Lgbtq Stereotypes

The LGBTQ community has been becoming more and more of a topic in today’s society. In the 1970s the LGBTQ movement took hold and began to educate the world on why they deserved to be treated equally. However, the LGBTQ movement is only now becoming more integrated into society, as well as the media. People associated with the LGBTQ community were consistently looked down upon within the media in earlier times, such as the 1970s. The few depictions of LGBTQ people were stereotypical and homophobic. Therefore, television has definitely made strides in the right direction to depicting the LGBTQ experience within its programming. LGBTQ people are being represented more and more, especially without the use of the special “one time thing/experiment” episode.

In fact, nowadays writers seem to be so interested in adding these queer storylines that end up formulaic and lacking substance (Kessler, p.1). These queer characters are usually depicted as either [L]esbian or [G]ay, thus leaving the [B]isexual and [T]ransgender characters much more hard to come by. When portraying bisexual characters within a comedy they often fall victim to the male gaze, thus these characters are usually women. Not only that, but these characters are, “often portrayed as sexually uninhibited or unfaithful, and sometimes a character's bisexual orientation will not be acknowledged at all” (Beirne, Barrett). Transgender characters get even less mention in television because it is such a delicate subject within mainstream media. Therefore, transgender characters also fall prey to being used for their camp sensibility and often portrayed using negative stereotypes. Overall, although in recent years strides have been made to further the reception and acceptance of the LGBTQ community within households all over the world, television still has a long way to