Keep Moving Forward

 Society is constantly moving forward, attempting to keep up with the technology and advances made within the population. Sometimes it'll hit a snag and the advancing isn't quite caught up with the technology that we have. At this point television plays a major role in our culture, and therefore affects what we think, while also being affected by the norms of our culture. As the years have gone by, more effort has been put into representing a larger group of people on the tv, rather than the typical blonde white female and her white jock boyfriend. Flipping on the tv, you can see a bit more variety than you could at other points in time. All of this is good and all, but sometimes this representation has not actually caught up with society, which happens to be the case of homosexuals in today. The abundance of gay stereotypes on tv is a detriment to this attempted advance of society.

Don't get me wrong, tv is filled with stereotypes, it's like their bread and butter. And as annoying as that can get at times, that won't change any time soon. The problem that arises is exactly what stereotype each character falls under. A character can fall into several stereotypes, at least, if they're heterosexual. If a character is gay, that is their stereotype. Being gay isn't just a part of who that character is; it's who they are, the only thing they are and likely the only thing they will be. In a world of such variety, this random snag is a bit anachronistic. It's a good thing that homosexuals are being portrayed on tv now, but at times one might question whether not having any representation might be better than a negative portrayal. And even if they don't seem terribly negative at first, they can still do some damage with negative stereotypes.

Glee is sometimes called the gayest show on air; or at least, my sister swears it is. And it's true that Glee has more gay characters than most shows. But we still have a problem: they're all horrible stereotypes. Starting with Kurt, the first one revealed (in the third episode, nonetheless), the show has depicted its gay character as simply that: gay. Kurt's personality traits involve a love of theater and fashion, and when he comes out to his dad in the fourth episode, he's hardly surprised. One hardly has to explain how this is stereotypical, as Kurt fills the token gay spot on the show throughout the first season. One rather egregious stereotype that Kurt fills is that gay men actually want to be women: in an episode where the glee club has to split into the separate genders, Mr. Shue has to make Kurt go with the guys. This is besides the fact that Kurt is most certainly assured of his gender, and most of the time he groups himself with the ladies over the guys, for no apparent reason since he certainly identifies as a male.

In season two Kurt gets a boyfriend, Blaine, who goes to an all boy's private school and would be seen as a much more obvious gay stereotype if not for the fact that he's being compared to Kurt. He's very obviously not as much of a stereotype because he likes to watch football (which seems to be the curve ball producers use to prove that the character is not a gay stereotype because “look, they like a sport, that's manly, right?”) Other than that, he also loves fashion and theater, but has a tendency to be only a bit more subtle than Kurt about it.

Just to prove that they could also include a female stereotype, they made sure to include Brittany and Santana. These two had originally just been the background cheerleaders to stand behind the queen bee, but thanks to the fans, they managed to morph into what they are today. Now, they manage to fulfill the “hot lesbians” quota, as they are the typical “lipstick lesbian” stereotype. Another stereotype that they manage to fill is that of Brittany's bisexuality, which manifests itself in her being that girl who has dated everyone in the school, another stereotype (that of bisexuality equaling promiscuity.)

Glee is not the only show on the air with gay people on it. One of the popular shows recently is Modern Family, and one of the couples featured on this show is that of Cam and Mitchell. Less egregious than the Glee examples, they play to one major stereotype: the idea that one of the members of a gay couple must be the female in the relationship. In this couple, that role falls to Cam, who enjoys theater and fashion, has flamboyant mannerisms and is also the stay at home dad. While neither of them are particularly manly, they do have a couple of supposedly non gay traits (Cam likes football), this only perpetuates the stereotype further.

And a great many people are probably thinking at this point, so what? Why does it matter, what harm does it do? Gay people like this exist, but they also aren't the only way that a gay person can act. And therein lies the problem. Yes, some gay people act like this. The keyword is some. Stereotypes effect both parties in this: both the ones being stereotyped and the ones viewing the stereotyping. These shows perpetuate the stereotypes, and that reinforces them in the minds of the viewers. Not everyone who watches these shows are going to know a gay person in real life; they won't be able to make the connection that not all homosexuals are what they see on tv. Not only that, but for those being stereotyped, it can cause problems for their well being. People who feel stereotyped are more likely to be irritable, aggressive, and over-eat, according to a study by Science Daily. Not only that, but members of minority groups are more likely to stereotype themselves according to the norm when they are faced with such discrimination, as seen in a study done by Simon and Hamilton, both psychologists.

How do we fix this, though? One can hardly complain about something without an idea of how to fix the problem. Being proud of one's sexuality is not the problem; having gay characters on tv who acknowledge their sexuality isn't either. The problem is that their gayness is their only trait. The way that tv should start going is to make it so that this one part of a character is not their only trait. Rather, our characters could just happen to be gay, with other traits aside from that, which are more focused on. An example of this on tv would be the character of Oscar from The Office. He is gay, but that is not his only trait. People know that he is gay and they do not skirt around the issue, but he also happens to be a know-it-all, a bit uptight, which would more be the stereotype of an accountant than that of a gay man. This way the characters traits are not nearly as trivialized, and being gay does not define the character.

This is a problem that doesn't just affect homosexuals; this same thing happens to all different minority groups. Whether it be based on sexuality, ethnicity, gender, what have you, this can hurt many people aside from just this one group. And we the viewers shouldn't put up with it, or let the producers go back to their tired old stereotypes. Society is moving forward, and so too should what we see on the television screen. That's why we need to make that fact known to those who produce our tv shows: make sure they know that we don't want to put up with their stereotyping of minorities. We shouldn't let them put their hand in a bag and pull out a stereotype for their characters. Make them put more thought and depth into their characters; try writing to the producers of these shows in order to make these characters more realistic and less harmful. If that doesn't work, and very well might not, maybe even boycott the shows! A person just needs to show that something matters to them before other people start to do anything about it. If we don't show them we care, they'll keep this up for who knows how much longer; we can help drag them forward, into the future.