Love Gets Better Today.

By Sam Bowling

As far back as we can remember, the world has been obsessed with the phenomenon of pre-determined gender roles. Every single human is born into this world with a predesigned label: blue for boys and pink for girls. Humans initially see everybody as heterosexual and cisgendered right from birth. This is reflected through the media as well, showing us young boys in Disney Channel shows having girlfriends and constantly producing new romantic comedies for girls to cry during. I realized growing up that there was only one type of human represented in the media- heterosexuals. Where were the gay men or lesbian couples? I had never even seen a transgendered person until I was well into high school. It is clear that the media does not give equal attention and representation to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community, and if they are shown, they are stereotypical and rarely have any real romantic ideals.

Growing up queer, I was thrown into a life of toy trucks and football when all I wanted were Barbie dolls and glitter. I dove back into my own memory to think of when I first saw love between anyone besides cisgendered hetersexual couples. Naturally, the first romances besides my own parents that I saw were from Disney movies. This is where I and most every other child began the ever-so-subtle brainwashing that is heteronormativity. Heteronormative is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “noting or relating to behavior or attitudes consistent with traditional male or female gender roles and the assumption of heterosexuality as the norm” (Webster's). That is a technical definition, but I enjoyed the Urban Dictionary definition, “An uber-PC term used by very angry and radical LGBT elements, referring to the perception of heterosexuality as normal, and other orientations, by extension, as being different” (Urban Dictionary). As a very angry and radical LGBT element myself, I find this definition to be more fitting. From birth we are shown how boys should be manly and women should be ladies and that was that, with no wiggle room. Some may argue that heteronormativity is not real and is purely a result of the queer community being oversensitive. The important thing to remember when these accusations are made by the heterosexual community is that they have no grounds of experience to speak on, fore they have never experienced a lack of representation.

Representation is much more important than we as a society believe it to be. At age sixteen I came out as gay to my family and friends. This was an extremely lonely time full of confusion on who I should be, how I should act and whether or not my feelings were real and valid. I never knew then how much representation could have helped my confidence in that time of confusion. I was watching movies and television shows about opposite-sex love, hearing it in music, reading about it in magazines. I was hearing the word “gay” as slander, as an insult for real men, or as a synonym for the word “stupid”. I started to search for movies about LGBT love and relationships, but found very few; and the few queer romance movies I did find were not exactly blockbusters. Films circulated around LGBT relationships are never huge box office hits due to the sheer fact that producers believe that these movies will not make as much money at hetero-based films because they do not appeal to the general public. This belief that people of the queer community are a different type of people compared to “normal” people is the mindset that keeps this harmful cycle of no LGBT representation going.

There are some nonhetersexual characters in films and TV shows, but it is clear that the writers of these shows still try to please the majority of viewers by keeping every single stereotype alive in these characters. In homosexual male relationships there always will be a feminine man and a masculine man, and vice versa for females. I believe this stereotyping is intentional to keep the sanctity of the heterosexual romance alive in these homosexual relationships. This regularity in same-sex relationships has been studied for years. in the Journal of Sex Research, it is studied saying “Ross, Rogers, and McCulloch...go further and suggest that the attribution and adoption of opposite-sex gender roles by homosexuals is a function of social factors, particularly social pressures against homosexuality which tend to emphasize a heterosexual relationship as the only acceptable form of long term interpersonal bonding at a sexual and emotional level” (Ross). So if each of the individuals in the relationship comply to the societal roles, then it becomes a valid and legitimate partnership.

I decided to look up some LGBT characters, plot-lines and artists from popular TV shows, movies and music to see how each group of the queer community was represented. I started with the gay man, as this is the closest to my personal situation. The first gay male I remember seeing on television was Jack from Will & Grace. Sean Hayes portrays a fun and festive gay man who lives in New York City dealing with every typical gay man problem. He has multiple love affairs throughout the show, deals with credit card overdraw, and can never pick an outfit. Jack had many male lovers throughout the series but no steady relationship. The assumption that gay man are fickle with their partners and never truly settled down stemmed from representations such as this. The character Jack is the epitome of a “GBF” stereotype. “GBF” is an acronym slang term for “gay best friend” which is a male companion to a female who is best described as an accessory. This was the beginning of the trend of the “GBF,” and the media began to showcase gay men as a new fad. Every girl had to have one, and this epidemic was best depicted in the 2014 film G.B.F (Stein). This movie stars a young teen boy named Tanner who is outed as a homosexual and suddenly becomes a hot commodity boy in school as each of the most popular girls try to snag him as a prom date. Watching Will & Grace and G.B.F I found many parallels between the way those men were treated and the way I am treated in everyday life. Suddenly I realized my existence as a proud homosexual man was an outlet for girls to have a popular toy on campus. I was voted on the homecoming court and became known as “one of the girls.” It seemed to me that my legitimate feelings as a human seemed to suddenly take the back seat. The term “fag hag” surfaced when I was around 17 years old. This is a new and fresh offensive slang term referring to a girl with multiple gay best friends. I suddenly realized I did not feel okay with hearing that term associated with me, when the root word “faggot” is a word used to dehumanize my lifestyle. For a long stretch of time, this is the only representation gay men had in the media and there was still a huge lack of true love to be seen in pop culture.

More recently, things have looked up for male same-sex couples finding love in media. Currently, TV’s hottest gay male couple is Cam and Mitchell from the show Modern Family. As a “very angry and radical LGBT element” I took the time to look a little closer into the relationship searching for the flaws in the portrayal of the gay marriage. However, as I watched numerous episodes, laughing with tears streaming down my face, I soon realized that this is the representation I had been waiting for. Cam and Mitchell do not have gender stereotypes forced on them, the two characters are very real and act just like any married couple would. There is no “wife” or “husband” dynamic in the partnership, just two people in love. I discovered how if I had seen these two in a happy, normal relationship, I would not have been as hesitant to live my lifestyle. Perhaps if more gay relationships were presented in this light, the stigma of the fickle, sex-obsessed gay man would begin to fade away.

The situation for women in lesbian relationships is one of equal dehumanization and lack of respect for legitimate love standards as gay men. However, this is not because lesbian women are seen as fashion statements, but more like sex items. The Journal of Sex Research composed a study of how heterosexual men and women favored gay men or lesbian women. The report clearly states “Thus, heterosexual men tended to report more favorable attitudes toward lesbians when they evaluated lesbians independently from gay men” (Herek). It is no secret that the majority of heterosexual men find lesbian intercourse to be a source of sexual arousal. Therefore, the media started portraying lesbian couples as two sexy women with perfect hair making out in their expensive lingerie. The tactic of using this sexual draw to gay women is used in male target audience advertising such as beer commercials and even video games. For a long period of time, the only lesbian love storylines in movies were adult films. This lack of representation in pop culture began to turn around in 1997 when television personality and stand up comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian on national television. There was much controversy surrounding the topic, Off Our Backs: A Women’s News Journal reported on the controversial topic with an interview with Ellen after the announcement. “She also wants to encourage people to see the diversity of the gay community. She feels she can make a contribution towards the mainstream seeing gays and lesbians as individuals, not just the extremes portrayed in the media” (Blackwell) There were other gay women in the media who began to make statements proving their love can be valid without being pornographic such as Rosie O’Donald, Whoopi Goldberg and Melissa Etheridge in the 90’s. Now that Ellen is married to her long-term partner Porcia, the two make a beautiful representation of lesbian love not being oversexualized, but instead being pure and based on real emotional connection.

The queer community uses the acronym LGBT to represent all major categories of sexual identification. As this term has become more and more typical to see people using it to describe lesbian, gay and transgendered situations, but the “B” tends to get lost in the shuffle. Bisexuality is defined as “sexual attraction to both men and women” (Webster’s). I found this section of the queer community the hardest to do research in due to the sheer lack of representation, positive or negative, in the media at all. I took the time to interview a fellow classmate, Brianna who identifies as openly bisexual and find out who in the bi community she looks up to. My first question was simple, who was the first bisexual person (celebrity or TV/movie character) Bri remembers seeing in pop culture. She thought long and hard about this, clearly trying to dig deep into her memory and eventually producing this somewhat shocking answer: nobody. Not in childhood, teenage years or young adult life could she recall somebody being openly bisexual. She then went on to discuss the stigma she learned about bisexuality from the media which was that generally the term “bisexual” escapes plot lines and character descriptions. Typically, the only bisexual behaviors she saw on MTV and in teen movies were college girls “experimenting” with one another. That was deemed appropriate by the media because there was no commitment to a sexuality that confuses so much of America. A female slumber party that turns sexy was all the bisexuality shown in pop culture, but at the end of the day that person is still either seen as gay or straight. Bri spoke about this creating conflicting thoughts on her own sexuality growing up and she did not fully consider herself bisexual until she entered college and realized it was not a phase or curiosity.

I remember 2009 when the hit song I Kissed A Girl by breakout artist Katy Perry started flooding every radio station. It was followed up by a sexualized music video full of girls kissing in lingerie laying in beds of silk, thus backing up the theory that lesbian tendencies were the sexy new craze. However the rest of Perry’s songs were about boy/girl relationships, thus getting her a fame boost for teasing the world with her bi-curiosity. I do not believe this was a malicious act specifically intended to mock bisexual people by Perry, however this did perpetuate the idea that bisexuality is a fun game, but at the end of the day one is gay or straight. Bri said it best when she exclaimed “Seeing any sexuality in a positive and honest light and not seeing it as ‘trendy’ will create an accepting community for those who identify with it.”

The “trend” of sexual identity has become a hot topic in the past year or so with the new found spotlight on the transgendered community. In July of 2015 Caitlyn Jenner (formally known as Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner) came out officially as transgendered in a Vanity Fair issue, complete with inside scoop story and glamourous photoshoot. Jenner became the topic of the year, full of praise, criticism and controversy in general. The media took turns praising Jenner for her bravery in being public about her transition and bashing her for the somewhat misogynistic and shallow presentation of her new life. No matter where anyone stood on the situation one thing was clear, people knew the transgender community was out there. I wanted to get a more introspective view into the transgender lifestyle so I contacted my cousin, Rae who is transgender female to male, to talk to him about growing up transgender and find out who was out there to look up to. I opened up with the same question I asked Bri, who was the first transgendered celebrity he could remember in the media? His response after some thought was “Probably Dr. Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show… and even that was controversial because technically he was an alien. Correction: a psychopathic alien serial killer.” Rocky Horror is a cult classic movie full of strange songs, sex scenes and minimal clothing. I discovered that Tim Curry’s portrayal of this “sweet transvestite” was my first introduction to the transgender community as well, and what an introduction that is indeed. Seeing how Frank N Furter is an alien scientist who creates living sex slaves who worship him and then kills anyone who felt otherwise, he clearly was not created to actually represent the transgender community. Frank is such a caricature of this lifestyle that uneducated minds could easily assume does not exist.

Whilst discussing the representation of romantic relationships in the media of each section of the LGBT community Rae seemed to hit the nail on the head on how each group is presented. “Gay men: either promiscuous or difficulty finding fulfilling relationships. Lesbians: U-Haul!!! Move super fast into serious relationships. Bisexuals: really not a ton of impressions… mostly the idea that they were experimenting and were actually gay or straight” he continued, finally touching on the subject at hand, “Trans people: don’t seem to have relationships”. This is the disheartening truth, as the world progresses and becomes more and more accepting, the idea of transgendered couples is still something that never seems to be spoken about. Rae opened up even more mentioning how he has a girlfriend of one and a half years and she broke up with Rae when he came out as transman (a transgendered man) and she identified as a lesbian. This can be directly correlated with the fact that most of the world is uneducated on the transgendered community. This group does not exactly fall under “gay” or “straight” so how can the media be expected to properly represent them in romantic relationships?

Perhaps educating ourselves on the dynamic of a transgender relationship could open more doors for the media to include transgender love in movies, television or even music. In television now the most prominent transgender figure has got to be Laverne Cox’s character Sophia in the hit Netflix series Orange is the New Black about the lives of women living in correctional institution. In one of the episodes, there is a flashback to the time in Sophia’s life where she came out to her wife at the time, telling her she was born in the wrong body. Watching this was truly eye opening for me because I had never thought about how difficult the dialogue with one’s intimate partner and loved ones must be when coming out as transgendered. I believe Cox’s small, yet powerful role in Orange is the New Black has started a much needed discussion on the topic of transgender love. Rae spoke eloquently on this subject as well saying “If there are depictions of positive, loving, healthy relationships portrayed in media, it can begin conversations in people’s homes, work, (and) school that they may not otherwise be having.”

After my interview with Rae was complete I thanked him for his time and dedication to this discussion when he dropped the casual bomb saying “I actually have my degree in Sociology with a focus in gender and sexuality” which should have been clear from the start to me, due to his clear extensive knowledge on the topic. We discussed other LGBT celebrities shining positive light to the community and bringing normalcy to queer lifestyles, and the list grew longer and longer. I have to admit, when starting my research for this topic I was a self-proclaimed “very angry and radical LGBT element” who had a generally pessimistic view of representation in the media for the queer community. I had full intentions of being bitter and snarky throughout this exploration proving that heterosexuals are out to get us, but I have been so pleasantly surprised with how much positive representation I have discovered throughout my research. As Rae listed proud celebrities in the LGBT community I felt uplifted by the amount of names being brought to the table. George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris, Jim Parsons, Sarah Paulson, Rachel Maddow, David Bowie and many many more were mentioned. I even learned about activists I had never heard of, such as Kate Bornstein, author of seven books about gender identity and creator of many eye opening performance art pieces on the subject. Celebrities also started to participate in the “It Gets Better” campaign created by Dan Savage and Terry Miller in 2010. This is an outlet for people in the media to show their support of the LGBT community, and share their own experiences to give hope to those who have none.

Throughout my research I have read eye-opening articles, watched creative works of art and spoken with wonderfully insightful humans on this topic. I never knew I could learn so much more about a topic I was certain I had all figured it. Though there is an excessive amount of attention lacking in the representation of LGBT love in the media, there has been so much advancement of acceptance towards this non-traditional love in the world in the past few years. With the help of LGBT activists and celebrities, every day we are getting closer to equality and soon enough, there will be no “gay love” or “straight love” and there will just be love.

Works Cited

Blackwell, Laura (1997). Ellen is Gay. Off Our Backs, 27 (5), 5–5. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20835828

Herek, G. M., & Capitanio, J. P.. (1999). Sex Differences in How Heterosexuals Think about Lesbians and Gay Men: Evidence from Survey Context Effects. The Journal of Sex Research,36(4), 348–360. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813719

Ross (1983): Societal Relationships and Gender Role in Homosexuals: A Cross-Cultural Comparison. The Journal of Sex Research, 19(4), 338–338. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3812059

Heteronormative. (2006, May 4). Retrieved April 20, 2016, from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Het...

Media, S. I. (2014). Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus: 2014 edition. Place of publication not identified: Standard Intl Media.