shows their lesbian relationships within the prison and before their imprisonment. The series also features the first openly transgender character, and the viewers get to see her life before and after transitioning. 

GLAAD is an LGBT advocacy organization that focuses on media representation of LGBT community. Since 2005, the advocacy group researches to show the representation of LGBT characters in the media (Cook, 2018). The portrayal of LGBT characters rose from 1.4% of characters in primetime shows in the 2005-2006 period to 6.4% in 2017-2018 period. GLAAD also found out that there were 103 regular LGBT characters and 70 recurring on cable, including Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon. Out of the 895 series regular characters created for primetime programming for 2018, only 43 (4.8%) characters identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLAAD, 2015). GLAAD statistics show that lesbian representation has dropped dramatically on broadcast TV, and it has also dropped down on cable (GLAAD, 2015). 

Just like the visual media, literature is dominated by heterosexual characters. Until recently, LGBT characters were not present in writing and characters were merely defined as heterosexual. Novelists and other literary writers tend to write about characters experiencing romantic feelings for the opposite sex; thus, ignoring the LGBT community. LGBT literature existed as early as the 17th century, but they were very few in comparison to heterosexual literature. Bayard Taylor ’s Joseph and His Friend : A Story in Pennsylvania is considered to be the first American gay novel (Bradway, 2018). The novel was about Joseph Aster, a young farmer who marries a wealthy woman before falling in love with his best friend. The literature planted the seeds for the gay rights movement in the following years as it explored gay love in a traditional society. Oscar Wilde’s the picture of Dorian Gray written in 1890 had elements of homosexuality. The main character, Dorian, is a handsome young man who is the subject of portrait art created by Basil Hallward (Bradway, 2018). Basil appeared to have feelings for Dorian Gray, Basil admitted that he worshipped Dorian with far more romance that a man should give his best friend because he had never loved a woman (Bradway, 2018). Oscar Wilde’s literature was quite scandalous such that he had to remove the parts that had gay innuendos. 

The 20th century LGBT literature was different from the 19th-century literature. Authors began exploring explicitly gay themes, for example, Andre Gide ’s The Immoralist written in 1902 is a story about newlyweds on their honeymoon in Tunis (Evans, 2016). The husband discovers his zest for life when he is attracted to a series of Arab boys. Other novels such as A Memorandum (1906) and Death in Venice (1912) have explicit gay themes as the authors, or the main characters are infatuated with boys. Cunningham (2018) notes that the 1980s changed gay writing forever. The dancer from the Dance by Drew Holleran (1978) was not the first gay novel, but it was the first gay novel that everybody read. All gay men read the book as it was a story of two gay men living the New York City's gay life. The main characters Malone and Sutherland go out dancing about six or seven nights every week and have sex everywhere. Every gay in the 1980s read the book because the two characters were free and had fun despite the widespread homophobia (Blackburn et al., 2016). Since then, authors are now free to explore LGBT themes. There are many Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender literature; though they do not compare to the vast majority of writing that lean towards heterosexual themes and relationships. 

Unlike fictional TV programs, adverts tend to reflect on real engagements within the society. Advertisers are now open to using LGBT characters in their adverts to reflect the changes in the society. IKEA and Volkswagen are some of the earliest brands to use LGBT characters in their ads. For instance, the IKEA featured a gay couple in a mainstream advert in 1994 while Volkswagen used a gay couple to advertise the Volkswagen Golf in 1997 (Cook, 2018). In the US, Pepsi was the first conglomerate to use gay characters in a mainstream advert whereby a man in a bar approaches another man. Other brands such as Heinz and Coca-Cola have used LGBT characters in their adverts to reflect the changes in the demographic. 

The representation of LGBT characters in all forms of media, including TV shows, magazines, books, and adverts among others show that the LGBT community is now mainstream. Today, most members of the society do not complain because of LGBT characters in their favorite shows or movies because they now accept them as members of the community who deserve a chance to share their experiences like heterosexual characters. TV programs such as Will & Grace and Modern Family attract large viewership from both men and women across all age groups and backgrounds. 

Benefits of Media Representation of LGBT Characters 

The importance of media representation of LGBT characters is twofold. First, it can affect how the general population views the LGBT community (Cook, 2018). Secondly, media representation can have positive effects on members of the LGBT community, particularly teenagers. A survey conducted in 2002 among 245 undergraduate students on the viewership of the show Will and Grace concluded that young people believed that the show marked an essential step in television by featuring gay men. 60% of the respondents reported that the show made them think positively about gays, whereas 71% disagreed that heterosexual relationships are the normal sexual relationships as opposed to 45% (Cook, 2018). The conclusion of the study showed that exposure to gay characters had positive effects on the opinion towards gay individuals in real life. Viewing gay characters in TV shows, sitcoms, music videos, and in magazines makes the viewers more accepting. Representation of LGBT characters in media has the potential to change attitudes and beliefs across the globe; for instance, people around the world watch popular American films and TV shows that have LGBT characters. Some individuals in conservative African, Asian and Middle Eastern nations that have declared LGBT illegal are changing their views of LGBT community because they have watched them in their favorite TV shows and films. 

Media representation of LGBT characters has positive effects on the LGBT community. As the society becomes more accepting of LGBT individuals, the society became more interested in issues affecting LGBT individuals such as same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, bathroom policies, and transgender military ban (Cook, 2018). The LGBT community is now enjoying more privileges than before; LGBT individuals have the right to marry whoever they want, and they can adopt children because they have support from most individuals in the society. LGBT community has been joined by most members of the society, including politicians and individuals who used to be the fiercest critics of the LGBT community to champion for their rights. 

However, the most crucial benefit of LGBT representation in the media is that it has a profound effect on members of the LGBT community. Cook (2018) cites surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006 on members of the LGBT. The TV characters played an essential role in their self-realization, coming out, and adjusting their new identities. Some of the participants viewed some of the TV characters as their role models, and they identified with what the characters were going through. The LGBT characters were a source of pride and comfort to LGBT individuals, and they helped them deal with their issues. According to Cook (2018), before LGBT characters became mainstream, LGBT individuals were desperate to see representation in the media because it assured them that they are not alone. Young LGBT members who are yet to feel comfortable in their identity or those who do not have LGBT friends rely on TV characters. 

Problems with the Representation of LGBT Characters 

As much as the number of LGBT characters has increased in American media, the way LGBT characters are represented is entirely different from straight characters. According to Lewis et al. (2017), heteronormativity dominates the screens such that TV programs are presented from a heteronormative perspective. LGBT media is lacking in relatable characters and moments because they are edited to meet the needs of straight viewers. LGBT relationships in the media often lack intimacy and closeness as heterosexual relationships. Same-sex couples often act platonic, and they rarely hold hands or kiss like heterosexual characters (McMillan, 2016). 

Stereotyping of LGBT characters is another issue. The media often uses the same storyline and stereotypes of gay characters in the film, TV shows, and adverts. McMillan (2016) complains that the media paints gay men as one-dimensional figures preventing people from seeing their real personality. One of the common stereotypes is the seemingly positive-stereotype in sitcoms where the gay characters are portrayed as effeminate and fashionable individuals. The positive stereotype is often adopted to counter the negative stereotype, but it does not show the real nature of gay individuals and relationships. According to McMillan (2016), there is a continuous strong gay male bias in the media and decreasing representation of lesbians in the media. The media often shows “good-looking gay men” with feminine characteristics to conform to the binary gender concept. 

Cook (2018) references a study by Gregory Fouts and Rebecca Inch in 2000 on the representation of gay characters in the fall of 2000. The authors find out that gay characters often commented about their sexual orientation more than heterosexual characters because the media is trying to emphasize on the typical difference between gay characters and heterosexual characters. While gay characters commented about their sexual orientation more often, they were less likely to be shown engaging in sexual encounters in comparison to heterosexual characters. The same research also reported under-representation and lack of diversity in gay roles. The typical gay character is white, and other races are often ignored because they tend to go against the stereotypical effeminate gay character that the society is getting used to. According to GLAAD 2015 report, the representation of lesbians and transgender characters keeps declining, while gay males are represented the most at 65% followed by bisexuals at 30% (GLAAD, 2015). GLAAD reviewed gay representation in the film in 2014 and found out that 68% were white while 11% were African American and 14% were Asian/ Pacific Islander. 

The GLAAD report (2015) reveals that comedies are most likely to include LGBT characters in comparison to major studio films with 42.1% of comedies as inclusive. In 46 genre films, including action, sci-fi and fantasy films, only 3% included LGBT characters. Animated movies and dramas also included LGBT characters at 23.1% and 18.2% respectively. In heterosexual films, particularly action movies, LGBT slurs are still common (GLAAD, 2015). Action films rely on the long-running homophobic ‘sissy’ stereotypes when heterosexual characters are making fun of each other. GLAAD reviews popular movies to evaluate whether they are representing LGBT characters positively or negatively (GLAAD report, 2015). 

Conclusion 

The media has played a crucial role in the society’s acceptance of the LGBT community. Societal attitudes towards the LGBT community have improved because of the representation of LGBT characters in the film. LGBT characters also act as role models, not only to the LGBT members, but they encourage public discussions on issues facing the LGBT community. For example, the Modern Family introduced the society to same-sex adoption and parenting. While the two main characters raising a child are fictional, the society began debating the issue of same-sex adoption, which is now a reality for same-sex couples in the US. The fans of the TV show realized that it is possible for a gay family to raise a child like any heterosexual family. Research on the effects of LGBT representation shows that they have more prominent effects on younger viewers in comparison to older viewers. Younger viewers get to see a different side of the LGBT community in the media which counters the negative portrayal of LGBT community which had persisted for centuries. As young people become more accepting of LGBT, they influence the older generations to change their views towards the LGBT community. The media reinforce values relating to individual self-attainment, happiness, tolerance to differences and personal development; which is why the media has been a powerful tool championing acceptance of the LGBT community. The representation of the LGBT community in the media has many benefits, but it does not guarantee improved life experiences for LGBT individuals especially in conservative societies. Additionally, the media tends to highlight sensational and more palatable issues affecting the LGBT community while ignoring the real issues affecting the diverse community. The media has to change its approach to LGBT representation by showing diverse characters and practical issues affecting the LGBT community. By humanizing the LGBT characters, rather than relying on overplayed stereotypes, the society will get to see the real LGBT lives, which will be more impactful . 

References 

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