The report, which included an in-depth consultation of leading lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) expert groups and individuals, found that lesbian women were “relatively invisible compared to the level of coverage of gay men”.
The report did not include information about the representation of transgender individuals on television.
Although gay men were perceived by LGB experts to have greater representation on television, the range of portrayal of gay men is felt to be too narrow and reliant on outdated stereotypes.
“Gay men seem to be so much better represented [than lesbians], although I’d say they get slotted into the camp niche and the diversity of their representation is consequently restricted," said a spokesperson for arts trade union Equity.
“Gay male representation is improving, although camp gay men are still the norm, especially in comedy scenarios.”
The Independent.
Slight irony here, in this being reported in the newspaper with the most woeful gay coverage.
The Telegraph wonderfully mangled this as, BBC told to put more gay people on children's TV.
The horror! The horror!
PS Here's the report linked as a PDF on a BBC News story.
For some reason everyone seems to illustrate this story with a photo of John Barrowman.
Thus perhaps showing the paucity of the representation of The Gays on the tellybox.
Dunno why anyone has a problem with gay men being shown as camp - apart from the fact they are heteronormative boring fuckwits.
But we are Blanche, we are!
PPS How, exactly, does one become a leading gay expert?
Update: As ever this has sent Daily Mail readers delightfully mad.
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Well of course it sent Daily Mail readers mad. But while I agree that the Indy isn't perfect, in a world that includes the Dail Mail it's a bit hyperbollix to call it "the newspaper with the most woeful gay coverage".
ReplyDeleteMaybe woeful isn't the right word.
DeleteI meant their lack of gay coverage - though they seem to have changed recently...
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"Disappointing" perhaps? Nobody expects the Daily Mail to be anything other than the almost respectable face of right-wing nutjobbery, but we hope for better things from the Indy and Grauniad.
ReplyDeleteSorry, having a bit of nit-picky day and you just happened to be there.
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S'okay, I spend most of my day nitpicking.
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I agree that a lot of people who whine about camp men on TV are heteronormative boring squares, but I think there's a kernel of rational argument in there and that's about the diversity of representation.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, representation is very restrictive all over in the media. I'm reminded of the recent stuff in the media about Matt Damon and Michael Douglas playing lovers in the Liberace biopic. The emphasis, predictably, has been on them playing gay characters. But every gay character is different and their sexuality is only one facet, with every other facet of their character/personality being different from every other character too. Yet they focus on the sexuality as though it's the entirety of the role and as if it's just one simple thing at that. Damon played Tom Ripley in an adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley that made him much, much more obviously gay than the books ever did (he was always ambiguous in the books, but in the Damon film he's clearly gay) - but he's also a psychopathic murderer with all sorts of interesting personality traits.
My point is that every role is different and so every camp gay man on TV is different... yet some people just see CAMP GAY MAN.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, while I understand the need or desire, rather, for more and more diversity of gay representation on TV to more realistically show wide variation of what your actual gay is, I think it's healthier not to moan at what some may see as restrictive representation of "types" but rather just to see beyond those types in the first place and recognise that every one is different and that 100 camp gay men is still 100 different people/characters.
If that makes sense (I was on a roll there, but I've lost the thread and not sure it came out right)?