Wanna check how many of your favorite shows have included gay characters? While doing some research on textual analysis in pop culture for a class, I stumbled upon this amazing website at which researcher David Wyatt has compiled a comprehensive list of gay/lesbian/bisexual television characters who appear or have appeared regularly on English-speaking TV networks.
I had way too much fun control-F-ing the shows I watch (or grew up watching), and I especially enjoyed the last two sections of the site on characters that almost fit the criteria or ones that are worth mentioning despite the probability of their not being gay. Peppermint Pattie and Marcie, anyone? Xena and Gabrielle? Bert and Ernie?
Check it out.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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3 comments:
At first, I was excited to see how many shows there were, but then I realized that not all of them (or probably even a good percentage, especially comedies) are necessarily positive representation of gay people. Though it's good to eliminate the stigma of homosexuality, negative portrayals do more harm than good.
That's a good point. Also, to make the list, the characters only had to be on the show for three episodes or more, which means in many examples, they were far from being really regular characters.
Wait, the Hardy Boys were gay TOGETHER? That's way beyond too-risque-for-television.
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