LGBT Community and Discrimination.

1284 Words3 Pages

When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal. Media portrayal of the LGBT community is varying. It may be very positive and a “good” portrayal or negative and instead focuses on the stereotypical aspects of the LGBT community. One definition of a good LGBT television portrayal is one that depicts an LGBT character without over glaringly obviousness of their sexual orientation, or without adding many LGBT stereotypes that are all too often added. For example, many people believe Willow and Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good portrayal of a lesbian couple as it was one of the healthiest relationships on the show as well as realistic in the fact that it did not draw on any of the stereotypes that may or usually are added in LGBT relationships or simply LGBT characters in the media. It was also one of the most extensive couples on the show, ending only when Tara was tragically killed- not as characters often are in LGBT relationships for the sole reason that they are gay, but merely to add suspense and as writer Joss Whed... ... middle of paper ... ...l(s) if you are uncertain on how best to help a student. Lastly, support training for staff on these types of issues. Works Cited Adam Sharpiro, Megan Schultz, Christina Roush, Cassandra Schofar, Emily Shilling, Tawnia Simpson, Natalie Sampiller. Portrayal of Homosexuality in Media. 26 March 2014 . Huegel, Kelly. GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens. Vol. 1. Free Spirit Publishing, 2003. 1 vols. Issues: Hate Crimes. 14 March 2014 . Joanna Almeida, Renee M. Johnson, Heather L. Corliss, Beth E. Molnar. Emotional Distress among LGBT Youth: The Influence of Percieved Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation. 13 March 2014 . Riese, Jane. Bullying and Sexual Orientation. .

Show More
Related

  • The Life Course and Social Workers

    2680 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mercer, L. R. & Berger, R. M. (1989). Social service needs of lesbian and gay adolescents. Adolescent Sexuality: New Challenges for Social Workers. Haworth Press.

    Read More

  • Media's Influence on Sex, Gender, and Identity Perception

    931 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sex and Gender was the subject of the two movies Dreamworlds 3 and Further Off The Straight & Narrow. In Dreamworlds 3 Sex is portrayed as a status of life and happiness in the media. This media displays people as objects that can be manipulated for sexual pleasure. As the media is populated with sex it tiptoes around gender, specifically that of gays or lesbians. The film Further Off The Straight & Narrow emphasized the movement through media gay and lesbian topics. This text analyzes iconic television programs and how they reflect the societal stance during that time. As a member of a generation that has had the topic of these issues prominent I believe they are important but are banal. In this reflection I will be responding to two questions, what would woman driven Dreamworlds look like? And Do you agree with the statement that if you are not on television you don’t exist?

    Read More

  • Pop Culture Freaks Summary

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kidd, Dustin. 2014. “Not that There’s Anything Wrong with That: Sexuality Perspectives.” Pp. 129-163 in Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Read More

  • Erotic Objectification: Equally Degrading

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    This essay sets out to distinguish how male characters can be portrayed in the same fashion as their female counterparts, and therefore become subjected to the same erotic objectification. This will be researched under the circumstances that the production revolves around gay characters and the assumed audience is exchanged from a homogenous crowd of heterosexual spectators, to a homogenous crowd of homosexual spectators. To support this claim there will be references to a segment from the American remake of the television series Queer as Folk (USA, dev. Ron Cowen, Daniel Lipman, 2000-2005) where Brian Kinney (Gale Harold) and Justin Taylor (Randy Harris) first meet.

    Read More

  • LGBT Issues In Lady Gaga's Born This Way

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    Getting LGBT representation on television was an important part of the LGBT movement. With shows like Queer As Folk, Modern Family, How to Get Away with Murder, etc. representation has opened up for LGBT people. One major problem involving media and LGBT representation is the “Bury Your Gays” trope in which a LGBT (mostly a lesbian character) is killed off for no reason other than being a lesbian. We’ve seen this with shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Orphan Black, and The 100. The media’s view of LGBT people are both positive and

    Read More

  • Homosexuality in Television

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sexuality as a theme and as character identification has been intrinsically incorporated in American television since the beginning of film. Television programing from 1954 to present day includes references, content referencing and characters portraying gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people and their actions. When referencing homosexuality it is meant as the association of one to the attraction of the same sex.

    Read More

  • Gay African American on TV

    2543 Words  | 6 Pages

    Historically, the representation of gay, African-American men on television has fallen short of the mark . We have seen “sissies, faggots and finger-snapping queens” sashaying across the screen, feminizing and marginalizing African-American men by these racially insensitive and homophobic caricatures. In this paper I examine the characters: Keith Charles of HBO’s Six Feet Under, Omar Little of HBO’s The Wire, Lafayette Reynolds of HBO’s True Blood, and Julien Lowe of FX’s The Shield and how their characters manifest their masculinity. The three characters that appear on HBO shows are portrayed as strong, masculine, openly gay men. Only Lowe, the sole African-American gay man who has appeared on a basic cable hour-long television drama is a closeted gay character. Since the “out” characters appear on HBO and the closeted character appears on basic cable, is it possible that an audience who can afford to pay for HBO is tolerant of the representation of masculine gay men while an audience watching on basic cable is not tolerant of that representation? Or is HBO’s marketing campaign, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO” an experimentation with “genre, coupled with their strategy of distancing themselves from broadcast television culminating in a distinguishable brand name and a noticeable schism between pay cable and broadcast television” (Jaramillo 60). Or rather, is the HBO audience one that is able to pay for a subscription to HBO, just gazing at these characters? Are these characters just a twist on the “big black buck” stereotype for a post-modern audience – one comfortable with explorations of masculine, racialized, gay desire? HBO’s marketing certainly attempts to position itself as a step above broadcast TV, airing programming that is de...

    Read More

  • Comparison of Turkeys in the Kitchen and You Just Walk on By Essays

    1651 Words  | 4 Pages

    Carstarphen, Meta G., and Susan C. Zavoina. Sexual Rhetoric: Media Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Print.

    Read More

  • The Film Philadelphia- Prejudice on an Innnocent Man

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    The LGBTQ community has wanted to see same sex romances blossom on the screen for as long as film has been around, but overtime has come with some consequences. It has brought to light what people don’t want to talk about and has stereotyped all LGBTQ with the same wreck less, careless, and erotic lifestyles and behaviorisms. This is seen initially wit...

    Read More

  • Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and the Media - Lesbians on TV

    3592 Words  | 8 Pages

    When television first appeared back in the 1940's, times were very different.  What we would consider completely normal today would have seemed quite taboo just a few decades ago. For example, in 1953, Lucille Ball was not allowed to say the word "pregnant" while she was expecting baby Ricky and it wasn't until the 1960's show Bewitched, that we saw a married couple actually sharing the same bed.  Considering how conservative the television networks were back then, it is not hard to deduce that something as controversial as homosexuality would be far from discussed or portrayed at any level.  It was only in 1973 that television premiered its first homosexual character.  Over the next three decades the emergence of gay and lesbian characters in television has increased and decreased as the times have changed. Due to the resurgence of conservatism that came back in the early 1980's, homosexual topics were again reduced to a minimum.  Since that time though, as many people can see, there has been a rise of gay and lesbian characters on television. One might think after a first glance at the previous sentence that there has been progress among gay and lesbian communities to have a fair representation in the media.  However, if one looks hard at the circumstances surrounding their portrayal, many people may start to believe that if there has been any progress then it has been quite minimal.

    Read More

  • Sexual Discrimination Essay

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    Huebner, D. M., Rebchook, G. M., & Kegeles, S. M. (2004). Experiences of harassment, discrimination, and physical violence among young gay and bisexual men. American Journal Of Public Health, 94(7), 1200-1203.

    Read More

  • Understand The Lesbian Identity By Henry Tajfel

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    Social identies are a big force in the way lesbians are treated within society. The fact that groups fear individuals who are different to themselves is a big factor in trying to understand why it is lesbians face discrimination. The more heterosexuals are subjected to the reality of lesbiansm the more this social identity can become normalized. As stated before, unless a lesbian discloses her identity heterosexuals wont alsways assume thir identity hindering them into their social group. This research will further look at how the use of media, in specific TV dramas are a significant tool in representing these lesbian identities, to normalize the subculture which is often overlooked because there are no obvious factors that highlight a lesbian, and to show how normal lesbianism actually is withing society.

    Read More

  • Homosexual Adolescents

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    Homosexual adolescents learn from an early age that “survival depends on self-concealment (Sullivan, 2008).” Sullivan illustrates the internal struggle of the homosexual adolescent with a powerful statement, stating “...that which would give him the most meaning is most likely to destroy him in the eyes of others; that the condition of his friendships is the subjugation of himself (Sullivan, 2008).” The use of the word destroy is a haunting acknowledgement to the bullying that occurs throughout our schools and social media sites. The notion that homosexual adolescents don’t simply keep his or her sexual orientation private, but suppress this aspect of his or her being is detrimental to developing a strong sense of self. Sullivan’s description of the experience of growing up as someone “profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup” reiterates how challenging it is for...

    Read More

  • The Mental Health of Individuals in the LGBT community

    3253 Words  | 7 Pages

    Kelleher, C. (2009). Minority stress and health: Implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 22(4), 373-379. Retrieved April 21, 2014, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515070903334995

    Read More

  • Gay or Lesbian Parenting and the Psychological Effects on Their Adoptive Children

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thompson, Carolyn. "The Struggles, Experiences And Needs Of Children In LGBTQ Families." Diversity Factor 15.3 (2007): 36-42. 29 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

More about LGBT Community and Discrimination.

Open Document