Reigning Queen B of can’t-miss TV Shonda Rhimes (creator of Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, How To Get Away With Murder) has a brilliant theory about minorities on TV. At this summer’s Television Critics Association press tour, Rhimes inspired the huddled hordes of jaded TV critics with her Only One concept. When asked how her shows have changed the position of African-Americans on television:

“She said one of the things she’d learned was that on shows with Only One (only one woman, only one black character, only one Asian person, only one gay character), that’s when the Only One is required to be about nothing except that characteristic… Her hope was that just by having more than Only One on her shows, she gave those characters room to develop and to have other things about them be important. She hopes that (and here’s the rub): By consciously increasing diversity overall she makes the race of each character less limiting, less defining.”

How many times have you heard “my lesbian friend” or “that gay girl”? If that’s how we describe people we actually know, imagine how limiting the perception of fictional gay characters has become. Fifty years ago, lesbian characters were absent from television. Now we have Glee and shit. So why are we bitching? Because gays (and other minorities) deserve the complex, three-dimensional characters that straight people enjoy in such abundance. Because equality means not compromising, not settling for good enough, and clamoring for visibility vis-a-vis gay characters who have plot lines that don’t hinge on their sexual orientation and end with hastily being written off the show with an untimely death.

via GLAAD

Last month, I experienced the frustration of writing queer characters first hand while taking notes on a script. “I thought it was very brave to make your protagonist a lesbian,” said a middle-aged female writer with an upcoming show on Hulu. “Yeah, gay AND Hispanic,” agreed a young male writer. “Very gutsy.” The writers room agreed, taking a special minute to congratulate my courageous folly of thinking that scripts about lesbians have potential. Then came the tentative probing.

“It seems unrealistic that there would be two lesbians in a small town.”

“It was weird how the script was just going along fine and then halfway through, it’s like WOMP SHE’S a lesbian.”

“Yeah, that bothered me too. It came out of nowhere.”

“If she’s going to be a lesbian, you need to make that clear from the very beginning. Otherwise, it’s just weird.”

“Maybe her being a lesbian is why she fights with her family?”

“YES! Because right now she’s from this close Cuban family, and she’s a lesbian, and that’s just unspoken and accepted. Which doesn’t ring true.”

“MAYBE instead of her going to live with an Uncle, she could go live with a guy she used to date before she was gay.”

“GREAT IDEA! And there will be all this tension because he’s so cool with her being gay, but her family isn’t, and she maybe still has feelings for him.”

“Oh my God, NO.”

You’re not supposed to interrupt script notes, but at this point I couldn’t help letting out a queasy groan. The group seemed wounded by my thinly-veiled horror. They were really cooking here! I furiously tried to back peddle. “Those are all great notes, but I’m unwilling to give my lesbian character a male love interest. So thank you, but no thank you. Other notes?”

They exchanged looks. “Well at the very least, you need to tell the audience your protagonist is a lesbian within the first five pages.”

Gay character. Gay Chloe. If you are gay, you are gay before you are female, funny, intelligent, poor, drunk, angry, powerful, rich, cruel, kind, beloved, brilliant—any quality or experience or description pales in importance to my sexual orientation because my sexual orientation is not straight. Gay characters, like gay people, are identified by their otherness and then instructed to thank the audience for letting us be us.

Slip a gay character in with a guest star and then check “LGBT” off your diversity checklist. Start a sentence with “my gay friend,” and then congratulate yourself for a diverse friend list. Make a hot girl bi, then kill her off or have her end up with a guy. These are the patterns well-meaning straight people follow. These are the concessions Hollywood makes to LGBT viewers. These are the subtle micro-slights we are told to be grateful for because “isn’t it better than it was before?”

I just slipped into rhyme. That’s how much it bothers me to be gay Chloe and watch gay-lesbian characters deliver lumberjack jokes every 4 months on a moderately popular television show. Do you call that representation? I call that tokenism and lazy.

via GLAAD



Four percent of series regulars for the 2014-2015 television year are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Even within the minuscule LGBT sector, male privilege reigns strong. Of that 4%, 57% are male and 43% are female. When you break up the LGBT stats by sexual orientation, the representation disparity between gay men and women becomes even more grim. 25% of LGBT characters are lesbians, while 45% are gay men. Gay female characters should have equal representation to gay male characters. Anything less is (not to be dogmatic) a depressing reflection of a sexist pop culture that increasingly bellows “GAY OK BE YOURSELF” to gay men and “BUT WHAT IF YOU FELL IN LOVE WITH A MAN?” to gay women.

via GLAAD

It’s a double standard, it’s bullshit, and LGBTQ women should unite to demand equal TV representation with quality characters and plot lines that cannot be summarized by, “She’s gay, she makes out with girls, she’s confused, people express shock and disapproval, and that’s the end of that lot.”

Only one lesbian character is not enough. Only one black character is not enough. When there is only one of anything, it is defined by its otherness, its outsider status, its strangeness. It’s lonely being the Only One, and lonelier still to realize that flat, warped Only Gay character is supposed to be me. Gay Chloe.

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