Sitting on the couch with my friends watching “Sex and the City” is one of my favorite ways to relax. However, one day while watching an episode featuring the gay character Stanford Blatch , it dawned on me how stereotypically he was being portrayed.
Stanford Blatch is the lovable gay best friend in “Sex and the City.” His main function in the show is to accompany his girlfriends on shopping trips and engage in biting repartee with his arch-gay-rival Anthony. He wears outfits with a color palette usually reserved for Easter eggs. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a job or any type of background, but he sure is witty.
Stereotypes exist for a reason, and I don’t mean to say that clichéd characters like Stanford Blatch shouldn’t be on TV. They should, by all means. But TV shows tend to rely on stereotypes too heavily. Greater acknowledgement of gay individuals as multifaceted human beings, rather than just the tired stock gay character, definitely wouldn’t hurt.
Another example of this stock character is Kurt Hummel from “Glee,” a show that tends toward a similarly unidimensional portrayal. The show’s main gay character, Kurt Hummel, has been acclaimed for bringing LGBT issues to light on the small screen. But when it comes down to the character himself, Kurt is a “typical gay theater kid” through and through. The stereotype is reinforced in the transfer student, Blaine, who shares Kurt’s love for designer clothes and Broadway show tunes. The only gay character that doesn’t follow this stereotype is the football-playing Karofsky. But even he falls squarely into an archetype, this time of the closeted gay man who overcompensates with a show of masculinity. The level of typecasting is somewhat inconsistent for a show supposedly based on celebrating individuality.
One of the few exceptions I’ve seen is “Modern Family,” which is more successful in assuming a nuanced take on gay individuals. Rather than simply filling a classic gay role, the couple, Cameron and Mitchell, is permitted to have more substance. Despite his passion for theater, Cameron also played college football, while Mitchell is a career-oriented lawyer. Together they struggle through the ups and downs of fatherhood, caring for their adopted Lily. Their identities as men, as a couple, as members of the gay community and as parents do not always line up neatly. But the show’s portrayal of their efforts to reconcile the complex aspects of their lives is pretty exceptional for TV.
I am definitely not an expert on how prevalent clichéd “gay” characteristics are in the actual LGBT population. But I did take Professor Bailey’s Human Sexuality class last year, which was intended to open students’ eyes to a view of the LGBT community closer to the truth. During one of our optional after-class lectures, Bailey had a panel of gay men come in and answer questions we had. Their differences in personalities and viewpoints were representative of the diversity in the LGBT community, which isn’t being portrayed on screen.
With a new season of TV shows coming out this fall, I’d like to see a wider variety of gay characters that aren’t just echoes of stock figures like Kurt Hummel and Stanford Blatch. Hopefully more shows will soon follow the example of “Modern Family” in depicting deeper characters.
Natalie Friedman is a Weinberg senior.
She can be reached at [email protected]
