MTV and The CW are tops on GLAAD’s list of television networks offering the most visibility to LGBT people, according to the group’s fourth annual study. Great, but who made their shit list?
ABC, which refused to show Adam Lambert kissing another man, was rated “good” — the same rating achieved by The CW, in fact. But because The CW has fewer prime time programming hours than ABC, its ratio was higher at 35 percent with shows like Gossip Girl and Melrose Place featuring gays. ABC, then, had 26 percent of prime time hours dedicated to the ‘mos on Grey’s Anatomy and Modern Family.
NBC improved from last year’s “failing” to this year’s “adequate.” But CBS is still “failing,” with homos appearing only on reality shows like The Amazing Race and accounting for just 7 percent of the networks’ total in prime time.
So congratulations to MTV (a cable, not broadcast network), this year’s big winner that scored GLAAD’s first ever “excellent” ranking for shows like America’s Best Dance Crew, which featured out dancers, and Real World: D.C. for its bi characters, with a total of 42 percent of shows featuring some form of gay. Next year MTV might also secure a diversity award, for showcasing the biggest homophobes.
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[LAT]
Chris
Would Queerty rather MTV censor the language and/or content on its television programs?
While I agree that Ryan is a dumb homophobe, I am glad that MTV gives exposure to both gay individuals and gay topics. Ryan is the absolute least likable character on that show, and his vilification of gays only makes him seem even more like a douche, even to straighties.
There’s a lot of venom in this article, and I think a lot of the implicit judgements in it need to be examined. I’d much rather see a gay primary character in a lot of drama on the Real World, than a secondary gay-best-friend character on a teeny soap, a la Gossip girl.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
JD: Its obvious that you are oblivious to most of MTVs programming if you concentrate on a single deeply closeted individual to pen a headline which slams a network that actually does a whole lot to portray the Gays ina very favorable light. Virtually every single show on MTV has always had Gay persons. Not only Real World but shows like Next, Room Raiders, Date My Mom, True Life, Made. etc. A huge percentage of MTVs viewers are the teen demographic. The straights see Gays as normal beings going through the same shit they are. They see that not every Gay teen has a rainbow pouring out of their mouths every time they open it. Almost every season of Real World has had a Gay. The very first had Pedro who was portrayed in a very postive light, showing many people an actual face of a person with AIDS. And sure there is going to be drama in many of the episodes. But for the most part the Gays are portrayed as stable people who tend to get along very well with their castmates…..
My college roomate came from South Carolina. His Father was fire breathing fundamentalist preacher. Kyle told me that basicaly every week he sat thru sermons where his Father depicted Gays as demons looking to cause the downfall of civilization. I came out to him within five minutes of meeting. Fuguring that would be the length of our rooming together. He said he had no problem because while he never met an actual Gay person (am sure he actually did but from his culture they were waaaay in the closet) but he said “I am used to you Gays, I seen so many of you guys on MTV” and he was fairly certain I wasn’t gonna jump his bones (although, I would have in a heartbeat! :-p)………..We roomed together for the full four years and actually became good friends.
Chuck
Their list has problems. Bravo should be on it. Also, while Mike Manning is nice, Kurt Hummel on Glee is better. I for one don’t find any of ABC’s shows very watchable, while NBC seems much more gay friendly in daytime and on the news, where’s the props for the wonderful MSNBC and Rachel Maddow.
Baxter
@Chuck: They probably didn’t evaluate Bravo because it’s super gay and everybody already knows it. It’d be like evaluating LOGO.
Chuck
@Baxter: Not really. Bravo is as mainstream as USA, FX, or MTV.
Jason
Why all the hate for MTV they are very gay friendly. It seems your all upset over the Fword being used on the Real World this past week, but if you watched the whole episode you would see that towards the end Preston talked about how hurtful that word is and how it brings back memories of how people would use that word to try and demean and intimidate him, he said he has used the word himself and realizes even more why its such an awful word. Plus the show showed how a few of his roommates thought that Ryan just looked ignorant when using that word.
ragdo
As much as i’m for gays appearing on TV, do we really need to take up as much as 42% of a network? I mean we’re like 2% of the population… just sayin’.
San Francisco Treat
We are NOT 2% of the population. And we’re not “taking up” space – we’re being represented by characters/people in shows that have multiple characters/people. Exposure demystifies sexual minorities which mitigates homophobia – that’s why it’s important for us to be represented in popular media and that’s why GLAAD exists.
THINK before you SPEAK.
nikko
@ragdo: 2% eh, RAGDO? Where did you get that statistic, The Unchristian “Research” council?
Phil
I figure it’s like ten percent exclusively gay, heard that somewhere, and then lots of somewhat gay people. We don’t really take up forty-two percent of the airtime but are represented in forty-two percent of programs. It’s a semantics thing. This is still quite unfair considering any show with a cast of at least five people has a good chance that SOMEONE there is gay.
Also, San Francisco Treat, you’re being a gigantic dick. If we’re exposed to more gays like you we’ll just end up perpetuating the stereotype that gays are obnoxious, loud and self-righteous. I could end this with THINK before you SPEAK, but that would be juvenile.
Oh hell, I’m still young.
THINK before you SPEAK.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
As to the % of the Gays out there………Take any figure from any survey and at very least double it. Because there are waaaaay too many Gays who are so closeted that they would never admit being Gay to anyone but those very close to them………
Baxter
@ragdo: The percentage is the number of hours of primetime programming that include a gay character/storyline/whatever out of the total hours of primetime programming on that network. So when they say that 42% of the programming has gay content, that doesn’t mean that a full 87 out of 207.5 hours were spent tackling gay issues, just that somewhere in each of those hours the gays made an appearance.
While your 2% figure is definitely way off, you’re probably right about us being way overrepresented on TV (not that I’m complaining). I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more gay characters on mainstream TV than Hispanic ones.
jason
MTV’s gay or bi male characters are usually there for the purpose of mockery or to test the attitudes of others. In my opinion, it’s not a genuine acceptance of gay/bi men by MTV.
MTV’s gay or bi female characters are usually long-haired attention whores who use their sexuality to turn on men with girl-girl action. Again, it’s not a genuine acceptance of gay/bi women.
As such, MTV belongs on a shit list. That GLAAD cites it as being gay-friendly is proof positive that GLAAD is short-sighted, grasping and desperate.
TonyD
Censor, hide your head and pretend no one calls us “fags” in real life anymore? Rrrright. Maybe if we censor the word on tv the word will vanish along with the negative feelings? I seriously doubt it- perhaps they’re being honored for presenting scenarios of how to or not to approach people using such speech?
The Truth
No-one cares what you people get up to.
Stop trying to force your deviant behaviour on the rest of society.
prohomo
@The Truth: The LIE, you should take your own vile advice and apply it to yourself, you arrogant troll.