The Invisible Double Minority - GRSJ 224C Final Project

• Report rights infringement
• published: 01 Apr 2016
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Project Overview Over the last 30 years there’s been a dramatic rise in LGBT presence in television, but this coverage has been exclusive to white and mostly male storylines. LGBT people of colour are just as invisible as they were 30 years ago. This monolithic media landscape where gay double minorities are not represented creates the perception that LGBT people of colour do not exist and prevents LGBT people of colour from having the equivalent rights and protections as their straight counterparts. Through an analysis of the public space of television, statistics on LGBT characters in television and the interests of power forces influencing this sphere of public space, I study how perceived media progress of accepting LGBT characters is deceptive because of its exclusion to certain character types and storylines. Bibliography Bailey, T. (2006). Cultural Studies and Cultivation Theory: Points of Convergence. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-21. Battles, Kathleen & Hilton-Morrow, Wendy. (2002). Gay characters in conventional spaces: Will and Grace and the situation comedy genre. Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 19 (Iss. 1) 87-105. Dow, Bonnie. (2001). Ellen, Television, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility. Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 18 (Iss. 2) 123-140. Fejes, Fred & Petrich, Kevin. (1993). Invisibility, Homophobia and Heterosexism: Lesbians, Gays and the Media. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol. 10 (Iss. 4), 396 Fisher, Deborah A., Hill, Douglas L., Gruber, Joel W., & Gruber, Enid L. (2007). Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Content on Television: A Quantitative Analysis Across Two Seasons. Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 52, 167-188. Freymiller, L. (2009). We're Paying Customers Too: Gay Viewers Call for the Conspicuous Representation of Gay Characters. Conference Papers -- National Communication Association, 1 GLAAD. (2011). Where Are We in TV Report: 2011-2012 Season. GLAAD, 1. http://www.glaad.org/publications/tvreport10 Warner, Michael. “Public and CounterPublic”. Public Culture. Volume 14, Number 1, Winter 2002. 49-90. Project Reflection Throughout the course this year, I was particularly interested in the dynamic of how stories get framed and for what purpose they get told. The question of how media perception is formed fascinated me. Is the media powered by what the public wants or does the media perpetuate what they want to public to believe? This “does the chicken or egg come first” style inquiry was difficult to quantitatively evaluate and I struggled for a while to find a specific field to study the topic in. A friend and I were discussing the discrepancy of the prevalence of a “gay-dar” for determining if a male was gay compared to a model for females. It has become so common to instinctively establish the sexuality of a male based on particular mannerisms. I realized on a personal level that this was taught to me by the media, and not by my first-hand experiences. Through my own experiences, I have met less than a handful of individuals who I knew where homosexual and none of them had characteristics of this stereotypical feminine or masculine personality, yet I still possessed the intuition to identify males’ sexuality based on these traits. A quick scan of memorable homosexual characters from movies and television revealed the popularity of the “gay-best-friend” who works in fashion character and a broader, more comprehensive scan revealed a restrictive pattern of white, male characters with few trans, female or ethnic representation. As an ethnic minority that rarely sees characters of my racial background in the popular media, I found it notably fascinating to understand the sociological and psychological perspectives of why the media would choose not to adapt minority groups as main characters and how they choose to adapt them as side plot devices. I found a particularly interesting theory called the “4 Stages of Minority Group Media Adaptation” which stated minority groups progress from non-representation, to ridicule, then to regulation when the group is displayed in a “socially accepted manner” and then finally respect. There is no doubt that the media plays a powerful role in shaping our modern cultural values and our understanding of characters different from ourselves. The intentional absence of unique and dynamic ethnic LGBT characters helped me understand how intertwined social justice issues are as the lack of ethnic diversity was closely related to the lack of sexual diversity. Public space also became a more clear abstraction though identifying the the power dynamics controlling this one medium, it’s audience and it’s history.