ISSUES
: Sexuality and Gender
Chapter 3: LGBTQ+ issues
36
No more Mr Nice Gay: how TV
representation changed from
Will &
Grace
to
Empire
Portraying gay men as witty and well-dressed makes them feel inadequate in real
life, claims a new study. Really? There’s more to modern gay characters than the
sexless sidekick.
By Joe Stone
T
hreats to gay men’s self-
esteem come in many
guises, from Grindr chats
that end abruptly after sending a
shirtless pic, to the 16% of Britons
who think gay sex should be made
illegal (thanks guys), to the five
remaining countries that believe we
should be put to death. Until now,
I hadn’t factored in that we may all
be silently agonising over whether
or not we compare favourably
to Will Truman from TV relic
Will
& Grace
– but according to new
research, that is precisely what has
been knocking our confidence.
Psychologists from Anglia Ruskin
University in Cambridge have
found that the positive portrayal of
gay men on TV “can be damaging”.
Apparently, gay men may have
been left depressed by movies
and TV shows that promote an
assumption that we all must be
well-dressed, emotionally available
and whip-smart. The project leader,
Dr Daragh McDermott, argues:
“On the face of it, stereotypes
associated with gay men, such
as being fashionable or witty,
appear positive. However, by their
very nature, these stereotypes
pigeonhole what it means to
be gay and lead to unrealistic
expectations of how gay men are
expected to behave. Gay men who
don’t fit the common stereotype
are often marginalised for not living
up to these expectations, which
can have an impact on their mental
health.”
If gay men are being portrayed
with unrealistic positivity – which I
don’t believe – perhaps that would
go some way to counteract the
negative stereotypes that have
existed in film and TV for years.
A study published in 2014 by
the US gay rights campaigning
organisation GLAAD found that
the majority of LGBT characters
featured in major studio releases
are still offensive or defamatory
portrayals (funny that, from an
industry that bankrolled
Lesbian
Vampire Killers
).
In his recent documentary,
Do I
Sound Gay?
, film-maker David
Thorpe explored how Disney
villains, from Captain Hook to Shere
Khan, often have stereotypically
‘gay’ voices, meaning that
generations of kids have been
raised to associate being gay with
being evil, if kind of fabulous.
Setting aside purely negative
portrayals, the results of this
latest study lead me to question
whether the researchers can
possibly have been watching
the same programmes as I have
– programmes where modern
gay characters are often just as
complex, damaged and infuriating
as their straight counterparts.
Apparently not. In fact, judging
from the examples cited in the
findings, their televisions have
been operating on a time delay
of ten to 20 years. Alongside
Will
& Grace
, they refer to characters
from
Sex and the City
and
My Best
Friend’s Wedding
. This last one
was released in 1997, which, as a
pop-cultural benchmark, was the
same year the Spice Girls’ debut
album was nominated for the
Mercury prize.
While I agree that these examples
promote an unhelpful stereotype
of gay men as funny, sexless
sidekicks, I’m unconvinced that
these are qualities most gay men
aspire to (most gay men I meet just
want to be Russell Tovey, but that’s
another story). If these shows have
had a negative impact, it’s not
because they have left swathes of
gay men tremoring with insecurity
that they’ll never measure up to
Stanford Blatch.
Yes, series such as
Will & Grace
and
Sex and the City
reinforce a
two-dimensional notion of what it
is to be gay – basically, you’re kinda
into Liza Minnelli – but things have
moved on significantly since then.
Take
Looking
, the HBO show about
a group of gay friends living in San
Francisco. Among their number
are Eddie, a HIV-positive outreach
worker for LGBT youth, and Dom,
a struggling waiter in an open
relationship with an older man.
All in all, a slightly more complex
take on modern gay life than Jack
McFarland and his Cher doll.
Fox’s hip-hop melodrama
Empire
has been roundly celebrated for
confronting the musical genre’s
history of homophobia head-on.
Jussie Smollett stars as Jamal,
the black sheep middle child of a
record executive, who is pushed
out because of his sexuality.
Jarring flashbacks to his abusive
childhood sit alongside more –
dare I say it? amusing – flashes
of pernicious prejudice, such as
his formidable mother Cookie’s
insistence on referring to his
boyfriend as ‘Dora’. Despite this,
it’s clear that she loves him, which
feels like a rounded take on a
knotty subject.
On British screens, Russell T.
Davies’s
Cucumber
was similarly
nuanced, exploring the life of
a middle-aged gay man in all
