LGBT: Stereotypes!

There has been a change to the post I originally wanted to put up...and hopefully that post will go up sometime next week. I also apologize that this is the next day. (It's still going down as Wednesday's post though).






This is something close to my heart, as is everything in LGBT History Month, and quite frankly, my favourite month of the year!




Stereotypes are a horrible thing, and if you're ever subject to them then you'll understand, and you WILL at one point in your life be subject to them. For me, it's everyday.




That's not what I'm going to discuss though. I'm going to talk about stereotypes on TV and in books because I'm a writer and I need to keep a bit of a running topic in each of my blog posts.




So as a writer you're not allowed to use stereotypes, it's cheating and it also says a lot about you, if you choose to use them. A fiction writer should be able to create and distance themselves from how society sees people, because that's often a cloudy image at best.




Not every gay person will say "girlfriend" or snap their fingers and shake their arse when they walk.

Not every lesbian will punch a guy's shoulder when they're having a laugh or have short hair.




The fact of this is people aren't the same. People are unique and should be treated as such, in real life and in your writing. Of course some people do conform to these stereotypes and do have these flamboyant personalities, but if that's the only side you're going to show, then it's really not worth incorporating into your plot.




There really hasn't been much LGBT activity on the TV front...so there's Emily in Pretty Little Liars and she's a lesbian, I love the storyline and I love the fact that she's got such a great storyline, but for the rest of TV there just isn't much. I was going to say something about Glee, there isn't much point, it has gays, lesbians, Asians, jocks, cheerleaders, geeks, disabled etc. it's got everything! See---not much point.




Why are there no gay people shown on TV programmes? This is especially true for the ones aimed at a young adult audience like The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, Pretty Little Liars etc. but there was Caroline's dad in TVD and he was gay, it was only said briefly and he was only a minor characters.




So why are there any REAL gay characters on TV?




I don't know, maybe people think if their children are exposed to gay people it will encourage them to join the travelling circus!




I haven't read much that has a gay storyline in it. I've heard of Witch Eyes...and I'm going to read that at some point. I did read, and regrettably so, the House of Night books---yes, they had a gay storyline, but it was horrible and full of stereotypes. Well done for getting it published...you might have wanted to warn the gays that you're also very insulting.




If you missed any of my previous posts, they are all here! Beside are the dates in a British format.

LGBT History Month (05/02)
Authors that are LGBT (08/02)
LGBT: Coming Out (15/02)

And on an ending note...why do girls want a gay best-friend? Every person you tell goes, "oh, I've always wanted a gay best-friend". No, just no, please don't say that to me, I'm not going to go shopping with you or eat ice cream with you because you broke up with your boyfriend. And I'm certainly not going to become some flamboyant gay who has a handbag or too much time on his hands that he'd rather spend it with you.

-Joseph


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