When Will We Have Gay TV Shows and have it be normal?

Thanks for notifying them, Rex. I'll call all of my gay friends. No doubt that with them there would be a show full of comedy and drama.

Ignore them and they'll go away.

Anyway, what do you think about the possible story lines I laid out earlier for "Grey's Anatomy"? Do you think that playing up the outed actor's gay truth on the show would have been a boost or a bust for the series?

Geez. I'm trying to picture a show with my gay friends... or my stepkids.

I think it would have gone over with flying colors. Their high ratings and ability to handle it maturely and professionally could have done a lot of good.

I wish they had done so.

(Sorry, never really watched Will and Grace)

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer!!!!!
Willow and Tara, I'm sure there was a bed scene. Definitely, closeness. But then they were also Witches.....
And the show had already done Vampire/Slayer, Woman/Werewolf pairings -Why not same sex!

I dont agree (I mean, having actually sat through two seasons of it.. ). I mean, there were no stereotypical "dykes" in the show at all, at least not in any of the main roles.

If anything, that's actually kind of the weakness of the show, and it has been criticised for it from the LGBT community: that it almost seems as if the makers went out of their way to avoid the typical image of the 'bull dyke' (or what one of the characters jokingly calls "fifty-yarders" at some point, as in 'you can tell from fifty yards' ).

The main characters span the range from bighearted motherly to confident career woman to freewheeling tomboy - basically the usual range you'd get in a show targeting that advertiser-friendly audience of upper middle class 30-somethings. But what all of them do have in common is that they're pretty glamorous. From the alternative-styled hairdresser to the high-powered museum director, they're all great-looking with fascinating lives. Lipstick lesbians galore, you could say, and not all of the more political-minded lesbos out there are quite happy that "their" only show on TV doesnt actually include any, you know, typical dykes.

Maybe there's some trails of shame in there -- an overcompensation almost, expressed through glamorising the characters? Hmm, well I dunno. I'm sure that business-minded people would respond that there's a much more prosaic reason behind it: characters like those attract the kind of audience that has money to pay and that in turn attracts the profitable kind of advertisers, I guess. I suppose there just wouldnt be a larger paying audience for a more political or realistic show, I guess.

Despite all that, I gather that the show's still plays an important role for many lesbos in that it is exactly what you were talking about: a regular soap series style show that has a bunch of lesbians in the main leads, not in token side-roles, not in yer typical comedic role, and not just as sex kittens - just a bunch of lesbians and all their lives, even if it's unrealistically glamorous lives, with all their tearjerking affairs and personal troubles and exciting fortunes, no different from the straights in Sex in the City or Dallas or whatnot.

Unfortunately, no.

Thanks for the correction and elaboration, nimh. since you have seen it and I have not, I defer. I was only going by a short snippet of text from the script that was online.

bunny- I did say "about." Perhaps it is just the media making it seem to me that the rest of the world is leaps and bounds ahead of us in enlightenment?

That's what the Bible says, too.

I don't hear a please...

Another Showtime series (no longer on the air) was "Queer as Folk". It was based on a British series (title unknown to me). By coincidence, the lead character even though it was an ensemble show a la "The L Word"), was within the last two days in a serious motorcycle accident. He is the new boyfriend for Teri Hatcher on "Desperate Housewives".

please give me a ******* break...

Oh yeah, Queer as Folk! My colleague (a straight girl) was addicted to that (the British version that is, the US version sucked apparently). She particularly liked the sex scenes

"when will we have gay tv shows and have it be normal"

Maybe never. Homosexuality is not the norm, there is no rational reason why it should be considered normal, thus there is no reason why shows that focus on homosexuals should be considered normal. TV that represents the norm, that is with a smattering of homosexuals that act as homosexuals usually do around non homosexuals, could reasonably be considered normal.

The gay rights crowd demands that the non gay majority accept homosexuality and homosexuals as normal. That could happen, but there is no moral or any other obligation to do so, and I rather doubt that it will ever happen.

Disclaimer: this post has taken no position on Homosexuality nor on Homosexuals. If you think it does you read it wrong.

If TV represented the norm, we'd all be doctors, lawyers, cops or desperate housewives.

Are the two of you saying it is a choice? Have you never observed a child, a classmate or anyone where it was obvious they are gay but are too young to be sexual in any way?

I was talking to a school friend the other day and she asked whatever happened to so and so? I wonder if he ever became gay. (She is a christian and very against homosexuality) I said, "Yeah, he finally admitted it. I mean, we all recognized it, right? You even recognized it in 5th grade... so I don't get why people think it is a choice."

I've seen/heard 7-9 year old kids that I immediately recognize as being gay.

Took Clay Aiken a while, but we all knew he'd come out eventually. He had to. We all knew what he didn't want to admit. He's from Raleigh. It's been apparent to a lot of people since way before he was old enough to be sexual.

So, why would something they are born as not be normal?

Cool. I wanna be a desperate housewife.

I call dibs on that.

because normal for an individual is not normal in the collective unless large numbers of individuals share the trait. Let's take the example of Ted Bundy, as a child it was "normal" for him to think about sexual violence and looking at pics of dead bodies, and killing women all fit in with what was normal for him, but it is not normal. I know that those who were brought up in the childhood self confidence boosting age will not believe this, but individuals don't have a God given right to be deemed normal. Some people are different...off....freaks.

The reason you don't see it on network TV is because of what happened on Ellen-Ellen DeGeneres' old sitcom.

For several years the show was only moderately popular and the main character was shown as just a bookstore owner with no attention being paid to her sex life, preferences, or anything else. This mirrored the star's situation, people did not know she was lesbian either.

Then when hints begam coming out her own real-life sexuality, the show began making similar hints about the main character's life.

Finally, after much buildup, the character came to recognize she was lesbian in a hugely rated episode, which served as the star's official announcement as well. The show zoomed in popularity with that episode, and stayed popular for several episodes.

However, after that the show tried to move on to a gay-themed show. Ellen's supportive straight friends were retained and not every show was about sex, but Ellen got a girlfriend and moved in together, and increasingly the show was a sitcom about the couple.

It turned out to be ratings disaster, the show fell off the ratings charts and was cancelled shortly after. Ellen went from a ratings blockbuster to being cancelled in a year, I believe.

Ellen DeGeneres learned an important lesson from that. She realized that people like her when she comes across as a nice, fun, slightly goofy personality who admits her lesbianism but doesn't make a big deal out of it. But the network audience is not interested, or were not interested at the time, in the details of the personal lives of lesbians. They weren't interested in seeing Ellen and her girlfriend face life's ups and downs together. That didn't make them comfortable at all.

More than anything else, what happened on Ellen is why you don't see shows that deal in depth about a lesbian lifestyle.

Will and Grace was really a show about a couple with a romance between them, except that the man was gay. But the attraction, however unconsummated, was palpable. So that really wasn't about a homosexual lifestyle either.

I was about to say, I've seen it plenty of times but never on American programmes, only on UK, European or maybe even Australian programmes.

(The superb BBC drama/soap "This Life" springs to mind)

(edit: I don't mean "Gay TV Shows" but rather TV shows that feature normal people some of whom are gay, and sex scenes are as common for them as for the other characters)