Pet peeves with LGBTQ+ media representation

You hit the nail on the head! I get it's not easily understood or may not seem as an issue that needs a lot of attention. It's not a joke and has serious mental and personal repercussions. For me, it'd be cool if it brought up or discussed more so it also doesn't come with such a negative orsor

You hit the nail on the head!

 

I forgot about Steve. The Drew Carey show was always on when I was a child. I remrber Steve being portrayed well.

 

Well there was a certain teen drama on Netflix that recently aired it's final season, and there was a coming out scene between two characters I critiqued openly on a fan FB group page.

These two characters were two cis White male characters and their coming out scenes felt too "Love, Simonesque." You had two clean cut White cis gender clean cut Queer characters that showed that coming out to family would be 100% positive and it was painting a rosy picture. And I felt like it was painting the Live, Simon romanticism of a "White-centric happy ending." I mean I'm sure there are some of us here that are LGBTQ ppl of color or poor White and grew up in strict religious backgrounds or broken families and didn't have the opportunity to come out and receive the love and acceptance from our parents and friends

 

To be honest mine is the the notion that every show with gay people in it is somehow supposed to represent all of us. I've heard over and over: I'm gay and I'm nothing like that. Yeah, it's one guy or five women or... whatever. Somehow because a character or group of characters is gay they can't just be characters they have to be symbols. Drives me nuts, probably because I grew up with no representation whatsoever...

 

The gay people are normally so happy and all figured out and brave to be who they are, and they teach the main character to stand up for them selves and stuff. I mean, legit, it’s the other way in real life a lot. Or at least, only 2% of gay people are that happy and all accepted.

 

This. And honestly even if there is a bad or messy relationship, something good could be showing the character(s) realizing it's unhealthy and breaking it off. I know this might sound dumb or rude but there's a lot of people, no matter their orientation, who I think need to see that they don't have to settle or worse, be stuck in an abusive relationship.

And honestly? Being alone and healthy is better than being in a relationship and miserable. And, for that matter, you don't have to be miserable or in an abusive, awful relationship for it to not work. Sometimes it's just not there, not the right person, not the right time, etc.

Seconded! This as well as the "that lgbt character is unnecessary" and "but what does it add to the story" type stuff. On one hand, "what does it add" could be pointing out that a character is made canonically gay, bi, etc as an afterthought or something.

But I think more likely is it's people who don't need or want that kind of representation in media, so they're either indifferent to it or annoyed by it. Same kind of shit as the "but why does anyone have to know" or "why are you shoving it in everyone's faces" people.

This too. Especially when I'm around people I don't know very well (and who don't know me very well), I'm consciously aware of this disconnect between the real me and the stereotypes people might mentally slap onto me without knowing me. It can be super awkward to say the least.

People who happen to fit a stereotype aren't bad of course, but the assumption that, for example, all or most gay people fit xyz stereotypes is kinda not okay... This can also be harmful when the stereotype is really negative or just reinforces the things people already are so quick to assume.

 

I guess my main one is the ‘gay character friend trope’ and the extent that any lgbtq+ character are made for straight people sad not the gays. Like you know the difference as soon as you see the character who it was made for, if that makes sense ?

 

This isn't really a "peeve", because I like it, but it is about representation in media so I'll add it here.

So I've been watching Doctor Who lately, starting with the Ninth Doctor (seems I'll have to look around for the earlier seasons). And one thing I've noticed is that the show is pretty supportive of queer people. I'm only on the Eleventh Doctor, but I've noticed rather a few gay characters in the background. One episode has a woman mention her ex with she/her pronouns. One episode has a man casually mention his brother and his (the brother's) husband.

As annoying as it usually is to have all the queer characters shoved into the background, I really like seeing them there. Usually if a character is queer, that's their whole character, especially if they're not the main character. But hearing characters casually mention their same-sex partners really creates this idea that queer people are out there, in the world, even when they're not important to the story at all.

And of course there's Captain Jack Harkness, who hits on every man and woman he sees, without being portrayed as a pervert or predator, without his sexuality becoming a joke.

 

- Only showing butch/femme dynamic (I am a femme that likes other femmes).
- Stereotyping bisexuals as hyper promiscuous.
- Majority of villains being "gay coded".
- Most gay characters being killed off for no reason.