How does Broadcast Television differ from Streaming Platforms with regard to LGBT Representation in the US and in France?
Marie: The three of us work for an association that raises awareness about the importance of the representation of minorities in media, and entertainment. Today we focus on the LGBT community representation in two countries, France and the United States.
Dune: From “la cage aux folles” to “portrait de la jeune fille en feu”, the LGBT representation in movies has well understand how to be prolific. Firstly, this representation is limited but moreover it shows stereotypes. In France, if the movie industrie gives a certain place to the LGBT community, the archetypes are always too stereotypical to allow a real identification for the members of the community.
La folle, the gay person, effeminate and transvestite :
“the crazy girl”, word that we used to use in France, and more after the diffusion of the movie la cage aux folles, is a men who have an extremely exaggerated attitude, often noisy and too much. But in french movies and series, this role is used in comedy, in order to make laugh. So he is ridicoulus most of the time and destinate to an heterosexual public. As a consequence, the gay person is simply deshumanisted by his lack of subtility.
The lesbian, fatal women :
The different roles wHich make in scene the lesbian turn around a simple process : hypersexualization. The lesbian woman is presented as a character whose motivations generally revolve around her thirst for affection, her desire, whether sexual or not.
The trans, travestite and prostitute person :
If the protagonist trans are not much represented in the French movie industrie, we couldn't say that their representation is better than the precedent. They are most of the time shown in a marginal way and in a poor situation. They are forced to work in unusual and unformal activities as prostitution or proxenisme. They seem lost and miserable, destinate to a tragic future. Exploitation of LGBT person is most of the time based on his sexuality, object of his preoccupation and problemes.
So in front of this analysis, it’s normal to ask ourself : why don't we privilegiate the rational aspect more than the sexual aspect? Because this sad representation hijacked the very first interest of the film which is to talk about LGBT community and dig more deeply at the difference between us. Lastly, it is important to note the difficulty for LGBT people to identificate themselves to these caricatured people. So, maybe french cinema could present the community with a new, modern and fresh vision. A vision in which we see a gay or a lesbian in his humanity and not just on their sexuality.
Alison: The LGBTQ community was censored in movies until the sixties. Indeed the 60s have been marked by the liberation of morals. Today, the representation of this community is not present enough but we made some progress. It exists series and movies that represent the LGBTQ community but sometimes it’s a little bit insensitive.
We can notice that in the United States there are more movies or series about this community. For example, on Netflix we can watch Sense8, Elite, Sex education, orange is the new black.
We speak about the LGBTQ community in general but more precisely how representation of bisexual and transgender characters differs from homosexual characters, and how representation on streaming platforms differs from broadcast shows. The researche suggest that representation of bisexual and transgender characters has increased since 2001. The analysis also shows that representation of bisexual and transgender characters still lags behind lesbians and gay men in some ways and that overall there is more LGBT representation on streaming platforms than on broadcast television, in the US.
Many have tried to understand and explain how LGBT rights came to be accepted so rapidly, relative to other civil rights movements, and some have credited mass media. When asked about same-sex marriage in a Meet the Press interview, then-Vice President Joe Biden said, “I think Will & Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far,” Indeed, researche suggests a correlation between acceptance of same-sex marriage and LGBT representation in mainstream entertainment media, particularly prime-time television.
Research also shows media representation can have a positive effect on members of the LGBT community, especially among teenagers, by providing role model and a sense of community.
Marie: The Hollywood Production Code, in effect from 1930 to 1968, and the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters, used from 1952 to 1983, both indirectly prohibited depictions of homosexuality. Early depictions of homosexuals were mostly child molesters, victims of violence, or drag queens. In the 1970s and 80s, some shows began to show gay characters in a more positive way, but always for a single episode, not as a recurring character . In these occurrences, the character’s homosexuality was presented as the problem of the episode, rather than just an aspect of that character.
In 1997, Ellen became the first show to have a gay main character, Ellen Morgan, portrayed by Ellen Degeneres
Following Ellen, there was a rise of shows that featured regular and recurring gay characters, such as Will & Grace, Dawson’s Creek, ect… Although these characters still often fell into stereotypes, the late 1990s marked the beginning of meaningful LGBT representation.
Since 2005, GLAAD, an LGBT advocacy organization focused on media representation, has published an annual “Where We Are on TV” report. GLAAD’s research shows a rise in representation from 1.4% of LGB regular characters (no transgender characters) on broadcast primetime shows in 2005-2006 , to 6.4% LGBT regular characters, in 2017-2018. On cable, there were 103 regular LGBT characters and 70 recurring, and on Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix there were 51 series regulars and 19 recurring LGBT characters.
In 2002, Schiappa et al. conducted a survey with 245 undergraduate students on viewership of Will & Grace and attitudes toward gay men. Among respondents who reported watching the show “every once in a while” or more often, 81% agreed that “the show is an important step forward in television situation comedies because it features gay men in major roles”. Furthermore, 60% of viewers said the show encouraged them to think positively about homosexuals.
Changing attitudes toward the LGBT community can also affect public policy positions on issues such as same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, non-discrimination protections, bathroom bills, or a transgender military ban.
Some of the LGBT people surveyed said they viewed these characters as role models.
They also reported that stereotypical representation made them feel excluded from society and limited in their identity expression. The number of LGBT characters on television in the United States has increased dramatically in the past two decades from essentially nonexistent to hundreds across broadcast, cable, and online streaming.