Sexuality tends to still be represented in terms of stereotypical characters. For example:
- Gay Men – camp, feminine, funny, outrageous OR very attractive, and sleep around
- Lesbian Women – Butch, manly, blunt, man haters
- Straight men / women – often portrayed as being “normal” and “ideal”
Despite changing equality laws and a wider acceptance of different sexualities within much of society, TV has always remained quite conservative as they are scared of offending their viewers. Heterosexual (straight) characters are represented as the “norm” and homosexual (gay) characters are often represented as being different, strange, or separate from mainstream society. Some critics say that when TV does feature gay characters, they are never just characters that “happen to be gay.” Their sexuality always plays a key part in their storylines and they don’t seem to have any issues outside of their sexuality.
If you get “sexuality” as an issue in the exam, you should be thinking about the following things when watching the clip:
- Can I identify what the sexualities of the characters are?
- Are people of different sexualities shown as having different interests, personalities, attitudes, behaviours? If so, how?
- Is their sexuality represented as being important in their life?
- Are particular sexualities represented as being normal / powerful / better? If so, how?
- Are particular sexualities represented as being abnormal? If so, how?
- What is the message the clip is trying to portray about sexuality?
- Don’t forget that “straight” is a sexuality too. Don’t ignore the straight characters as they need to be analysed too!
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