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| Laverne Cox on the front cover of Time magazine. The first transgender women to be nominated for an Emmy. |
It’s a sad but true fact that today much of
a person’s worldview is a reflection of their exposure to the media that
surrounds them. Through the huge abundance of new multi-platform outlets a
strong reflection is made, of where society is and what society deems important
on certain topics.
Television and cinema are the oldest and key fundamental
examples of this. In the last few decades, several groups have had how they are viewed by society correlate with how they are portrayed on television and film. This is clear through representation such as African American's and women. While both groups have fought and have arguably gained their rightful equality in
society, their equality in television and film representation has gone from small
stereotypical characters to highly influential media icons. As of late the
group whom has seen the most movement in television and film representation is the LGBT
community. Starting as small stereotypical characters, the Lesbian and Gay community
has increased greatly in scope and amount of character representation.
We seem to finally be living in a modern world where a
transgender women is nominated for a Emmy, MTV (a international channel aimed
at our newest generation) has 49% LGBT inclusive hours of primetime programming
and where the BBC has a plethora of lesbian and gay presenters on some of there most popular shows, such as Sue Perkins, Claire Balding, Nick
Grimshaw and Stephan Fry.
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| Ellen DenGenres controversial Time Cover. |
It seems we have come along way from Ellen DeGeneres coming out as gay
along with her character in her sitcom causing enough controversy for a
parental advisory to be shown before each episode, with the sitcom only to be
cancelled a handful of episodes later from the negative conservative backlash. And we have come even further from the only film and TV portrayals of gay men as camp, innuendo filled, clichés who are only there for
cheap laughs yet where marketed as explicitly "not homosexual".
However is this emerging social revolution really changing
fast enough, I mean we didn’t even see a lesbian kiss on daytime American TV until
2003, and this year in television programming we only had 3.3% of LGBT
series regular characters. So if we are living in a modern age of equality and
diversity in the media, where are the actual content and characters to prove it!
Just a few months ago the drama controller of the BBC Ben Stephenson stated simply “there aren’t enough gay characters on TV” going on to say “It’s
probably one of the lowest represented areas, there is still a long way to go”.
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| Ben Stephenson admitting to TVs lack of diversity. |
So if the drama controller of the BBC is telling us TV is doing it
wrong, it must be true, right? Is the LGBT community not being targeted and
advertised fully in mainstream cinema and programming? Is this vibrant and diverse niche
audience being forgotten all about by the ‘big suits from upstairs’?
Within my series of blogs I will explore these questions,
looking to find out how exactly television and film-makers are targeting the LGBT community. I
will look at the positive methods of targeting this unique audience, from new
dedicated LGBT channels to online streaming platforms having more flexibility
for diversity (Orange is the New Black seems to have more diversity it in than
entire BBC channels) and the recent influx of critically acclaimed LGBT movies such as Imitation Game and Pride. Additionally I will also be looking at the darker side of why television and film bosses may be hiding their
rainbow flags, avoiding homosexual characters and evading same sex intimacy so films can be
globalised aswell as applying 'straight-washing' to not cut themselves off from the majority heterosexual population. Check out these great resources to discover a little more!
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