Trying to Forget the Crushing Defeats since 2009

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Boston–Jack is an Actor, Kurt is a singer, and Christian is a designer. What do all of these men have in common? They are all characters on popular television shows, and they have all drawn ire for being “too gay.”

An ever-changing television atmosphere and a broadcast set eager to target new niches have introduced many new gay faces to TV, but critics have been quick to decry what they see as damaging, stereotypical characters.

What has transpired with the recent success of TV shows such as FOX’s Glee and Lifetime’s “Project Runway” is a conflict between activists in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (or LGBT community), with one side pushing for more gay characters on television, with others pushing for TV’s existing gay characters to more accurately portray real life.

Yet this issue is not old: the arguments that surfaced as Kurt from “Glee” came out on national television closely follow the arguments in the 1990’s when “Will and Grace” polarized audiences by showing Jack, the flamboyant, effeminate gay actor next to Will, the toned-down gay lawyer.

“I think that there has been representation of gay people in a non-hyper-effeminate form: Will [from ‘Will and Grace’] is not as effeminate as Jack is,” said Tyler Sit, a Chapel Associate in charge of LGBT Ministry at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. “The thing about ‘Glee’ is, it’s okay for Kurt to be gay, but I would have liked to see someone else—like the black football player—be gay as well.”

“Glee’s” status as lightning rod for LGBT issues was cemented last month in a Newsweek editorial by Ramin Setoodeh, who questioned whether Kurt, a flamboyant gay character on FOX’s hit show “Glee,” was hurting the movement for marriage equality.

“In one episode, the glee club split into a boys’ team and a girls’ team. Guess which side Kurt went for?” he said. “If Kurt were transgendered, all that would make perfect sense, but he’s not. Instead, he’s that oldest of clichés: the sensitive gay boy who really wants to be a girl.”

“If we accept that ‘Will and Grace’…once fostered acceptance, it’s fair to ask if Glee may be hurting it,” Setoodeh added, “because the Kurt model is everywhere.”

Sarah Hall, a Sophomore at the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences, said that while the stereotype was alive and well, it is not actually damaging. “A lot of the gay people on TV are endearing but they do promote the stereotype a lot,” she said. “So many gay people are not that stereotype at all, and it gives them an inaccurate representation.”

“In an idealized world, there would be less stereotyping and more actual reality,” she said.

Andy Cohen, Executive Vice President of Original Programming at Bravo TV, said he was ambivalent about the style of gay characters on television, as long as the proportions were in line. “I think that the more gays there are on TV the better it is for all of us,” he said, “[and] I don’t think it matters whether they’re effeminate or what they act like, what their mannerisms are, it matters what people they are.”

Deborah Jaramillo, Professor of Television Studies at the Boston University School of Communication, said that what televisions most famous gay characters have in common is that they are upper middle class and educated—itself the cause of why many are accepted.

“I think that one of the reasons that the LGBT community is actually becoming better represented on television is because…we’re seeing white, upwardly mobile, middle and upper-class folks,” she said. “When you have that it makes everything more acceptable.”

“The more money you have, the more acceptable you are,” she added.

While discussing negative stereotypes of LGBT people on television, Cohen said gays are not the only minority to experience negative stereotyping at the hands of television.

Cohen alluded to the evolution of black characters: “I think the first representations of black people were white people’s caricatures of what they thought black people were or should be on TV,” he said. “And I think that’s what the first gay characters were drawn out to.”

“I think the representation of every minority group is way out of whack,” Cohen said, “and gays are probably one of them.”

The sparring over accurately portraying gays on TV comes at a time where the role of the American homosexual is undergoing change. LGBT citizens looking for acceptance and equality post-Proposition 8 (the California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage) are striving to put a positive image forward in the hopes of swaying negative public opinion.

Andrew Hoffman, a Sophomore Media Arts Major at Temple University in Philadelphia, was optimistic at television’s chances of achieving this goal. “If [television] is powerful enough to hurt with negative images and negative portrayal, then it certainly can help.”

Hall agreed. “If somebody sees something on TV they’re more likely to accept it as opposed to thinking it’s alien,” she said. “If they’re first acclimated to it through television, they’re more likely to be accepting—at least they’ve seen it somewhere.”

Jaramillo said, however, that the fight for acceptance by the general public should not lead to normalization—homogenization is not, and should not be, the cause. “In terms of making a type of person normal, I have issues with whether or not that should be the function of television, to normalize people,” she said. “Is that really the mission?”

Jaramillo cited Elle Shohat’s 1994 book “Unthinking Eurocentrism” in saying that the entire issue of gay representation exposes rifts between cultural minorities and majorities. “There’s this idea that when white folks are in film or on television they can be anything, they can represent anything, and it doesn’t reflect back on the white community,” she said. “If you see a negative portrayal of an African-American in film or on television, that almost automatically reflects back on the higher, black community.”

Whether or not the portrayal of gays on television is accurate, Cohen said, the atmosphere on television has vastly changed in the last twenty years. “When I started in TV in 1990 there was, I think, The Real World was one of the few shows that had gay people on it,” he said. “The gay representation on TV has really exploded and I think that ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ was a huge show…I think ‘Will and Grace’ was huge, and I think that there are just so many more gay people on TV. It’s just secondhand, the idea [of a gay person on television]. It’s not a big deal.”