Assessing the State of LGBT Characters on Television

by Michael Jones · 2009-07-27 01:28:00 UTC
Topics:

The L Word

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has released their third annual Network Responsibility Index, surveying the state of LGBT characters across the span of television. The results show that two premium cable channels certainly know how to get their gay on, while two major television networks languish far behind in the amount of LGBT representation they feature in their programs.

Home Box Office (HBO) and Showtime take the cake this year for being the most inclusive networks when it comes to spotlighting LGBT characters in their shows.  For HBO, GLAAD showed that 42 percent of its total programming featured content relating to the lives of LGBT folks.  Showtime also showed a respectable number - albeit far behind HBO - with 26 percent of its programming featuring LGBT content.

This all makes sense when you think about the shows on both of these premium channels.  True Blood (HBO), The L Word (Showtime), Entourage (HBO), The United States of Tara (Showtime), The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (HBO), and Weeds (Showtime) all covered LGBT issues or had LGBT characters.  And it makes a difference in terms of the quality of programming, at least according to Rashad Robinson, a senior media staff person at GLAAD.  Here's what he told the AP: "Television shows that weave our stories into the fabric of the series present richer, more diverse representations."

NBC and CBS were on the opposite sides of the spectrum.  Despite being the network that aired possibly the most popular LGBT sitcom ("Will & Grace"), GLAAD found that NBC only had about 8 percent of its programming reflect LGBT issues.  CBS faired even worse, scoring a staggeringly low 5 percent.  Guess it's a little hard to work in an LGBT storyline on The Unit (another ramification of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?).

For more information, you can check out GLAAD's "TV Gayed" page on their Web site. Ironically, the AP article that we're linking to throughout this post even scooped the GLAAD Web site, so there's no link yet available for the 2009 Network Responsibility Index.  Once it's updated on the GLAAD Web site, we'll put a link here.

UPDATE: Here's the release from GLAAD.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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