Representation- Gay/Lesbian

In the media there are lots of controversy about being gay/lesbian, but over the years it has become more acceptable and a lot more people find it more comfortable to be open about their sexuality.

But in the media gay/lesbian is explored and shown widely, there a lot of soaps that are including gay/lesbian people within there scripts.
An example of a soap that explores and portrays being gay is Eastenders , they include a character Christian Clarke (John Partridge) as a openly gay funny guy, but when he meets his soul mate Syed Masood (Marc Elliott) everything does not work out so well, as Syed is muslim it is not in his religion to be gay and it is not acceptable, while struggling to come to terms and his family disowning him he eventually reunites with Christian and they end up being a happy couple.

What I do not think is right is that the gay people who are not ready or do not think they can come out about being gay , if they are watching the soap and see the difficulties about being gay then this is going to be something negative on their part.

Even though the media are slowly representing gays more now than ever it is still not in the right mind frame, all the soaps that I watch show great disadvantages to being gay, they show violence, suffering and being pushed out. So even though they are including it, I do not think its the right way to be representing it.

Some real people who are happy openly gay are some people such as 

• Elton John
• Will Young
• John Psrtridge
• Ricky Martin

 I looked at a report of statistics about gay people on Stonewall which is a gay/lesbian charity they shown in their statistics that..

• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people were portrayed for 5 hours and 43 minutes - 4.5 per cent of total programming.
• However, lesbian, gay and bisexual people were portrayed negatively for two hours and three minutes.
• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people were positively and realistically portrayed for just 46 minutes, 0.6 per cent of total programmes monitored. 
• Three quarters of portrayal was confined to just four
  programmes – Hollyoaks, I’m A Celebrity..., How to Look
  Good Naked and Emmerdale. 
• Half (49 per cent) of all portrayal was stereotypical.
  Gay people were depicted as figures of fun, predatory or
  promiscuous.
• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people were portrayed negatively
  for two hours and three minutes – accounting for 36 per cent of all portrayal.
• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people were presented in a
  realistic and positive way in just 46 minutes of programming
  out of 126 hours.
• Just seven minutes featured scenes where homophobia
  was challenged.

This shows that Gay/Lesbian people are being noticed but not always in a good way, obviously with the soaps they try to show the real things that happen in life such as deaths and other things that can commonly occur but with dealing with being gay I don't think watching these things such as violence and bullying towards people who are gay will motivate any person who wants to tell the world, although in the soap i mentioned before the couple are now together and everything is Ok there are various parts of the soap in the past that have shown people dealing with the fact that Christian was gay, but in one scene he was actually beaten to a pulp because of this fact.Gay/Lesbian is being portrayed with the wrong message, and I can predict that it is not doing any good for the younger generation , as they will be scared and worried about the consequences.My Personal view is that it should not matter if your straight gay or lesbian you are who you are and your life is your own you should life it the way you want as long as your happy, There should not be any consequences for being yourself.


Pink listThe Pink List is a list of the gay people who volunteer to be put on this list because they are very open about being gay and want to inspire other people to come out and be the person they are and not to be scared.

Aswell as men there are a lot more women now by comparing the list to the 2006 to 2010 there a lot more women present on the list, I think the soaps which I watch do not represent Lesbian as much as they do Gay, I think this might be a step for them to take, Gay has come through a lot over the years great media stirs have happened from certain subjects that have been mentioned, but Lesbians are not as common on screen well within soaps as much as gays are.
With soaps i think that they should explore every aspect of life gay/ lesbian/ transsexual/ bisexual and some of them are such as Hollyoaks, that represents a man who dresses as a women and has a relationship with a woman and a man, it shows gay people and even a person who is a girl who wants to be a boy, but lesbian is very rarely seen, this might not be the case for other media types such as news and other programmes , but I think quite a lot of people must watch these programmes and if they are not dealing with it then how would a person feel watching it thinking they are not normal because this is the message that has been portrayed to all gays for many many years.

Statistics Of Pink List.

 You can see that in 2006 there were a lot more men than women on the list but that changes by 2010 there are still a lot more men but more women have joined the list. Which backs up my point from before about there not being enough women who feel free enough to come out about being a lesbian it strongly needs to be improved in the media and portrayed as much as being gay is.

 

Men- Creative/Non Creative

 

Here you can see the difference in people who are creative and not, in 2006 there were a lot more creative people who were on the list but compared to the 2010 list they have dropped and some more non creative people have been added. 

Women- Creative/Non creative

 Same with the women, a lot more creative women were on the list , but in 2010 you can see there are some more non creative women who have joined.

Over all, you can see the figures are strongly with the Men on all counts even with the creative statistics they still are a lot more popular than non creative men.
Specially women have been more introduced into the 2010 listings but I still think these statistics should be a lot more even.