Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (August 10, 2007)

DO THE NETWORKS HAVE TO GET THEIR REPORT CARDS SIGNED?
Given our own recent surveys of the broadcast and cable television landscape in regards to GLBT representation, I can't say too much about GLAAD's recent report caught me by surprise. We both agreed that of the broadcast networks, ABC is by far and away the best (we gave them an A-, GLAAD a Good), thanks in large part to Ugly Betty and Brothers & Sisters. CBS does as well as they do because of their reality shows including The Amazing Race, Survivor, and Big Brother. But both ourselves and GLAAD agree everyone could do better.

 

GLAAD's survey was very comprehensive, monitoring television for a one year period (a queer couch potatoes dream job!) and counting every appearance of someone GLBT on a show as an "impression" for that network. That potentially ends up a little misleading as every time the horrible stereotype known as Chamo (poor Mauricio Sanchez, pictured!) showed up on I Love New York, VH1 was credited with an impression when, in fact, they should have received a demerit. Make that two demerits. (BTW, GLAAD didn't actually monitor the cable networks for impressions. I'm just using Chamo as an example.)

GLAAD's survey did cover some ground that ours didn't and which is important to note. As anyone of color can tell you, television is still a very white place. GLAAD's survey found that 83% of ABC's representations were white while NBC's was 80%. Again the statistics are a bit misleading as the otherwise gay-miserable FOX network was actually the most diverse (with more than 50% of their representations being of Middle-Eastern American). Why so good? Because their one good gay character of any importance is Kenny (Rami Malek) on The War at Home, a show that has been since been canceled.

And as paltry as gay male representation is on television, it's even worse for lesbians. Our reports on the networks didn't look at lesbian representation (that's the turf of our sister site AfterEllen.com), but GLAAD reports that NBC rated the highest number of lesbian or bi women impressions with 38%, but again, that's due to primarily one character — Dr. Kerry Weaver on ER — a character that was recently written off.

So pretty much anyway you cut the gay pie — racially, gender, quality — as a community we're still eating a pretty sour crabapple pie as opposed to a juicy, cinnamon-y sweet apple pie. But I firmly believe that reports like ours and GLAAD's, as well as our presence at the recent Television Critic's Association — where I asked pretty much every executive producer and writer I could get my hands on about their show's gay content — is making a difference and making the networks aware of this issue.