First let me respond to the stats questions. For my numbers I used good old google. The multiple sites and polling results on the issue that I read about is what brought me to 4%. Some of the poll results were anonymous which lends more credibility to the number being in my 4% range.

 

For those who are insinuating I think we should ignore LGBT because they are a 4% minority, not true. But, should the 4% be in 50% or more of the TV shows and movies? I have no clue if 50% is accurate but it feels that way and that is what prompted the thread for me. Which leads me to the paragraph below.

 

Maybe I have a heightened awareness. You know how sometimes you don't pay a lot of attention to something, then for some reason it becomes raised in your awareness and suddenly it seems like that something is everywhere. For example, someone mentions to you there are more Mercedes Benz cars out there than you think. You wonder about it. Then with that heightened awareness suddenly it seems like you see a Mercedes everywhere as you are driving. Perhaps my LGBT overload is due to that. I will start trying to pay more attention to how often I do see LGBT "coverage" and see if it is being overblown in my mind.

 

For now and the reason it came to mind to start this thread, it feels like I rarely see a TV show or movie that has no LGBT character or exposure. For that reason, I have grown tired of the "overexposure" and started this discussion. I am enjoying reading the perspective being posted here.

 

Do you get tired of seeing straight white men in entertainment? Why not?

Do you get tired of seeing straight white men in entertainment? Why not?

 

Excellent question! I will respond later when I have more time to type in a post.

That pressure should be applied. It’s no different than when blacks would apply pressure to Hollywood because the only roles that were consistently there for blacks to play were slaves, gangsters or athletes. When people identify with a community that they never see portrayed properly on the big screen or on television then pressure must be applied in order to see a true portrayal of that community. The Cosby Show was probably the first show featuring blacks that wasn’t a stereotypical portrayal and that didn’t happen until the 1980s.

 

Slaves, gangsters or athletes.

 

You forgot “characters that always die first”.

I’m reminded of a scene in the classic comedy No Time for Sergeants. A female captain enters the scene and Andy Griffith says to his friend that “all he sees is a captain”.

 

Once we reach that point, we will have gotten somewhere.

First let me respond to the stats questions. For my numbers I used good old google. The multiple sites and polling results on the issue that I read about is what brought me to 4%. Some of the poll results were anonymous which lends more credibility to the number being in my 4% range.

 

For those who are insinuating I think we should ignore LGBT because they are a 4% minority, not true. But, should the 4% be in 50% or more of the TV shows and movies? I have no clue if 50% is accurate but it feels that way and that is what prompted the thread for me. Which leads me to the paragraph below.

 

Maybe I have a heightened awareness. You know how sometimes you don't pay a lot of attention to something, then for some reason it becomes raised in your awareness and suddenly it seems like that something is everywhere. For example, someone mentions to you there are more Mercedes Benz cars out there than you think. You wonder about it. Then with that heightened awareness suddenly it seems like you see a Mercedes everywhere as you are driving. Perhaps my LGBT overload is due to that. I will start trying to pay more attention to how often I do see LGBT "coverage" and see if it is being overblown in my mind.

 

For now and the reason it came to mind to start this thread, it feels like I rarely see a TV show or movie that has no LGBT character or exposure. For that reason, I have grown tired of the "overexposure" and started this discussion. I am enjoying reading the perspective being posted here.

 

If you’re seeing a sprinkling of more gay characters in many many more shows and movies, still in those shows the characters in them are typically predominantly straight. With that what you’re seeing is more of a true representation of our culture.

 

How many families do you know that don’t have at least one gay sibling, one gay uncle, one gay aunt, or for that matter a gay parent? Sure it’s just a sprinkling that you might be seeing in the people and families that you know, and certainly not all them have been plagued by that god awful gay disease (just kidding of course), but in that it’s typically just a sprinkling within many more shows, that sprinkling still is more inline with our true culture rather than T.V. and movies still trying to imply that everyone is straight, and the few odd that aren’t are just freaks.

That pressure should be applied.

 

I appreciate you sharing your opinion, but I see your statement here as the second step of the conversation.

 

The original question was if LGBT is being "pushed" or "forced." To me, it clearly is. And some LGBT advocates acknowledge that.

You forgot “characters that always die first”.

 

A huge horror movie annoyance. It even hit The Walking Dead, which has a pretty diverse cast of characters.

I don’t know a lot about statistics, but my professional and life experience has taught me this. I know MANY young and old adults who would have been spared a lot of social and psychological damage had they known that they were actually “normal and ok” just the way they were.

 

When I was young, there was the general belief that the heterosexual life was the only normal life. Anything else was considered perverse or evil. Imagine how many LGBT kids out there grew up thinking they were perverts or evil and who tried (unsuccessfully, I imagine) to live like a “normal” person. Life is too short to suffer like that.

 

Everyone likes to be able to identify with certain characters in TV or movies. Sure, perhaps LGBT life may be disproportionately represented today on TV, but maybe it needs to be for awhile. If young LBTG people can see through TV characters that it is ok, even normal to feel the way they do, it might save a lot of people a lot of the shame, guilt, and fear that those before them suffered.

 

Heck, when I was a kid TV was 99% white heterosexual families. Black characters were criminals or farm hands. Look at the progress we have made there. I imagine a lot of minorities felt inferior because they were not “mainstream.”

 

Today, TV shows are increasingly inclusive which I think is great. Not only do “different people” need to see they are ok just the way they are, we straight WASPS need to see we are not the only people on earth.

Edited December 11, 20196 yr by Beechwoodfan

A huge horror movie annoyance. It even hit The Walking Dead, which has a pretty diverse cast of characters.

 

Of course in "Night of the Living Dead" it was an African-American Lead who died last. It was a dubious honor to say the least in that film.

A huge horror movie annoyance. It even hit The Walking Dead, which has a pretty diverse cast of characters.

 

As I recall, the issue with TWD was essentially "no more than one black character at a time". If they introduced another, they killed off the previous. It became rather glaring.

I don’t know a lot about statistics, but my professional and life experience has taught me this. I know MANY young and old adults who would have been spared a lot of social and psychological damage had they known that they were actually “normal and ok” just the way they were.

 

When I was young, there was the general belief that the heterosexual life was the only normal life. Anything else was considered perverse or evil. Imagine how many LGBT kids out there grew up thinking they were perverts or evil and who tried (unsuccessfully, I imagine) to live like a “normal” person. Life is too short to suffer like that.

 

Everyone likes to be able to identify with certain characters in TV or movies. Sure, perhaps LGBT life may be disproportionately represented today on TV, but maybe it needs to be for awhile. If young LBTG people can see through TV characters that it is ok, even normal to feel the way they do, it might save a lot of people a lot of the shame, guilt, and fear that those before them suffered.

 

Heck, when I was a kid TV was 99% white heterosexual families. Black characters were criminals or farm hands. Look at the progress we have made there. I imagine a lot of minorities felt inferior because they were not “mainstream.”

 

Today, TV shows are increasingly inclusive which I think is great. Not only do “different people” need to see they are ok just the way they are, we straight WASPS need to see we are not the only people on earth.

 

Amen Sister!

 

Also, though we don't really know the numbers, so many kids growing up feeling lost and alone because they thought that there was something wrong with them, or they didn't feel like they could talk to anyone, or their religious faith scorned homosexuals, resorted to committing suicide. As a kid it even entered my mind considering how I felt that I was suffocating. I have to believe that there is now less and less of this due to them not feeling this way due to a more open and accepting culture.

we straight WASPS need to see we are not the only people on earth.

 

She doesn't look Protestant.

 

 

edit: I'm paraphrasing "Spaceballs", I hope someone would have got that on their own, but I wanted to make sure.

She doesn't look Protestant.

 

 

edit: I'm paraphrasing "Spaceballs", I hope someone would have got that on their own, but I wanted to make sure.

 

:lol2::lol2: