1st Draft

Is LGBT representation in Television and Film getting worse?

People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender are part of a community called LGBT. In film and television, there have been attempts represent with serious degrees of success. This essay will cover the differences between the representation of LGBT in television and in film, give good and bad examples of representation of the community and what queer baiting is. There will also be first hand experiences of how LGBT representation has effected the LGBT viewers of film and television and how films with LGBT characters have affected the film’s age rating. 

Out of television and film, television has more characters that identify as part of the LGBT community. According to DazeDigital, the amount of LGBT characters in television went from 1.4% in 2018 to 10.2% in 2019, which is a difference of 8.2%. (Abraham, A. 2019). According to GLAAD, the amount LGBT characters in film decreased from 13% (GLAAD. 2018) to 12.8% (GLAAD. 2019), which is a difference of 0.2%. Whilst, GLAAD says that television has dramatically increased LGBT characters from 2018 to 2019, film has a made a small but real decrease in LGBT characters in the same time frame. Out of the 102 major film studios in 2013, there was only 17 characters that are part of LGBT (Zeller-Jacques, M. 2014). From this, it could be concluded that television is trying harder to incorporate more LGBT characters within shows whilst film is not trying in the same way as television. As well as that, these statistics also show that television is better for LGBT characters in terms of shire numbers but not necessary in quality. However, shire numbers is not the only thing to be brought in to consideration to reach a conclusion to which is better. 

  The next thing to talk about in this essay is how exactly both television and film approach LGBT characters by using examples of characters and how the writers chose to represent them. There are several examples of good representation of LGBT in television and film that have been received well by fans (Flavell, L. 2019). An example in television is The L Word (Flavell, L. 2019). The L Word shows the lives of several lesbians that live in California. Fans liked this show as it was the first show that displayed a different insight into LGBT people’s lives that was not seen before. As this was the first television show to depict LGBT in a new way, it can be seen as a gateway to representing LGBT, specifically lesbians, and how to do it in a way that the viewers would like. Another example of good representation in television is Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Flavell, L. 2019). The reaction of the fans to Willow’s sexuality is described as “an overwhelmingly positive reception” (Flavell, L. 2019). One thing that could have helped with the acceptance to her sexuality is that she was a fan-favourite before it was revealed. A third good example is Eric Effiong from Sex Education. Eric’s character goes through the harder side of being gay, not being accepted. In the beginning, his father did not approve of Eric being gay as he did not want him to be a target of abuse. This shows the harsher side of being part of the community. A good example of LGBT in film is Laurence Actually (Dolan, X. 2012). This film is about a male transitioning to female and her relationship with her partner (Dolan, X. 2012). One review states that the film is good in “it’s ability to convey true, raw complex human emotions” (Letlifelive. 2013). This makes this film as good representation as it shows a true outlook on being transgender and how it effects the romantic relationship they have.  However, there was some examples of poor representation in film, as well as television. 

Film and tv both have their fair share of bad representation of LGBT (Flavell, L. 2019). An example of bad representation of LGBT in TV is Carol Willick from Friends. The main reason why people do not like the representation of Carol in Friends because it is seen as a gimmick and a way to deprive Ross Gellar from his masculinity (Flavell, L. 2019). An example of bad representation in film is Dumbledore from Harry Potter. (Flavell, L. 2019).  The main reason why people do not like how his sexuality was because “it was considered to be an afterthought” rather than being explored in the books (Flavell, L. 2019). When someone tweeted that they did not see Dumbledore in that way, J.K Rowling replied with “Maybe because gay people just look like … people?” (Coggan, D.2019). It can be concluded that Rowling’s LGBT representation does not mean anything and she only stated this for easy diversity, rather developing his character or adding to the story of Harry Potter. This would effect LGBT individuals as it gives the impression that their sexual orientation is not important enough to be discussed and embraced. Another example is Alyssa Jones from Chasing Amy (Flavell, L. 2019). In this film, Ben Affleck’s tried, and succeed, to change her sexuality from lesbian to straight. This would give the impression that lesbian women should ignore attractions to other women and only be in heterosexual relationships, which would not be that good for young lesbians.

In film and television, there is phenomenon called Queerbaiting (Dodd, U. 2017). Queerbaiting is where a homosexual or lesbian relationship is teased where there is not one, e.g Sherlock  Homes and John Watson in the BBC’s Sherlock (Dodd, U. 2017).  Queerbaiting is only coming across through subtext and how the viewer interprets said subtext. One opinion of queerbaiting is that it is not good enough and the community “deserve to be explicitly shown in the media as much as anyone else does” (Dodd, U. 2017). When you take queerbaiting into account with how much LGBT characters are in television a film, this opinion would be understandable and queerbaiting can be seen as offensive as all the community would get is a small amount of recognition. Dodd also talks about how when there is explicit LGBT, it’s often stereotypes. Dodd uses the example of “gay men are depicted as flamboyant and feminine” (Dodd, U. 2017).  This can be seen as offensive to gay men because not all gay men are not like the stereotype and feel misrepresented. Having homosexual characters that that cover more personalities traits would allow young homosexual individuals connect with someone similar to themselves and feel more accepted for who they are.


Poor representation in television and film has an effect on the viewers that are part of the LGBT community. A writer of Stylist Emily Reynolds wrote an article about how good LGBT representation could have changed Reynolds’ views on sexuality growing up (Reynolds, E. 2018). Reynold is a bisexual woman and felt ashamed about any personal attraction to women when growing up despite being in a supportive family, saying it was due mainly to lacking a model for a good relationship between two women. Reynold is a good example on the importance of good representation of LGBT. Without it, LGBT individuals would not know how to handle their emotions and might feel negatively towards them. Another writer called Holly Mallet has similar views to Reynolds (MALLETT, H. 2019). Mallett states that the website AfterEllen, named after Ellen DeGeneres and designed to share lesbian and bisexual relationships, helped to come to terms with her sexuality. She described her experience with the lack of LGBT representations as “still [not] knowing how to be gay” (MALLETT, H. 2019). This quotation in particular shows that the LGBT community needs representation as it would teach the youth of the community how to understand their emotions. 

So fair, this essay has talked mostly about American television shows and films. An example of an English representation in television is Sugar Rush (Davis, R. 2005). This television show is about a lesbian developing feelings for her heterosexual friend and shows their journey in these circumstances. (Davis, R. 2005). One reviewer on IMDb states that “it makes up for all those years I spent as a teenager where there was not a hint of [lesbian] viewing” (smallvilleaddict-2.2006). This suggests that the representation of the lesbian is an accurate and satisfying representation of lesbians. Having a character of these traits could go on and help other lesbian individuals that are still in their youth accept who they are and come to terms with their feelings. Another example is Cucumber (Cucumber, 2015). This television show represents the gay side of LGBT in the modern day (IMDb. 2015). One reviewer stated that “[The] show is not only frighteningly accurate but smartly written beautifully shot, superbly acted and stylishly edited” (Star5Creative. 2015). From this, it can be concluded that, again, the show’s characters would be good role models for the younger LGBT individuals by showing the reality rather than stereotypes and oversimplifications. An example of representation in an English film would be Love Simon (IMDb. 2018). This film is about Simon trying to keep his homosexuality to himself but when his sexuality is the point becoming revealed to all, he tries to come to terms with it (IMDb. 2018). A reviewer says that “[the] movie is important” and when his kids get older, “[he] wants them to see Love, Simon as not a “gay movie” but just another romantic comedy that happens to have a main character who is gay and trying to find himself” (shorrockpeter. 2018).This can be interpreted as a good example of representation as the reviewer says the film writer did not make his sexuality as big as it could of been written and it tells LGBT individuals should not be afraid to tell other people about their sexuality. However, there is more than just the writers and studios that needs to be talked about.

In 2014, Motion Picture Association of America got accused of homophobia for give the film Love Is Strange the R rating, a rating that’s given for content viewers of 17 years or younger can not see without a parent or guardian, whilst being rated a 15 in the UK and even being labelled as PG in Canada (Child, B. 2014). The Guardian states that the film did not get the R rating for nudity or violence, but for displaying two older gay men (Child, B. 2014). The reasoning J Bryan Lowder of Slate magazine gave for this is that the characters “Lithgow and Molina do snuggle a lot. And they kiss and hug and express four decade’s worth of affection towards each other” (Child, B. 2014). Understandably, people would angered by these as other films like The Notebook contains similar content as Lowder said that got Love Is Strange into trouble with the only difference being that it’s in a heterosexual relationship but got classed as a 12A (Cassavetes, N. 2004). Having one film show intimacy in a heterosexual relationship be deemed as to contain less sensitive than intimacy in a homosexual relationship could be interpreted in young LBGT individuals as their sexual orientation being more taboo in society and should be shunned instead of imbraided in the individual.  

In conclusion, LGBT has been represented poorly and well in the eyes of the viewers over the years, ranging from Dumbledore (Coggan, D. 2019) to Kim in Sugar Rush (Davis, R. 2005).  A good conclusion to pull is representation of LGBT is getting better as there is more representation then there was in the past (Reynolds, E. 2018) but it can be handled better in some cases like with Dumbledore (Coggan, D. 2019). From what that has been talked about, transgender is the one part of LGBT that has not been explored as much as the others. This would suggest that this part needs the most work to terms of number of transgender characters in television and films. Not only does film and television need more LGBT characters, they also need a better quality of LGBT characters and not to stereotypes and queerbaiting (Dodd, U. 2017) whilst also giving fairer ratings on films and not give the R-rating for films containing intimacy between gay relationships in all countries throughout the world and not for heterosexual ones (Child, B. 2014). 

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