According to Anna McCarthy, ABC’s president, Robert A Iger, said of Ellen that it “became a program about a character who was gay every single week, and… that was too much for people.” McCarthy describes this perspective as maintaining the “fantasy of queer identity as something that can be switched on for special occasions” along with a “fear of a quotidian, ongoing lesbian life on television.” Since Ellen’s coming out episode in 1997, a number of queer characters, generally secondary characters, have appeared on both broadcast and cable television. Choose a program with a queer character from the 2000s that you are familiar with and examine whether or not that character’s relationship to their sexuality is truly serialized or only focuse
One of my favorite shows from the 2000s, Will & Grace, centers around a group of best friends who are working professionals living in New York City. Grace, is an interior designer and a straight woman who lives with her best friend Will, a lawyer who is a gay man. Also, in their friend circle is Will's friend Jack, an actor who is also profoundly gay and Grace's friend Karen, a socialite/housewife who is a straight woman. Jack, a supporting character on Will & Grace , most definitely has his homosexuality serialized. Will, a main character, is outwardly gay and dating men as well but the show really chooses to play on Jack's homosexuality (perhaps because he is a supporting character, and identifying as gay was not so common in the public sphere just yet). Jack's homosexuality is serialized as he is constantly singing when entering rooms, obsessing over his idol (and mine) Cher, and just constantly being 'overdramatic' and 'feminine.' Personally, the character of Jack is why I love Will & Grace so much; I feel like the whole message of the character of Jack is that it is totally okay to be different as people should love you for who you are. That being said, I do think that the show could have gone more into depth with Will's homosexuality, yet there was some kind of fear of having a main character on a television sitcom in the 2000s being openly gay. It was a risk that the network, NBC, was not willing to pursue any further.
Grey's Anatomy is open about social issues surround race, class, gender, and sexuality. The show is sort of like an ER mixed with Sex and the City, empowering women to own their sexuality and to not be so quiet about it. Callie is an orthopedic surgeon who identifies as bisexual. The first few seasons she identifies as straight, sleeping with several male co workers and even marrying George, a surgical intern. She has a turning point when she starts to "notice" women more and tries to suppress her urges and deny it. She eventually has a turning point and goes on to marry Arizona Robbins. Callie's family is not okay with her bisexuality and basically disowns her before her wedding. She goes through a rough patch and sleeps with her best friend Mark Sloan and gets pregnant. The show is notorious for over dramatizing and adding huge plot twists. This further complicates her and Arizona's lives but they come to embrace the chaos and live together.
The show displays the complexity of life and sexuality at a whole other level. Callie and Arizona are very comfortable with their sexuality. There are many implied sex scenes and kissing between the two but they are rarely ever shown naked, in bed, after sex together. I am not sure if this is the networks decision or the show runner's. It is definitely a main focus relationship because the characters are present in its run today but the show itself often has several relationships in focuse throughout the series. There is always something happening and is just another dramatic element to draw attention to "real life" and many social issues that come with it. Sexuality in Grey's is a serial topic but has added to its success on television.
One of my favorite shows of all time is Shameless. It’s hilarious, it’s unapologetic, and it’s true to form. Living in southside Chicago (with actual shooting locations based on the southside), the Gallaghers are a lower income family full of raunchy, dangerous, and illegal behaviors. They’re hilarious in the most inappropriate way and I love everything about the show. Showtime allows this program to say and do whatever it wants because why the hell not, it’s Showtime. And one of my favorite aspects of this show are the relationships. Fiona gets in all the bad relationships, Lip is just bad at relationships, and Ian is exploring his sexuality with some good and some not-so great guys. What’s great about what Shameless does is that it portrays queer relationships just as it would any straight relationship. The program shows just as much sex, just as much fighting, and just as much love in a queer relationship as they would for any of Fiona’s or Lip’s straight relationships. And since Showtime isn’t on cable, they can show as much nudity as they like, which they do. Something interesting to note, though, is that at the same time they treat queer relationships just like they would straight relationships, the show does put more focus on how Ian is portrayed as a gay man in this poorer Chicago neighborhood. More jokes are pointed his way and he has to be more secretive about his relationships, but at the same time Ian is very candid about his feelings and doesn’t feel the need to apologize for who he is. I would wholeheartedly argue that Ian and his relationships are truly serialized in the series. He is a main character and his relationships are treated just as importantly as Fiona’s or Lip’s.
As time goes on, it seems that almost every television show has a character who identifies as homosexual. One show that this is very prevalent in is Orange is the New Black, being set in a women's prison. The main character Piper begins heterosexual but we soon find out that she has a past with one of the current inmates, and though she is married ends up having an affair with her when the love is rekindled. But thy are not the only lesbian couple. One that I think is very serialized is Boo. Boo is the epitome of what you would label a dyke. She has a short hair cut, dresses and carries herself like a man, and treats her partners terribly. The show likes to lay emphasis on her "don't care" attitude and her love for women and only women. In a couple of episodes she even tries to "turn" women who aren't homosexual into lesbians in order to have sex with them. This puts being gay into a negative light though it is combated by the many other homosexual females in the prison and the way that they interact with each other.
There have been many television programs that has a character who identifies as a homosexual. One character that comes to mind is Marc St. James from Ugly Betty (2006-2010). His character is portrayed as the stereotypical flamboyant assistant to the Creative Director of MODE magazine Wilhelmina Slater. In order to hide his identity from his mother, he would pretend that he had a girlfriend who lived in another. However, after his mother says something mean to Betty’s nephew Justin, he stands up to him and at the same time comes out to her. In the beginning his sexuality arch was not serialized until he came out. That moment became a turning point for him and finally felt free and fought for whom he wanted to love. He even helps Justin come to terms with his sexuality when he first came out towards the end of season 4 making his character’s relationship to his sexuality focused.
In an ideal world, a gay character on a television series would have as many other multi-dimensional facets as any straight character. Their gay identity would be one of many identities the character possesses, and, as many scholars including McCarthy points out, creating depth and multiple identities is the key to presenting characters that are not stereotypical in their representation of an identity and carry the ability to be featured serially (not as ‘special events’). I’m surprised that no one has talked about Modern Family on this blog yet, so I will take the honor. I would love to make gay identity mundane, but so far, I would argue the majority of television shows are stuck ‘otherizing’ gay identity by making it the sole most important aspect of every gay character.
In Modern Family, a sitcom that focuses on the extended Pritchett family, there are two gay characters central to the series. Mitchell and Cameron are a married couple with an adopted daughter who are in nearly every episode of the series, but not the sole focus or lead of the series (that would be the white, straight, Jay Pritchett). Cameron is a more obviously stereotypically gay representation: he loves theatre, singing and dancing, home decoration, and is easily queasy. His flamboyant, gay identity is central to his central. I could not imagine Cameron as a straight character, which is my own Bechdel test for how much writers rely on gay identity to form a character’s core. Mitchell, on the other hand, has a much more multidimensional representation. Mitchell is tough in the courtroom, but sensitive and shy at home. He struggles with being too appeasing. He is much less neurotic when it comes to raising his daughter than Cameron is. I could picture the same Mitchell character (sensitive yet highly practical) as a straight man. Mitchell’s gay identity is not the lone pillar holding up his character, and I would argue that his characterization is more easily adopted into a serialized format. However, most of the Modern Family episodes that focus exclusively on Mitchell and Cameron are still “special event” episodes that focus on exclusively gay issues. Examples include, their gay wedding, the adopting of their child (because as a gay couple they can’t have their own), and any time Cameron directs a big show.
For a number of years now, I’ve been enamored with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Yes, it’s crude, it’s raunchy, and it’s about as low-brow as they come. The writers have managed to avoid any possible likable quality about any of the characters, making them the scum of the earth, and yet, they’re enamoring and gripping. Mac’s sexual identity is a long-running joke, and the writers address it softly. Mac was born and raised a devout Catholic, and as a result, he was raised believing homosexuality is a damning sin. It becomes clear over the course of multiple seasons that the image of hypermasculinity that he tries to display is a facade. In the finale of season 10, when Mac believes he’ll be drowning to death in a number of minutes, he admits to his friends that he is, in fact, gay. After they miraculously escape (it’s a sitcom, nobody dies on a sitcom), he retracts his statement and returns to his denial. Though his closeted sexuality is a recurring joke, Mac’s identity as a character goes far beyond that. He’s known for a number of his other fun qualities, including his love for kung fu, wrestling, and working out. In a way, the writers attack his sexuality by making fun of it incessantly, but on the other hand, they’ve written in a multi-faceted gay character whose identity extends beyond being gay. Some far more distinguished writers certainly struggle with that.
The first example I could think of was South Park. The show has dozens of characters that are gay, bisexual, and transgender. Since the show is simultaneously satirical and truthful, it is hard to tell whether the show is making fun of gay people or making fun of the stereotypes of the gay community built by straight people. Mr./Mrs. Garrison goes through several operations to change genders, starting as a closeted gay man, coming out as a gay man, undergoing surgery to become a woman biologically, coming out as a lesbian, and having surgery to return to his birth sex. This could be read as a criticism of gender reassignment surgeries and fluid sexualities, claiming that one can "change his/her mind," nullifying all previous claims. It could also be an indicator of the difficulty with a character being gay "every single week." Personally, I think it's a comedic device that Matt and Trey use to explore Garrison as a character in himself because he is so beyond identification for any audience member.
The representation of Tweek and Craig as a couple is consistent every week and they are also the only functional relationship depicted in the show in the past 3-4 seasons. They support and understand each other and though they are side characters, they often are part of primary storylines or sometimes have their own one-off episodes. They also have personalities and characteristics that aren't solely dependent and characterized by their queerness. It's just a part of the show that Tweek and Craig are a couple and that's it.
A commentary that they did make a few seasons ago was on Caitlyn Jenner's transition to female. The episode, "Stunning and Brave," highlights the fact that no one could make any other claims about Jenner aside from the fact that she is beautiful and strong for doing that, and when Kyle tries to understand why the town is idolizing her despite the fact that she had done nothing aside from run over children with her car, he is criticized as being a bigot and transphobic. This is the commentary on the fact that very often, in attempts to be politically correct and supportive, the world forgets that people have other characteristics. Pardon the crassness of the next sentence, but their point boils down to this: you can fill in the blanks of "Not all ____s are ____" with anything, good or bad. Not all republicans are rednecks, not all black people are gang members, and not all transgender people are angels.
One of my favorite shows from the 2000s, Will & Grace, centers around a group of best friends who are working professionals living in New York City. Grace, is an interior designer and a straight woman who lives with her best friend Will, a lawyer who is a gay man. Also, in their friend circle is Will's friend Jack, an actor who is also profoundly gay and Grace's friend Karen, a socialite/housewife who is a straight woman. Jack, a supporting character on Will & Grace , most definitely has his homosexuality serialized. Will, a main character, is outwardly gay and dating men as well but the show really chooses to play on Jack's homosexuality (perhaps because he is a supporting character, and identifying as gay was not so common in the public sphere just yet). Jack's homosexuality is serialized as he is constantly singing when entering rooms, obsessing over his idol (and mine) Cher, and just constantly being 'overdramatic' and 'feminine.' Personally, the character of Jack is why I love Will & Grace so much; I feel like the whole message of the character of Jack is that it is totally okay to be different as people should love you for who you are. That being said, I do think that the show could have gone more into depth with Will's homosexuality, yet there was some kind of fear of having a main character on a television sitcom in the 2000s being openly gay. It was a risk that the network, NBC, was not willing to pursue any further.
ReplyDeleteGrey's Anatomy is open about social issues surround race, class, gender, and sexuality. The show is sort of like an ER mixed with Sex and the City, empowering women to own their sexuality and to not be so quiet about it. Callie is an orthopedic surgeon who identifies as bisexual. The first few seasons she identifies as straight, sleeping with several male co workers and even marrying George, a surgical intern. She has a turning point when she starts to "notice" women more and tries to suppress her urges and deny it. She eventually has a turning point and goes on to marry Arizona Robbins. Callie's family is not okay with her bisexuality and basically disowns her before her wedding. She goes through a rough patch and sleeps with her best friend Mark Sloan and gets pregnant. The show is notorious for over dramatizing and adding huge plot twists. This further complicates her and Arizona's lives but they come to embrace the chaos and live together.
ReplyDeleteThe show displays the complexity of life and sexuality at a whole other level. Callie and Arizona are very comfortable with their sexuality. There are many implied sex scenes and kissing between the two but they are rarely ever shown naked, in bed, after sex together. I am not sure if this is the networks decision or the show runner's. It is definitely a main focus relationship because the characters are present in its run today but the show itself often has several relationships in focuse throughout the series. There is always something happening and is just another dramatic element to draw attention to "real life" and many social issues that come with it. Sexuality in Grey's is a serial topic but has added to its success on television.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite shows of all time is Shameless. It’s hilarious, it’s unapologetic, and it’s true to form. Living in southside Chicago (with actual shooting locations based on the southside), the Gallaghers are a lower income family full of raunchy, dangerous, and illegal behaviors. They’re hilarious in the most inappropriate way and I love everything about the show. Showtime allows this program to say and do whatever it wants because why the hell not, it’s Showtime. And one of my favorite aspects of this show are the relationships. Fiona gets in all the bad relationships, Lip is just bad at relationships, and Ian is exploring his sexuality with some good and some not-so great guys. What’s great about what Shameless does is that it portrays queer relationships just as it would any straight relationship. The program shows just as much sex, just as much fighting, and just as much love in a queer relationship as they would for any of Fiona’s or Lip’s straight relationships. And since Showtime isn’t on cable, they can show as much nudity as they like, which they do. Something interesting to note, though, is that at the same time they treat queer relationships just like they would straight relationships, the show does put more focus on how Ian is portrayed as a gay man in this poorer Chicago neighborhood. More jokes are pointed his way and he has to be more secretive about his relationships, but at the same time Ian is very candid about his feelings and doesn’t feel the need to apologize for who he is. I would wholeheartedly argue that Ian and his relationships are truly serialized in the series. He is a main character and his relationships are treated just as importantly as Fiona’s or Lip’s.
ReplyDeleteAs time goes on, it seems that almost every television show has a character who identifies as homosexual. One show that this is very prevalent in is Orange is the New Black, being set in a women's prison. The main character Piper begins heterosexual but we soon find out that she has a past with one of the current inmates, and though she is married ends up having an affair with her when the love is rekindled. But thy are not the only lesbian couple. One that I think is very serialized is Boo. Boo is the epitome of what you would label a dyke. She has a short hair cut, dresses and carries herself like a man, and treats her partners terribly. The show likes to lay emphasis on her "don't care" attitude and her love for women and only women. In a couple of episodes she even tries to "turn" women who aren't homosexual into lesbians in order to have sex with them. This puts being gay into a negative light though it is combated by the many other homosexual females in the prison and the way that they interact with each other.
ReplyDeleteThere have been many television programs that has a character who identifies as a homosexual. One character that comes to mind is Marc St. James from Ugly Betty (2006-2010). His character is portrayed as the stereotypical flamboyant assistant to the Creative Director of MODE magazine Wilhelmina Slater. In order to hide his identity from his mother, he would pretend that he had a girlfriend who lived in another. However, after his mother says something mean to Betty’s nephew Justin, he stands up to him and at the same time comes out to her. In the beginning his sexuality arch was not serialized until he came out. That moment became a turning point for him and finally felt free and fought for whom he wanted to love. He even helps Justin come to terms with his sexuality when he first came out towards the end of season 4 making his character’s relationship to his sexuality focused.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn an ideal world, a gay character on a television series would have as many other multi-dimensional facets as any straight character. Their gay identity would be one of many identities the character possesses, and, as many scholars including McCarthy points out, creating depth and multiple identities is the key to presenting characters that are not stereotypical in their representation of an identity and carry the ability to be featured serially (not as ‘special events’). I’m surprised that no one has talked about Modern Family on this blog yet, so I will take the honor. I would love to make gay identity mundane, but so far, I would argue the majority of television shows are stuck ‘otherizing’ gay identity by making it the sole most important aspect of every gay character.
ReplyDeleteIn Modern Family, a sitcom that focuses on the extended Pritchett family, there are two gay characters central to the series. Mitchell and Cameron are a married couple with an adopted daughter who are in nearly every episode of the series, but not the sole focus or lead of the series (that would be the white, straight, Jay Pritchett). Cameron is a more obviously stereotypically gay representation: he loves theatre, singing and dancing, home decoration, and is easily queasy. His flamboyant, gay identity is central to his central. I could not imagine Cameron as a straight character, which is my own Bechdel test for how much writers rely on gay identity to form a character’s core. Mitchell, on the other hand, has a much more multidimensional representation. Mitchell is tough in the courtroom, but sensitive and shy at home. He struggles with being too appeasing. He is much less neurotic when it comes to raising his daughter than Cameron is. I could picture the same Mitchell character (sensitive yet highly practical) as a straight man. Mitchell’s gay identity is not the lone pillar holding up his character, and I would argue that his characterization is more easily adopted into a serialized format. However, most of the Modern Family episodes that focus exclusively on Mitchell and Cameron are still “special event” episodes that focus on exclusively gay issues. Examples include, their gay wedding, the adopting of their child (because as a gay couple they can’t have their own), and any time Cameron directs a big show.
For a number of years now, I’ve been enamored with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Yes, it’s crude, it’s raunchy, and it’s about as low-brow as they come. The writers have managed to avoid any possible likable quality about any of the characters, making them the scum of the earth, and yet, they’re enamoring and gripping. Mac’s sexual identity is a long-running joke, and the writers address it softly. Mac was born and raised a devout Catholic, and as a result, he was raised believing homosexuality is a damning sin. It becomes clear over the course of multiple seasons that the image of hypermasculinity that he tries to display is a facade. In the finale of season 10, when Mac believes he’ll be drowning to death in a number of minutes, he admits to his friends that he is, in fact, gay. After they miraculously escape (it’s a sitcom, nobody dies on a sitcom), he retracts his statement and returns to his denial.
ReplyDeleteThough his closeted sexuality is a recurring joke, Mac’s identity as a character goes far beyond that. He’s known for a number of his other fun qualities, including his love for kung fu, wrestling, and working out. In a way, the writers attack his sexuality by making fun of it incessantly, but on the other hand, they’ve written in a multi-faceted gay character whose identity extends beyond being gay. Some far more distinguished writers certainly struggle with that.
The first example I could think of was South Park. The show has dozens of characters that are gay, bisexual, and transgender. Since the show is simultaneously satirical and truthful, it is hard to tell whether the show is making fun of gay people or making fun of the stereotypes of the gay community built by straight people. Mr./Mrs. Garrison goes through several operations to change genders, starting as a closeted gay man, coming out as a gay man, undergoing surgery to become a woman biologically, coming out as a lesbian, and having surgery to return to his birth sex. This could be read as a criticism of gender reassignment surgeries and fluid sexualities, claiming that one can "change his/her mind," nullifying all previous claims. It could also be an indicator of the difficulty with a character being gay "every single week." Personally, I think it's a comedic device that Matt and Trey use to explore Garrison as a character in himself because he is so beyond identification for any audience member.
ReplyDeleteThe representation of Tweek and Craig as a couple is consistent every week and they are also the only functional relationship depicted in the show in the past 3-4 seasons. They support and understand each other and though they are side characters, they often are part of primary storylines or sometimes have their own one-off episodes. They also have personalities and characteristics that aren't solely dependent and characterized by their queerness. It's just a part of the show that Tweek and Craig are a couple and that's it.
A commentary that they did make a few seasons ago was on Caitlyn Jenner's transition to female. The episode, "Stunning and Brave," highlights the fact that no one could make any other claims about Jenner aside from the fact that she is beautiful and strong for doing that, and when Kyle tries to understand why the town is idolizing her despite the fact that she had done nothing aside from run over children with her car, he is criticized as being a bigot and transphobic. This is the commentary on the fact that very often, in attempts to be politically correct and supportive, the world forgets that people have other characteristics. Pardon the crassness of the next sentence, but their point boils down to this: you can fill in the blanks of "Not all ____s are ____" with anything, good or bad. Not all republicans are rednecks, not all black people are gang members, and not all transgender people are angels.