Gay And Lesbian Characters example essay topic

The 1990's saw surge of gay characters in both television and movies. From Ellen Degeneres and her character Ellen Morgan coming out under much scrutiny on the TV show 'Ellen,' to Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett co medically playing off each other in the motion picture 'My Best Friend's Wedding. ' Sure, gays and lesbians have been around forever, especially in Hollywood. But never has there been a time to be more out. With the popularity of shows like Will and Grace, which feature leading gay characters, as well as Dawson's Creek and it's supporting character of teenager Jack McPhee, we are slowly seeing gay and lesbian characters creeping into the mainstream media. The family unit has always been a treasured and revered dynamic on television and in movies.

Dating all the way back to I Love Lucy, storyline's focused on the relationship between man and woman. Ozzie and Harriet introduced us to the quintessential American family-father in a suit, mother in pearls, and two exceptional children. It wasn't until the 1970's that gay characters and lifestyles began to emerge. In 1973, An American Family, a PBS series featured one of the family's sons revealing his homosexuality. In 1977, the television show Soap costarred Billy Crystal as an openly gay man. In the 1980's, it became trendy to feature gay and lesbian characters in ensemble casts.

If you watch reruns, you can always find the token gay, that is, the really flaming homo or the butch lesbian gym teacher. The motion picture Mannequin, starring Andrew McCarthy and Kim Cat rall, featured Meshach Taylor as Hollywood, an eccentric, finger-snapping homosexual. Many stereotypes such as these continued until the early nineties. In 1991, on LA Law, two women share the first same sex kiss on prime time television. A few years later, NBC's hit show FRIENDS featured Ross Gellar's ex wife as a lesbian, raining a child with her female partner.

At the same time, the FOX network censored a gay same sex kiss on Melrose Place, a show known for pushing limits. Around the same time, censors and right wing groups were up in arms over a kiss shared by Roseanne and Mariel Hemming way. In the end, that kiss was also censored. But things were slowly evolving in the movies. Independent films had been featuring gays and lesbians as main characters, depicting real life and real relationships. Armistead Maupin's Tales of The City revolved around a homo-hetero pairing.

The hit movie Clueless introduced a young audience to the concept of having a supportive gay friend as a character. The Birdcage, starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams centered around a gay couple and their straight son. The movie In & Out starred Kevin Kline as a teacher discovering his sexuality in his 30's while being pursued by Tom Selleck. As the 90's progressed, the idea of the gay male-straight female dynamic became popular in Hollywood after witnessing real life culture. It seemed as though everybody in the industry had or knew someone who had a gay best friend. 'Friend' Jennifer Aniston starred in the 1998 film, the Object of My Affection, in which she decides to raise her unborn child with her gay best friend George.

Helen Hunt and Greg Kinder developed a friendship in As Good As It Gets, for which both were nominated for Academy Awards. My Best Friend's Wedding became a huge success and most reviews talked about the relationship between Everett and Roberts. Other films such as The Opposite of Sex, Trick, Beautiful Thing, and Get Real all depicted gay characters as the focus of the movie. The spillover into primetime television was a bit trickier. When news leaked that Ellen's character was going to come out as a lesbian, viewers, censorship groups and sponsors were once again crying 'immorality. ' The episode aired, and the character was a lesbian, but the show, unfortunately, could not get the ratings it needed to stay on the air.

Ellen did open the door and raise the bar though. Party Of Five's Julia Salinger kisses her female writing instructor. The Will of NBC's new hit Will & Grace is a character that is not only gay, but also masculine, personable and the roommate of a very attractive woman. The WB's Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer soon followed, making supporting characters gay and lesbian. HBO's Sex & The City turned one of its core characters, staunch heterosexual Samantha Jones into a swinging bisexual. The network also features OZ and Six Feet Under, both of which have gay characters and storyline's.

Most recently, the now defunct show Once & Again, featured a story where a teenage character begins a relationship with her best friend and shows the youngest lesbian kiss on television so far. This was most surprising because the show aired on ABC, the company owned by the usually conservative Disney Corporation. It's also rumored that gay characters are in cartoons and children's shows. For instance, Tiny Winky, the purple, purse carrying Tellitubby. And then there is the strange duo of Sesame Street's Burt and Ernie, Batman & Robin, Peppermint Patty and ambiguous Marcy from the Peanuts Gang. Vanity Smurf and Hefty Smurf, created in the 80's also fit the gay stereotype of the time.

The one arena that has involved homosexuality in its storyline's is daytime. The first fully realized gay character was conceptualized on the soap opera Another World in 1974, but the story never aired due to nervous executives. Other soaps, such as Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless flirted with lesbian storyline's. The first substantial gay character was a lesbian psychologist on All My Children in 1983. In 1988, soaps' first gay male character was introduced on As The World Turns. In 1992, a young Ryan Philippe was introduced as a gay teen struggling with the coming out process.

In the 1990's, All My Children continued to introduce other gay characters and romantic storyline's. It's fitting then that perhaps the biggest gay themed story in daytime has been at All My Children. In 2000, the soap opera stunned the daytime audience by making Bianca Montgomery, daughter of Susan Lucci's sexpot character Erica Kane, a lesbian. The show has been dealing with Les-Bianca and her coming out over the last 15 months, much the way a family would deal with it in real life. The most controversial show now on the air is Showtime's Queer As Folk.

Surprisingly, much of the criticism is coming from the gay community, who feel that the show is mis representative and undoing all of the strides to mainstream gays in the media over the last decade. Why? The show centers around the lives of 4 gay friends in Pittsburg. It deals with topics from underage sex, drug abuse, gay and lesbian parenting which are all good.

But the protests come from the gratuitous sex scenes featured in each episode. Some have even gone so far as to dismiss the show as soft-core porn. With the continuing trends and presence of gay characters, it seems as though Hollywood is headed in the right direction. The purpose of television and film is to entertain the masses. Well, those masses include gays and lesbians too. Their relationships should be represented and explored.

Hopefully one day, it will come to a point where storyline's and characters won't have to be identified as gay and lesbian. They will just be stories and characters.

Bibliography

Campbell, Kim. Gay Characters Before and After 'Ellen'. The Christian Science Monitor. 6 April 2001.
Freydkin, Donna. Getting To Know You: Sitcoms Field Gay Characters. CNN Interactive. web Bruce. Roll Over, Ward Cleaver. Time Magazine. Vol. 149 Issue 15, 14 April 1997.
Harrington, C. Lee. Conditions of Represent-Ability: Homosexuality on "All My Children". GLAAD Center for Study of Media & Society. Nov 2001 web PDF / pdf file/93.
pdf Jacobs, A.J. When Gay Men Happen To Straight Women. Entertainment Weekly. Vol. 455.23 Oct 1998 Potts, Kimberly.
Queer As Folk", Not Your Typical TV Show. E! Online News 1 Dec 2002.