Saturday, November 29, 2014
Every Single Week
According to Anna McCarthy, ABC’s president, Robert A Iger, said of Ellen that it “became a program about a character who was gay every single week, and… that was too much for people.” McCarthy describes this perspective as maintaining the “fantasy of queer identity as something that can be switched on for special occasions” along with a “fear of a quotidian, ongoing lesbian life on television.” Since Ellen’s coming out episode in 1997, a number of queer characters, generally secondary characters, have appeared on both broadcast and cable television. Choose a program with a queer character from the 2000s that you are familiar with and examine whether or not that character’s relationship to their sexuality is truly serialized or only focused on during “special occasions,” whether to play up a particular stance on sexual identity or for eroticizing reasons.
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The BBC mini-series “In the Flesh” deals with the undead. However, as opposed to dealing with the problems of sending the undead back to whichever holes in the ground they crawled out of, the show deals with the difficulties of bringing the newly rehabilitated undead back into society, while facing off against small town mentality, friction between the undead and those who fought them when they were “feral,” and the difficulties of starting and maintaining relationships when you’re dead.
ReplyDeleteThe show’s protagonist is Kieren Walker, one of the newly rehabilitated undead, whose parents bring him back to live with them in a town that had a very large military resistance against the undead during “the Rising.” Keiren is, arguably, gay -- he never shows any interest in any characters other than two male characters. However, the show’s creator argues that he has always envisaged Keiren as a character who defies the label of gay. Particularly, according to him, because the show largely circles around Keiren finding an identity in which he is comfortable because of the enthusiasm with which other characters label him. Other than a few comments to this effect, the showrunner has almost silent on the topic, sparking arguments about the problems circulating around the idea of pansexuality or bisexuality being taboo topics (i.e. the topic of bisexuality and pansexuality go largely undiscussed in the media therefore not truly offering representation in media for members of these groups).
However, discussions of sexuality outside the canon of the show aside, the show’s method of discussing Kieran's sexuality doesn’t sensationalize it. In one episode his for committing suicide, the death of his best friends and lover Rick Macy, is largely discussed but only as a facet of the issue surrounding the deep-seated pain his family felt after his body was found. While Keiren is one of the few LGBTQ+ characters in the show, it’s only a small facet of his personality. While the show does center around Keiren and his personal struggles, including his struggling, burgeoning relationships with Rick and, in season 2, Simon Monroe, the show doesn’t sensationalize his sexuality or the sexual relationships in the show. It focuses more on the difficulties Keiren deals with in the face of returning home to a sister who actively fought against “the rotters” and still holds a deep hatred of the undead and a small town decimated by “the Rising” which also hates “rotters.”
Of course, this is partly due to the fact that, due to the sci-fi nature of the show, Keiren’s sexuallity largely fades into the background. While it is addressed in certain moments, particularly when dealing with Rick’s return and Keiren’s relationship with Simon in the second season, his sexuality is the least pressing level of narrative tension in the show. This does, in part, reinforce the idea of sexuality as something that can be “switched on and off.” However, after the appearance of a character with whom Keiren can begin a lasting romantic relationship, Keiren’s sexuality stops fading into the background. Every episode deals with the difficulties surrounding their relationship and the ongoing struggles facing life in their small town, as opposed to the shorter first season which doesn’t explore Keiren’s sexuality in as much depth. In effect, as the show continues it’s run, the sexuality of Keiren’s character becomes more visible and unremarkable as he enters into a stable relationship.
HBO’s “The Wire”, which aired from 2002-2008, was a TV drama that centered on the conflict between law enforcement and drug dealers in Baltimore. A secondary character in this show, named Omar Little, was a gangster that specialized in robbing drug dealers of their drugs and money. He typically did this so that he could use what he stole from the dealers to provide for the poor and less fortunate, as sort of modern day Robin Hood. However, one of Omar’s defining features in the show was his homosexuality, something extremely atypical of the modern gangster. In fact, Omar’s sexuality infuriates other gangsters, who put bounties on his head in hopes that someone will eliminate him. Even though it is well known that Omar is a gay character, “The Wire” seemingly does attempt to serialize his sexuality. Omar has multiple companions throughout the duration of the show, which also happen to be his respective gay partner. There are a multitude of scenes in “The Wire” that either shows Omar and his partner engaging in sexual acts, or there is an implication that they have or are going to engage in sexual acts. “The Wire” does not shy away from homosexual characters, with a homosexual police chief and a lesbian detective as members of the show as well. While’s Omar sexuality is opposed by the gangsters in the show, it is openly portrayed to the audience as an important aspect of who Omar is. While his relationships aren’t as normal as others, purely because his relationship with a partner ends because his partner is murdered, HBO does nothing to portray Omar’s homosexuality as something to be criticized or questioned. Omar’s sexual preferences are depicted as something that is simply normal, and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteTelevision programs are currently more likely to include queer characters whose sexual is serialized. These shows focusing on queer sexuality may do so to take a stance on sexual identity, but may simultaneously do so just to eroticize television content. Two examples of current television shows that include gay characters are How to Get Away with Murder and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The tendency to serialize gay characters for the purpose of eroticism is more clearly seen in the former, which includes a gay character, Connor. Early in the series, Connor’s sexuality is established when he sleeps with another man to get information about a case. These types of moments occur throughout the series, and Connor eventually develops feelings for another male character. Although his sexuality is obvious and a normal component of the episodes, the show does not explicitly attempt to make a social critique. On the other hand, Brooklyn Nine-Nine also includes a gay man who is chief of the police precinct. In the very first episode of the series, the makers of the show clearly establish his sexual identity, which also plays minor parts in many episodes. Most references to sexuality may be quick, seemingly insignificant comments about Captain Holt and his private life, but many of the references to the captain being gay critique the discrimination present in so many work environments. From these two shows, it seems that queer characters are serialized, but the overt commentary on sexual identity is only seen on “special occasions.”
ReplyDeleteI would take a different approach than the previous post, in regard to "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." I believe that the fact that the show only makes overt comments about the 99th precinct's gay captain (Captain Holt) once in a while is a sign of the show's take on homosexuality. The show establishes a strong gay character in the first episode and has episodes with plots that revolve around his sexual orientation on some level, but I believe the decision to not focus on his orientation every week is more empowering than minimalizing. Yes, Captain Holt is gay and black, and of course these characteristics have helped to define the man, but no, he is not just a gay black cop — he is a person, who works as a cop and happens to be black and gay. McCarthy makes a good point that perhaps audiences are uncomfortable with a sitcom that's about being "gay every single week," but I'm uncomfortable with it too, and it's not homophobia that makes me this way — it's a sense of discomfort with people and media texts that feel it necessary to make gayness the defining, unignorable feature of every gay character. Perhaps the show only deals with "gay issues" on special occasions, but I don't necessarily have a problem with that, because that's how life is amongst open-minded people: We are maybe aware of someone's homosexuality, but that doesn't need to be constantly addressed because — who cares?
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