DUH: ‘True Blood’ Is Gay

Imagine if it were your job to do this–to watch thousands of hours of television and look for gay characters in an effort to prove that gay people aren’t being accurately represented in the media. Then, imagine if it were your job to actually write down what you found, in a 4000-word report.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) representations have increased for the third year in a row to a record percentage according to an analysis of the 2010-2011 scripted primetime broadcast television season conducted by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

Great news! I guess that means GLAAD’s work is paying off. The gays are alright! Oh.

For 15 years, GLAAD has tracked the visibility of the LGBT community on television by counting the number of LGBT characters. Since the creation of Where We Are on TV in 2005, GLAAD also began to compile statistics on the sexual orientation, gender identity and race/ethnicity for all scripted characters expected to appear on broadcast television in the coming season.

[…]

Thanks to its large cast (and often sexually ambiguous vampires), HBO’s True Blood is the most inclusive program currently on television, featuring six regular and recurring LGBT characters.

Celebrating the gay people who appear in a box in your living room, who are neither gay in real life nor actual people because, jesus fucking christ, they’re vampires, is the job of Access Hollywood, not an organization that purports to be fighting for gay rights.

Think of the time, money, and resources that went into writing this. Think of how else that time, that money, and those resources could have been spent. Think of how it must have felt for the person who sat down and literally typed this paragraph:

Though with the cancellation of the groundbreaking As the World Turns and the recent elimination of the storyline between two gay men on One Life to Live, there are only a few LGBT characters currently on soap operas. Long-running series The Young and the Restless (CBS) features gay attorney Rafe and the recently back-from-the-dead Phillip, while Bianca has recently returned to All My Children (ABC).

Now there’s a reason to kill yourself.

0 thoughts on “DUH: ‘True Blood’ Is Gay”

  1. GLAAD is a media organization whose sole purpose is to moniter and report on the media. They are not a social advocacy group to occurences outside the media.
    Their job, albeit a little taxing, is actually valuable. You’re assuming people are smart enough NOT to take cues from media. This is far from true. They need policing.

  2. Lafayette is not a vampire! And if you saw him and his new boyfriend Jesus shirtless together (muscles!)
    or beating up homophobic redneck breeders together, I bet you wouldn’t hate so much. They are rad.

  3. I’ve read, today and yesterday, of at least three separate gay suicides of boys AGE 13 (!!!) from bullying at school and just read an article from Rutger’s University where a jerk taped his closeted roommate having a gay encounter in their dorm room (when the gay guy had asked his roommate if he could have to room alone until midnight) – the jerk recorded it on a hidden camera and put it on the internet – the gay guy threw himself off the George Washington Bridge. It’s up on Drudge Report. Sad, and infuriating.

  4. Instead of constantly beating up on an organization [Gladd] that could really care less about the real life and death issues of our people, and, especially our youth; let’s try for once supporting, and I define supporting as free press and meaningful dollars to: The Matthew Sheppard Foundation. The only cause they have, is a cause that just might prevent the next headline such as this one from occuring. How about an article every now and then about THEM and some press about what THEY ARE DOING for us?

    They are real people striving to make real change in not only OUR lives, but in also in the minds of others who obviously continue to perpetuate this level of injustice against our own.

    Judy would love the press and the support. After-all, her life has become this very cause.

    Home

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