Gay People 'Invisible' on Youth TV

[Rob McCow]

Stonewall have published a report which suggests that gay people are not being portrayed positively on TV - if at all.

Just 46 minutes out of 126 hours of output showed gay people positively and realistically. Three quarters of portrayal was confined to just four C4 and ITV1 programmes: I’m a Celebrity…, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and How to Look Good Naked. BBC1 transmitted 44 seconds of positive and realistic portrayal of gay people in more than 39 hours of output.

Young people from across Britain interviewed by researchers said that gay people on TV are largely stereotyped, leading unhappy lives, are bullied and rejected by their families. They also said they rely on TV to learn about gay people.

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall Chief Executive, said: ‘Of course it’s welcome that some of the most obnoxiousness unpleasantness of people such as Jeremy Clarkson is now being edited out before transmission. However, it’s hardly surprising that there’s still almost endemic homophobic bullying in Britain’s secondary schools when, even if gay people do appear on TV shows watched by young people, they’re depicted in a derogatory or demeaning way. It’s tragic that in 2010 broadcasters are still underserving young people in this way, particularly when young people themselves say they want to see real gay people’s lives on TV.’

Seventy one per cent of secondary school teachers polled by YouGov (Teacher’s Report, 2009) said that anti-gay language in the broadcast media affects the levels of homophobic bullying in schools.

The new report, Unseen on Screen, found that half of all portrayal of lesbian, gay and bisexual people was stereotypical, including gay people depicted as figures of fun, predatory or promiscuous. Where programming depicted homophobia, three fifths went unchallenged. One 16 year-old interviewed by researchers said ‘TV gives the wrong view of gay people because every storyline is about them being beaten up and discriminated against. They are never accepted by their family. In real life they just want to fit in.’

Recommendations included in Unseen on Screen are that broadcasters should work with Ofcom to develop guidelines to ensure more positive portrayals of gay characters. The report also recommends that programmemakers share good practice on how to develop authentic lesbian, gay and bisexual characters in continuing dramas. Broadcasters should also monitor their output to ensure lesbian, gay and bisexual representation.

‘Rather than review output which broadcasters claim to be targeted at young people, we wanted to review the programmes they actually watch,’ said Ben Summerskill. ‘Tomorrow’s generation of TV viewers clearly want programmes which portray modern Britain the way it actually is. Broadcasters who fail to recognise this risk commercial failure and will certainly not be able to justify a universal licence fee in the decades ahead.’

It's an interesting point. I can think of very few examples of homosexuals on television outside of Torchwood and Doctor Who - correction, outside of Russell T Davies' Doctor Who.

So, what do you think about gay people on TV? Do you want more or less? I don't watch many of the soaps myself, so I don't know if they have much in the way of gay characters. Are there any? There certainly aren't any gay characters in Neighbours, even though the show is clearly aimed at a left-of-centre audience.

So when was the last time you saw a gay on the telly?

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I think it goes in an out of fashion as something to portray. I know soap Shortland Street has a lesbian couple, one of whose parents doesn't know and told one of them "you're awfully close to your friend ... at this rate you won't meet any men".

But another NZ product Go Girls had a jaw dropping lesbian twist - one of the characters mothers (in their 60s) went through an awful divorce, and became suicidal etc. Ending up making friends with the mother of the woman her husband left her for (only on TV hey) - very good friends. He he he.

I mention this cos of course TV shows like Buffy often give themselves a pat on the back for including an occasional lesbian plot - but it's always seems to be the hot young lessers.

And likewise from the above you can see that lesbian is a lot more popular than gay ...

[Lissa]

There are a lot of things I want to say but I haven't got time. Surveys like this are pointless exercises in self-promotion by the pressure group involved. They had their pre-determined conclusions and sought evidence to back them up. There is no way they can take 120 hours of television and come to any meaningful conclusions about the state of the industry. They also omit anything which might be used for comparison purposes - how much of this time showed heterosexuality in a "good" light and how much showed it in a "bad" light, how do they define homophobia, what was the split between factual and fictional television and so on. They use "I'm a Celeb" as one of the "positive" programmes but surely that was just because they happened to have a nice chap or lady chap contestant who was gay. By the same token, QI is 45 minutes a week of positive gay programming (at the very least - do we double it if Sessions or Toksvig are on it?)

They criticise programmes for showing gay people and gay relationships in a "bad" light but surely that's what drama is - if there is a relationship then at some point it will go wrong. Interesting characters of any sexuality don't live happy lives with no woes and heartaches.

Torchwood was mentioned but they would've hated that - the only stable relationship is Gwen's heterosexual one and Jack is about as promiscuous as you can get on television. Even when they do something good and sensitive - Ianto telling his sister about Jack in "Children of Earth" - they add the comic bit at the end with her husband. In this report that whole bit would almost certainly have been classified as homophobic bullying.

This report sounds too picky, too determined to take offence and too vague about what any of it means. I find a simple rule of thumb to decide if something is homophobic or anti-gay is to apply the same situation to black people. Blacks kissing on TV is disgusting, we can't show black relationships before the watershed, it's fine to call someone names because they're black, all blacks dress the same and like the same music, I wouldn't share a hotel room with a black because he might try to sleep with me... etc. It's not difficult. But sitting in front of a tiny sample of television with a stopwatch and a sour expression isn't going to help anyone.

[Si Hunt]

Soaps think they are being "equal" by portraying gay people, the trouble is the persons sexuality is always the storyline itself. Christian in Eastenders is almost a good character, but his main storylines all have to be about getting beaten up because he's gay, or rejected by the community of his boyfriend because he's gay. In fact, his storylines have allowed various anti-gay characters a perilously large amount of airtime to say things like "it's unnatural", "It's evil", "It's dirty" that you start to wonder if depiction of anti-gay attitudes is not much different to simply giving them airtime. By contrast, Masood is straight and lives with his wife and nothing more is said about his sexuality.

But ironically, the one really meaty gay storyline that needs tackling, the coming out one, they always bottle out of because it would involve a minor. And being gay is quite clearly something you decide to do when you're legally an adult, right?

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

Soaps think they are being "equal" by portraying gay people, the trouble is the persons sexuality is always the storyline itself.

Now that's definitely true. If real life were like soaps half of our PS meets would consist of lots and lots of talk about being gay, because clearly everything in your life is focused entirely on that. You don't have normal days when you're not being beaten up or accused of being 'dirty' or some such.

I also agree with Lissa: QI is a popular comdey quiz show hosted by a gay man, and indeed there is often humour in the show derived from that fact, but only ever in a 'positive' way. I went to a recording of an episode with Sandy Toksvig on it and she brought the house down talking about boarding school staff devoting huge amounts of time and effort to ensuring boys and girls never fraternised, meanwhile she was in a dorm full of girls and perfectly happy!

The other problem with reports like that is that they are actively looking for specifically described gay characters, not actually considering that in many shows the sexuality of the character or personality involved is never mentioned at all. There could be far more gay people and characters on screen but it's just not mentioned because it is irrelevant. The reporters out for a story, however, assume that the default is heterosexual, so no-one on screen is considered to be gay unless it is specifically stated.

Let's pick a random Doctor Who story as an example: Fury from the Deep. The Harrises are married, as explicitly stated. OK, fine. What about the other characters? Are any relationships of any kind even mentioned? Not to my knowledge. So, a person compiling a report of that nature would conclude that the show was devoid of homosexuals. Well, apart from Mr and Mrs Harris, none of the others are actually said to be heterosexual either, but the assumption is made that they're all heterosexual because obviously all gay people on TV introduce themselves with a reference to their sexual preference!

It is, as Lissa says, a report written with a predetermined conclusion in mind, and an absurdly low sample size. 126 hours of TV doesn't even cover a one-hour show for all TV channels available!

[SiHart]

What someone needs to do is have the balls (ahem) to show a gay couple in a stable, happy relationship like it's somethign that actually happens (which it obviously is, despite some of the cliches of gay life being true of course too). That's what never gets shown. No-one is ever willing to take the chance on showing that.

I know this report is easily challenged because Stonewall are obviously following their own agenda, but it does highlight some truths.

Si xx

[Captain Tancredi]

So Gok Wan is a positive gay figure but the likes of Stephen Fry, Clare Balding, John Barrowman, Sandi Toksvig etc. aren't?

I suspect that Stonewall and friends lose sight of the fact that prime time television is by definition largely aimed at the mainstream, which means the occasional gay character or presenter but only in the kind of proportion that most of us have out gay colleagues or friends.

And apart from anything else, if producers were forced to have some sort of quota for gay characters, they'd go for the most attractive age group so you'd just have more lipstick lesbians and whatever the boy equivalent is. If the gay activists think that gay people are underrepresented, there's nothing to stop them setting up their own production companies and channels, but I think they'd find quite quickly that there wouldn't be the interest to make it viable. As the gay Republican congressman in an early West Wing episode says, not everything in a gay person's life is about them being gay.

[Si Hunt]

Why should gay activists have to set up their own production company just so as not to feel under-represented on TV?

Drama is more significant than presenting, because it depicts real life. We don't know anything about the private lives of presenters on screen, so many of them are gay and we don't even know. They arn't, therefore (unless they are high profile like Stephen Fry) going to have any influence over the next generation i.e showing them that real life contains a mix of gay people AND straight people and that's just the way it is. So it falls to drama, which unfortunately depicts real life as consisting of a lot of "normal" straight families with the occasional "gay in the village" who everyone accepts despite his unfortunate badge-wearing homo leanings. They can't even get the racial balance right - in 2010, TV is still peppered with the occasional ethnic minority, yet walk through the streets of any large city in the UK today and there are no minorities full stop because every face is a different colour.

TV still has a long way to go before it portrays 'real life'. Which is odd, because they bend over backwards to research cancer or incent storylines etc. yet they still can't accept that people arn't sometimes gay, or sometimes Muslim, they just ARE all different from one another.

Si.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I think such pressure groups are only happy when someone they represent is on there as an absolutely positive role model. When really most characters in soap operas are kind of major UN-role models, as they're always having affairs, murdering or on the rob.

"Typical - gay character in Eastenders shown as promiscuous" says Stonewall.

And even then if they were done whiter than white, it'd be boring ... followed by "Typical - Eastenders gay character shown to like musical theatre ... we're so stereotyped".

[Captain Tancredi]

Why should gay activists have to set up their own production company just so as not to feel under-represented on TV?

Well, it'd be doing something rather than moaning about the status quo, for a start.

But I think that at the moment, we're either unwilling or not ready as an audience for characters in mainstream dramas who just happen to be gay, rather than characters whose sexuality drives their storyline. When a gay character gets introduced in a soap, at some point you can bet that their being gay will be a crucial part of their ongoing story. Gay rights are too much of a social issue.

Then again, it comes down to what each series is claiming to represent. EastEnders claims to be a microcosm of life in modern multicultural London; if instead you had a soap set in Cornwall or the Shetlands, you'd have much less racial and social diversity because that's what those places are like.

[Logo Polish]

Didn't The Brittass Empire have a gay couple whose sexuality never became an issue in the series?

I wasn't that much of a fan of the programme but in that respect it seems to have been well ahead of its time, even now.

[Alex]

Well, it'd be doing something rather than moaning about the status quo, for a start.

Fraid I can't see where you're coming from on this one. It'd be fair enough if we were talking about literature, or music, because people can write, or make music, on a fairly cheap basis. But to set up a production company you need millions, so it's not like anyone can do it.

I think gay people are poorly represented, especially in soap operas, but then so much of it is rubbish I don't watch 99% of mainstream tv. America does seem ahead of us on that front though, at least when it comes to comedy where there's a good sprinkling of gay characters in shows where their sexuality is very rarely part of the overall storyline. But then I'd say the US is producing a lot more quality tv in general...

[Si Hunt]

I agree. I'm afraid saying "they should go and do something about it then" rather misses the point. Gay people shouldn't even be a "they", it shouldn't even be an issue.

And I find the remark "we're either unwilling or not ready as an audience for characters in mainstream dramas who just happen to be gay" a little incredulous too. Are you speaking for the entire non-gay viewing audience here Ian, or just yourself? Maybe you can let me know when we're allowed to join your world, in the meantime I'll continue to patiently tolerate life as someone who's simply not able to be represented on mainstream TV based on the fact he likes men! What is this, 1950?

Si.

[Lissa]

Didn't The Brittass Empire have a gay couple whose sexuality never became an issue in the series?

I wasn't that much of a fan of the programme but in that respect it seems to have been well ahead of its time, even now.

It was the subj of the same joke every week if memory serves - everyone knows they're gay (snigger) but Britass doesn't (snigger) and so he mistakes their relationship (snigger) for good old fashioned "chuminess" (snigger).

I'll be honest, I don't know what you can do with drama. Either you make a programme about gay relationships and pigeon-hole them as a special niche ghetto of popular entertainment or you try to be realistic and have the odd gay character floating around who, when seen through the overwhelmingly heterosexual eye of the world in which he or she is presented, seems like a token gesture just there for some gayness. A dramatic world is largely shaped by who your main characters are - Spooks is about spies so everything we see is scary and dangerous, Sugar Rush is about a teenage lesbian so everything we see is either pro- or anti-lesbian, Sherlock Holmes is about discretion and mysteries so everything we see is cold and baffling.

The classic case study is "Ellen" - a show that was utterly ruined by her coming out. The episode itself - "The Puppy Episode" - was one of the best sit com episodes ever but the series that followed was dreadful. Preachy, excluding, smug, patronising and not funny.

Something needs to be done but I'm not sure I trust television to do it. They haven't figured out race yet, they've given in to pressure and are very reluctant to cast non-disabled actors in disabled roles and the American model of carefully engineered racially and sexually diverse cast lists is creeping in. The more artificial you make something, the less realistic it is.

[Si Hunt]

It was the subj of the same joke every week if memory serves - everyone knows they're gay (snigger) but Britass doesn't (snigger) and so he mistakes their relationship (snigger) for good old fashioned "chuminess" (snigger).

That's true. Although at the same time, even if inadvertantly, the fact that they were happy with it, no-one else minded and that was that was quite a positive thing.

It's a thin line. Gay people DO have issues based on being gay - life is full of them, from telling other people (and parents) to coping with predjudice itself and realising it yourself. As I mentioned, I think that a really good "coming out" storyline in a TV Drama would be an immeasurably helpful thing to a young gay person, but they should show it can be largely positive; the one in "Emmerdale" recently was harrowing, the guy was suicidal over it! It should show that it can be good as well as bad.

But on the whole, the answer is... just to be like real life, really. There are a lot of people in life, some of them are gay, mostly no-one minds, they have normal issues. If we had just a few gay couples for whom being gay isn't an issue, that would be fine. They could have problems with infidelity, work issues or just a tricky dilemma over money - just like straight couples. As well as this, they could occasionally show the issues involved with being gay, as long as it didn't define them. Just like real life.

Not to harp on it, but just to come back to the "mainstream audience isn't ready for normal gay people" comment, not only do I disagree with this (we've had incest, so I'm sure they'd cope) but surely it should be the other way round - it should be up to drama to show this side of life, to make people realise it exists and is normal. The problem is, plenty of people live a smalltown existence and ARE culturally behind. Then you go and live in London or Leeds and you realise how things are; drama should be about bringing that side of life, that reality, to people who are sheilded from it.

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

I suppose it depends what you want your drama to do- not everybody wants to come home after a hard day at work and watch something challenging about important social issues- if we did, Panorama would top the ratings every week. That's why however socially progressive soaps are, they're always quite morally conservative- the occasional Nick Cotton or Mike Baldwin apart, the villains are always caught and there's never an unsolved murder.

I'd watch a play about Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, for example, because I'm interested in their creative partnership, but I probably wouldn't watch a drama which specifically foregrounded homosexuality as an issue. Earlier today I was listening to a radio programme in which the American gay writer Edmund White described homosexuality today as "the love that dare not shut up", and I think my main quarrel is with what smacks of the tail wagging the dog. Prime time programming on mainstream channels is targeted at a mainstream audience, of which gay people are a minority, albeit a very vocal one. That doesn't and shouldn't give gay pressure groups like Stonewall the right to start calling the shots.

[Si Hunt]

But who said gay people in dramas are there only for gay people or to shut pressure groups up? Gay viewers being a minority shouldn't have anything to do with it. No-ones asking for some special "issue" to be focussed on, or some "disability" to be lectured to the viewing masses. Just for drama's to reflect real life, because at the moment they don't and are therefore actively anti-gay. Gay people in society are a minority, but they arn't non-existent. No-one wants every character on TV to be gay. But at the moment, you get one gay person every blue moon and it's an EVENT, like a circus coming to town. In real life, in every workplace there usually just happens to be a couple of gay people, and nothing more is said. For that to happen on TV would be fine - no flag waving, no huge focus required. Just the odd person who is gay just like you get the odd person with brown hair or who wears glasses.

Si.

[Andrew Curnow]

I guess the 'problem' with that is, as Jason says above, the assumption tends to be that characters are heterosexual UNLESS otherwise stated. Just taking one drama series as an example, Waking the Dead say - Trevor Eve's character has a failed marriage behind him, but hasn't had much in the way of romantic 'plotlines', maybe he's gay? Grace is a single older woman, she could easily be a lesbian, as could any or all of the succession of attractive young female pathologists. Spenser is an attractive, young man, quite a catch I guess, yet he remains single and again has not been 'connected' with anybody in the series. In theory at least, the entire regular cast of that show could be gay - but if the automatic assumption is that they are heterosexual, then the only way to 'correct' that is to actively make their being gay a plot point.

I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it's a vicious circle for programme makers - for it to be just treated as "well, he happens to be gay, just as she happens to wear glasses" means not making an issue out of it; in which case, the audience won't really know the character is gay anyway (like, to give a recent example, Dumbledore who apparently is gay, but nobody knew or could tell until the author said so).

[Alex]

I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but it's a vicious circle for programme makers - for it to be just treated as "well, he happens to be gay, just as she happens to wear glasses" means not making an issue out of it; in which case, the audience won't really know the character is gay anyway (like, to give a recent example, Dumbledore who apparently is gay, but nobody knew or could tell until the author said so).

I don't think it is a vicious circle though, you can easily have a gay character who has a partner, a happy life, and is a positive role model in a series - no one would complain, surely? The problem with UK series is that they largely seem uninterested in doing this, and always make a character's sexuality a big issue if they're not heterosexual.

I think a good example of how it can be done brilliantly is Oscar in the US version of The Office. There's been one episode (out of 126) which centered around it specifically, but other than that he's a brilliant and much loved character who just happens to be gay. It comes up occasionally, but only in a fun way (ie he fancies someone but is too shy to chat him up) using a plot device where it wouldn't matter what the character's sexuality is.

but I probably wouldn't watch a drama which specifically foregrounded homosexuality as an issue.

But why should that matter? Do you have a negative reaction or response to such things? I don't care what a tv programme is about as long as it's good -which leads me to Queer As Folk, a show I personally loved, and which was written by someone who quite a few people admire these days

[Si Hunt]

You could just have characters refer to their sexuality via fleeting references to areas of their life that reveal it - "My last boyfriend lived in Crewe", "he's a bit of alright" etc.

Si.

[Alex]

"I'm a fan of Prisoner Cell Block-H" *
















*Now that might sound a bit flippant, but it is actually a true fact!

[Jason Thompson]

You could just have characters refer to their sexuality via fleeting references to areas of their life that reveal it - "My last boyfriend lived in Crewe", "he's a bit of alright" etc.

Si.

Yes indeed, and then, the critical bit, just get on with the rest of the episode. No scenes of characters going 'oh my god, I didn't know he was gay' or anything like that. A throwaway comment, not part of the plot.

I stand firmly behind my original point, however, that the problem is primarily the assumption of heterosexuality unless specifically contradicted, which is absurd.