Culture GLAAD report warns 'alarming number' of LGBTQ TV shows and characters will disappear next year - Good riddance

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) released a new report Tuesday revealing that, due to an "alarming number of LGBTQ-fronted shows" ending, nearly 30% of LGBTQ characters will likely disappear.

GLAAD's 18th report on the status of LGBTQ representation on television found that a total of 596 LGBTQ characters were featured in scripted TV in the 2022-2023 season. This represented an approximate 6% drop from the previous year.

The report noted 175 of these characters, about 29%, won't be returning. Twenty-four percent of those characters were featured on shows that are either being canceled or finishing their final season, while the other 35 characters were in limited miniseries or anthologies with revolving casts.

The GLAAD report said it is "concerning" that many "series getting cut are LGBTQ-inclusive programs, leaving a large demographic of viewers constantly searching for new programs only for them to ultimately be canceled before a satisfying conclusion. In recent years, an alarming number of LGBTQ-fronted shows have ended."

"At a time when transgender Americans are facing a growing number of dangerous and discriminatory attacks in rhetoric and policy, Hollywood players who are real allies to our community have a responsibility and an opportunity to create stories that humanize trans people and educate viewers about being transgender," GLAAD President & CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.

She continued, "With attacks on the LGBTQ community in political and news spaces, Hollywood has more influence than ever and it's critical the stories they invest in telling include fair and accurate depictions of LGBTQ people that reflect the humanity of our community."

"It’s clear that when a service fully invests in its LGBTQ shows, this programming rises above a crowded media landscape and is successful with both critics and audiences," Ellis said in the report. "It is then disappointing to see this year that over 20 percent of LGBTQ characters counted here will not be returning in next year’s report due to series endings or cancellations."

The report also found that a majority of those characters, about 60%, were found on streaming services such as Netflix, HBO Max or Hulu versus broadcast or cable television.

Megan Townsend, GLAAD’s Senior Director of Entertainment Research & Analysis, also lamented that characters were "not evenly prioritized" across streaming services and television. However, she remained hopeful about the future for LGBTQ characters.

"t’s clear that well-crafted LGBTQ-inclusive series with full support behind them at all levels can break through a crowded landscape and become 'must-watch' successful shows for critics and audiences alike, such as ‘Yellowjackets,’ ‘Hacks’, ‘The Umbrella Academy,’ ‘The Last of Us,’ and more have proven. We hope to see more networks and streamers follow these examples by investing in and proactively marketing nuanced, diverse LGBTQ stories," Townsend said.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/glaad...lgbtq-tv-shows-characters-disappear-next-year (Archive)

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) released a new report Tuesday revealing that, due to an "alarming number of LGBTQ-fronted shows" ending, nearly 30% of LGBTQ characters will likely disappear.

YES! This toxic, badly written lgbtnsdap garbage needs to disappear! It's time for this shit to finally end.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

It's called a market correction, and it happens to every fad eventually. The trouble is that trying to make gay shows mainstream is that if it's mainstream it can't (just) be a "gay show." "These characters are gay" is not even a premise for a TV show unless it's a fishbowl/ freakshow type of presentation which wouldn't work these days even if it could get past the censors- years of promoting gay shit has left the mainstream way too aware of what the alphabet people are like for it to be interesting. This is what you spent decades demanding, and now you've got it and it's really fucking boring. Womp womp

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Unfortunately I do not share the optimisjm of many here. The Last of Us showed not one but two rainbow two by fours up our asses, with gay Ron Swanson and mystery meat lesbian roommate who has defected and joined the resistance.

 

[TowinKarz]

I wish. The traditional multi-camera sitcom didn't really go out of vogue until well into the 2000s.

But they did drop the laugh track, you gotta give me that!

 

[Thiletonomics]

Unfortunately I do not share the optimisjm of many here. The Last of Us showed not one but two rainbow two by fours up our asses, with gay Ron Swanson and mystery meat lesbian roommate who has defected and joined the resistance.

Part 2 won't be much better sadly, given the FtM being a thing, and not to mention the massive obstacle of trying to find a woman with the exact body shape that Abby has, for that role.

 

[Matt Damon]

Just one more reason to be glad I don't watch TV. Grew out of TV over the years, especially with the Internet. With pro sports going woke, removed any reason to watch TV at all.

It's funny: between no longer watching TV, listening to radio, and having browser adblockers, I've lost my immunity to advertisements.

I used to be able to just mentally tune them out, but now it's a really unpleasant assault on the senses and I resent the infrequent instances where I do see them all the more. It's amazing that I tolerated it for so many years.

 

[Malodorous Merkin]

"It’s clear that when a service fully invests in its LGBTQ shows, this programming rises above a crowded media landscape and is successful with both critics and audiences,"

Critics, yes, because critics are studio shills and virtue-signalling toadies for the progressive narrative.

Audiences, no, because if the LGBTQ shit was popular with the audiences, it would be commercially successful, and it wouldn't be getting slashed by 30%

The LGBTQ tv shows and characters experiment has been conducted, and it has been a definitive, multi-billion-dollar failure. Shit, probably more like trillions of dollars at this point.

 

[Stoneheart]

They keep chasing these phantom demographics, and not only do the sales not materialized, they are utterly surprised_pikachu when they lose their customers. No wonder they need ESG grants -- it's the only thing keeping them afloat!

Thats because they are retarded... Gyy men want the same shit on TV as everyone else... Buff guys doing heroic stuff.

 

[Cardef1121]

TV shows till exist? Speaking of TVs: What's a TV other than an over-sized and over-priced monitor with worse stats and bloated 'features' that you don't want or need, anyway?

 

[Matt Damon]

TV shows till exist? Speaking of TVs: What's a TV other than an over-sized and over-priced monitor with worse stats and bloated 'features' that you don't want or need, anyway?

We were talking about this in another thread - normies really, REALLY like their smart TV apps.

 

[RodgerDodger]

So GLAAD is confirming nobody wants to watch something that only appeals to less than 3% of the population? How progressive of them.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Faggots just can't stand the fact their perversion isn't a literal superpower everyone wants. Wasn't the evil cis heteronormative patriarchy that kept fags in the closet. No it was ordinary every day people who wouldn't be bludgeoned into submission.

Now we have bullshit like trannies; cause lesbians couldn't get over the fact that 99% of women don't want to fuck them.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

What seems to be the problem?

The problem is that they don't have real problems. For them, at least.

Apparently, being portrayed on television is now a human right. That and having your sexual identity by tv shows.

 

[Metatron]

I wonder how society will look back at those years in the future. I guess they will call it the era of fag.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

It's gotten so stale and old that people groan out loud now when they see the characters.

Clever, smart, or interesting female character? Lesbian.
White woman? Interracial.
Black dude? Gets with the white female lead.
Black chick? Gay.
Big tough male? Secret villain.

It's tired as fuck. As soon as you see these characters, your brain goes: Faggot, dyke, mudshark, evil guy who will betray everyone, troon, lecturing Larry/Lisa.

Nobody wants to watch these because their just fucking boring.

 

[SuperShibuyaFighter]

Literally thought they unironically said LGTV for a second

 

[Some Dumb Faggot]

I wish people would realize all this woke bullshit is hated and only survives because of ESG money. Literally as soon as the money flow stops it collapses and falls apart, it is complete dogshit propganda. Look at any grassroots movement and it will ALWAYS perform better at a fraction of the cost and face significantly more resistance.

Contrary to what people may think, no, the Government does not have unlimited funds. It might seem like you have unlimited money until you run out and right now the money is almost out. Look at how the banking system is now falling apart at the seams getting sicker and sicker everyday. They are at a point where printing more inflation is suicide because it makes it more and more likely that nations will want to drop the dollar.

People need to stop believing wokism is some unstoppable monolith because it isn't. It's a shiity fake scam that requires a horrific amount of money to even survive and even then it is STILL hated despite all the constant shilling.

 

[Dysnomia]

I watched shit ton of TV shows growing up till by mid 20s. The only gay characters that come to my mind are Smithers(Simpsons) and Big gay Al, Garrison, Mr. Slave (South Park). I know the actor that played Barney(How i met your mother) is gay IRL, but he didn't play a role of a fag in that show. I can even throw in two new shows Euphoria(Jules and Rue).

One of my favourite TV shows of all time Hannibal, they had to make both main characters gay for eachother in the last episode. Thank god they stopped the show because the main charkter rather wanted to play Daredevil. No one knows who the actor is that plays Daredevil and Mads Mikkelsen became a Superstar, so at least one good thing came out of that.

Liberals would use my comment to say that there aren't enough gay people on TV, truth is no one wants to see them or gives a fuck.
Maybe make a Charakter interesting instead of throwing in a token gay guy, that no one gives a fuck about.

There was an 80s sitcom with a gay main character. The show was called Brothers. A lot of people forget it existed. But it ran for five seasons on both cable and syndication, from 1984-1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_(1984_TV_series)

Originally, the storylines on Brothers were permeated with exclusively gay themes, as Cliff and Donald's dating exploits were featured, along with the heterosexual characters' involvement in such stories. This sprung forth the show's knack for providing a blurred line of differences between the mating habits and culture of both sexualities. Examples of topical gay stories included Cliff's casual intimate encounters with men and the points he still wanted to learn; Lou and Donald's efforts to infiltrate crooked local police officers who refused to help Cliff, when he was attacked by two homophobic men; Donald's coaching Joe into accurately convincing a former teammate that he was gay, in order to form a closer bond with the recently outed teammate; and in the second season, when Cliff landed a boyfriend in well-to-do Winston March III (guest star John Furey), who helped him become even more comfortable in his identity. Winston initiated a passionate kiss with him, at a function he hosted, in front of Cliff's entire family.

Stereotypes of both sexualities, both positive and negative, were for the most part avoided, and if they appeared, were not emphasized at the expense of comedy so they would not detract from the meaningful, character-driven dialogue. While a steep gay slant in the stories was present, they were not depicted only from the gay point of view; all characters' points of view in stories which explored sexuality shared the spotlight from episode to episode, sometimes shifting back and forth within a single episode. The series, as a result, was recognized as being clever and complex in this regard.

However, after the first two seasons, the writers started to downplay the wall-to-wall gay stories in favor of ones that were neutral to homosexual/heterosexual overtones. Just as this took place, additional characters started entering their own long-term relationships, which were depicted in a more standard sitcom fashion without sexuality being the key topic in an episode. Also, with Brothers being a Showtime original series, the allowance of strong language was taken advantage of heavily during the first and second seasons. By season three, with Paramount Television serious about the show's future in reruns, the scripts were cleaned up as well over the concern that the constant editing of coarse dialogue (Joe's habitual exclaiming of "son of a bitch" and "fuck" and "shit" peppered in accordingly) would be bad for syndication and revenues.

The show had to be cleaned up for syndication. And I assume that the gay stuff wasn't gonna fly with syndication either. So they toned that down in later seasons.

It's just interesting that no one seems to remember this show despite being an early LGBT centered series. And I don't think I've seen it in reruns for 30 years. I'm sure it ran somewhere. But it was under my radar. I do remember seeing the episode where Cliff says he's gay. But I was like 8 or 9 and didn't understand exactly what it meant. Kids were so innocent then.

I can't remember much about the show other than I watched it when nothing else was on. I assume I saw the sanitized version as it was on network TV.

Didn't Queer As Folk run for awhile? And I think the reboot is still around. I'm wondering what the ratio of LGBT to straight shows being cancelled really is. Because Netflix alone jettisons tons of series after a season or two. They should just advertise everything as a mini-series at this point. If a show has one or two token LGBT characters and gets cancelled is it really an LGBT show? I know they like to claim everything is queer because reasons. But just having an LGBT character doesn't make your show The Queer Entertainment Hour.

I think part of the problem is that they are adding these characters for flavor. Just like token POC characters. If the writing behind them is poor and they don't gel with the rest of the cast or plot then people lose interest. Today's writing seems to often be in a rut because writers are more interested in representation than quality.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Yeah, in the TV biz its known as "going out of fashion"

Even the shows that lasted for years had to make changes or tweaks, no matter how subtle or significant, to remain relevant. Once the people behind a show are unable or unwilling to do that, it's only a matter of time before the show ends or gets canceled without a satisfactory ending.

What percent of all shows end in a given year? This number is not provided. I wonder why.

For whatever reason, it seems like a number of shows end within three years of airing after any given viewing season. No real stats on that, just my random observation. Still, I bet the article doesn't mention this number because it wouldn't bolster their click-bait claims that Alphabet-friendly shows are being cancelled disproportionately to everything else (or that they are being cancelled disproportionately because they suck and lack cross-demographic appeal).

Forced representation or diversity is fucking stupid. No, 'bigotry' or whatever won't be magically solved if there are exactly 34% gay characters on television.

Forced representation rarely if ever solves the problems it's intended to address. If anything, it turns off the average normie who might otherwise be accepting. I've known normies who have stopped watching recent TV shows because the forced diversity takes over the story line to the point that the original premise of the show is overshadowed by it and little time is devoted to the plot because there's more emphasis on the characters' identities and bedroom habits. Much better were the shows that featured characters - whether regular, recurring, or one-off - who seemed like decent enough people to their peers only to have it learned they were gay but just like anyone else in every other aspect.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Omar from The Wire, half the people on Oz, etc they were all characters written with an actual personality.

But now you make Ariel black and suddenly Robin and Iceman are gay. Fuck does that accomplish? Nothing. It literally adds nothing to their character arcs.