Sexual Orientation in the Media

  
     I really enjoyed our discussion in class and really appreaciated the input from our guests. When listening what the guests speakers had to say I realized that I have heard many of the things before as I have many friends that belong to the LGBTQ association.
  
 Looking at the media and the portrayal of gay or lesbian characters I see that the representation of them has not only changed dramatically but became a part of our everyday television experience. While watching the movie called "Further off the straight and narrow" one statement really caught my attention. It said that "You are not real unless you are on TV" and therefore not a long time ago the absence of gay people created this feeling that they in fact do not exist. It therefore would have been harder for the members of the LGBTQ community to realize that they are not alone and that there is people like them.
  
It was in fact the introduction of gay and lesbian people on TV that made the "idea" of gay people real. Although this might be true the representation of gay and lesbian people on TV presented them in light that was trying to create acceptance rather then breaking the taboo. In other words the characters needed to conform to the social and sexual norms in order to be perceived as "a good queer". The "good queer" was a person that conformed to the middle class norms of respectability.

The problem with this is that you never see the "less acceptable" gays, such as working class gays.
I feel like the representation of gays on television is a huge step forward in the sense of including them and not ignoring them, but the representation of gays is still not as free as it seems. They still need to conform to the social norms. I wonder what kind of a reaction would people give if they were represented in a different way. What do you think would be a true and the best way to represent the LGBTQ community members on television?

References

Farrell, K. (2006). HIV on TV. In Dines, G. & Humez, J. (Eds.), Gender, Race and Class in Media (399-407). Location: Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage.