A Deep Look at the Whiteness of Gay TV

Vox contributor Alex Abad-Santos pens an interesting piece about the lack of color in LGBT films and shows.

Alex points out:

These characters have shown people that gay parents are just like any other parents, that gay men are just like any other men, and that gay people are just as imperfect as their straight counterparts. But if your knowledge about gay life and the gay rights movement came solely from television and movies, you might think that the only people fighting the good fight are good-looking, affluent gay white men and their good-looking, affluent white boyfriends and husbands. 

There's nothing wrong with gay, white, male television characters. The problem arises when that becomes the only example of gay life that we see. What are we missing when we don't acknowledge non-white gay characters?

Further in the piece, we learn the truth about the demographics within our community.

White men don't represent the majority of the LGBT community," Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute at UCLA, said. Gates studies the demographics of the LGBT community. He explained that gay white men only make up 22 percent of LGBT people. 

Gates explained what a hypothetical show featuring LGBT young adults would look like if it reflected the current demographics of LGBT Americans. He explained that if you had a show with a cast of 20 characters who were LGBT, two-thirds of the women would be bisexual, and one-third of the women would be lesbians, while two-thirds of the men would be gay, and one-third would be bi. "Close to half of them would be non-white," he said.

There is so much that needs to be done here. I will write my views on the impact of this matter. Because we don't see ourselves on film, many LGBT of color struggle to be. And when we are not at the creative table, how do our stories get told?

Yeah, I will continue this topic.