Name Essays (2385 words) - Gender, Human Sexuality,

Name Course Tutor Date Choices Introduction Television shows according to many people is seen as a representation of characters that vary in a spectrum popularly known as stereotypes. Without stereotypes one could claim that the structure of the narrative for example a fictional universe in a television show would be complicated, unnecessarily seeking to explain to its viewers the diversity of the characters involved when it comes to their sexuality, ethnicity or their gender. Many Hollywood fanatics argue that stereotypes help in broadly telling a story with little details for the narrative to avoid losing its interest. A stereotype gets the viewers to understand each character without involving many details. However, stereotypes can be a source of prejudice. It ignores the complexity of human beings when it comes to their unique and varying behavior and character. As a result, this can lead to prejudice (Chung P.g 98-107). McRae, Stangor, and Hewstone quoted Walter Lippman by stating that stereotypes are primarily considered as mental pictures of any individual who looks into the social world (pp. 96). Lippman phrased the word stereotype and placed emphasis on how humans have presumptions based on different people where they put them in various categories like the homosexuals or the group of African -Americans. In other explanation of stereotypes, Richard Dyer (P.g 87) states that any stereotype has the sole effect of making something that was invisible to be visible and that they were a category that primarily sought to have the explanation of the existence of different types of people. Another definition is that stereotype was developed to use in the description of repeated figures that are endless when representing social groups (Haggerty P.g 842) The purpose of this paper is to research how gays and lesbians are portrayed in the television industry and how heteronormativity dominates the industry. To understand the gays and lesbians representation, it is imperative that we look into representation history in the television industry most importantly in terms of the gender this is important because most gays and lesbians are brought up in straight family and end up lacking role models and in the end, they are stereotyped (Fisher, Hill, Grube, and Gruber N.p). Most research based on the portrayal of the different sexes in the television asserts that it is because of 1970's feminism second-wave that focused on the femininity representation that had female image characters in the different program. One would pose the question of how femininity has relevance to the gays and lesbians representation in the television shows. To understand this, feminine characters cannot be assessed without the binary opposition like the masculin e. For that matter, male representation is necessary when it comes to understanding the gay and lesbian representation in the television industry. Both binaries of the gender have been claimed to be constructed socially according to most television studies on gender. The masculinity representation was built in terms of the traditional use. The reason for subject selection The stereotype is an important topic that needs to be raised because it is openly present in the society through institutions, our daily language, and the media. The prejudice that is present in minority groups like the gays and lesbians is firmly reinforced when stereotypes are present. Some of the primary questions, which have to be answered, are the origin of stereotypes and its effects to people. To establish a clear finding, a review of different movies had to be done. One of the reviewed movies is the Queer as Folk drama of 1999-2000. After watching the film, it was necessary to analyze how the gay characters were portrayed. The gay characters were portrayed as effeminate men who had a high-pitch voice, silly behavior, and limp wrists (Mohr p.g 18). To establish the research, a television show, which was perceived as neutral in portraying gays and lesbians, had to be used. The television hit series Six Feet Under of 2001-2005 was chosen as a television show to use for the comparison. The show was selected because it was realistic because it portrayed the gay and lesbian characters in a realistic manner by focusing less on being gay but rather focusing on the day-to-day issues. The Queer as Folk perspective is important and innovative in its