Longtime TV cric Dan Avery charts the history of gay, queer, and transgenr reprentatn popular Amerin seri om 1971 to today, om Ellen to Pose.
Contents:
- WHAT ARE THE CURRENT TV SHOWS WH GAY MALE CHARACTERS? PART 6
- 14 TV SHOWS THAT BROKE GROUND WH GAY AND TRANSGENR CHARACTERS
WHAT ARE THE CURRENT TV SHOWS WH GAY MALE CHARACTERS? PART 6
To celebrate this tone queer visibily, we looked back over the past three s and round up the 30 most inic LGBTQ characters TV history, om loveable gay uple Mchell and Cameron to trans trailblazers like Sophia Burset. Even though Jack McFarland’s character has received a mixed receptn for perpetuatg gay stereotyp, he’s one of the longt nng and most inic queer characters on televisn, appearg ten seasons and 188 episos of Will & Grace to date. It may appear quat now, when we have TV seri like Hulu’s Love, Victor (about a Latx teen explorg sexual fluidy) or Netflix’s Bondg (about sex work and alternative sexualy), but the great gay panic set off by Ellen DeGener g out on her s 1997 was a bombshell that didn’t necsarily nvce the works that they’d open the gat to LGBTQ experienc.
Luckily Will & Grace buted 1998 and the groundbreakg NBC seri nvced many that gay people might not be so toxic (and wouldn’t sre off advertisers) — so much so that Vice Print Joe Bin later creded wh changg his md about same-sex marriage. Dpe the fact that lns of Amerins wnsed two men raise a happy and healthy dghter om the fort of their livg room sofas, took a fan mpaign to lobby Disney-owned ABC to fally allow Mchell (gay actor Jse Tyler Fergon) and Cameron (straight actor Eric Stontreet) to kiss ( fally happened 2010).
From the Roy Cohn-flected Army-McCarthy heargs — which was the first time many people heard the word “homosexual” uttered on TV — through the “don’t ask, don’t tell” Neti, that clud The Goln Girls and Digng Women, to our current glter-and-glam era of RuPl’s Drag Race and almost-anythg-go pansexualy.
14 TV SHOWS THAT BROKE GROUND WH GAY AND TRANSGENR CHARACTERS
When her straight male roommate’s twentysomethg girliend, Francis, qutns why Leila is so terrified to tell anyone that she has sex wh both men and women, Leila tells her ’s plited bee ’s “a gay thg. Adapted om gay director Jt Simien’s breakout film of the same name, about black llege stunts g to terms wh a “post-racial Ameri, ” the seri explor them of race, genr, and sexualy by skewerg jt about everyone for hypocrisy and double standards. In the send season, he manag to evolve beyond simple trop and is given space to explore his queer inty, cludg havg his heart broken by Silv (a self-scribed “Mexin Italian gay vers top otter pup”), fdg a boyiend (of sorts), and even beg rejected by another black man bee of his sk lor — provg that, spe all the talk of “muny, ” ’s never easy to fe lastg bonds.