New Lgbt Tv Shows

Focus On: 100 Most Popular Television Shows Set in New York City

The New Gay for Pay

Television conveys powerful messages about sexual identities, and popular shows such as Will & Grace, Ellen, Glee, Modern Family, and The Fosters are often credited with building support for gay rights, including marriage equality. At the same time, however, many dismiss TV's portrayal of LGBT characters and issues as "gay for pay"—that is, apolitical and exploitative programming created simply for profit. In The New Gay for Pay, Julia Himberg moves beyond both of these positions to investigate the complex and multifaceted ways that television production participates in constructing sexuality, sexual identities and communities, and sexual politics. Himberg examines the production stories behind explicitly LGBT narratives and characters, studying how industry workers themselves negotiate processes of TV development, production, marketing, and distribution. She interviews workers whose views are rarely heard, including market researchers, public relations experts, media advocacy workers, political campaigners designing strategies for TV messaging, and corporate social responsibility department officers, as well as network executives and producers. Thoroughly analyzing their comments in the light of four key issues—visibility, advocacy, diversity, and equality—Himberg reveals how the practices and belief systems of industry workers generate the conceptions of LGBT sexuality and political change that are portrayed on television. This original approach complicates and broadens our notions about who makes media; how those practitioners operate within media conglomerates; and, perhaps most important, how they contribute to commonsense ideas about sexuality.

Killing Off the Lesbians

So, the film or television lesbian character dies. It seems to happen frequently. But does it really? If so, is it something new? Surveying the fates of numerous characters over decades, this study shows that killing off the lesbian is not a new trend. It is a form of symbolic annihilation and it has had an impact in real life. When more women are working behind the scenes, what appears on-screen also becomes more diverse--yet unhappily the story lines don't necessarily change. From the Xenaverse to GLAAD to the Lexa Pledge, fans have demanded better. As fan fiction migrates from the computer screen to the printed page, authors reanimate the dead and insist on happy endings.