Poll: What do you think of all these gay shows? (Queer Eye, Boy Meets Boy, Will & Grace, Etc)

Never seen any of them.� I'm poor and can't afford cable tv.� We get three channels, french, and blurry.

and..umm.. first post?

Reminds me of European Vacation where the kids could only find two things on TV: cheese and snow. :)

we have scaled-down basic cable, which doesn't include...well, much of anything. I believe we get cbc, global tv, tvontario, and abc. oh, and the womens network, which mom and housemates watch 24/7. ugh. i hate home decorating shows. is all that ever plays in this house.

I don't really care?

"other?" like, hi?

that seems like a very specific answer to just lump in with "other."

You think?

ok, i really like will & grace, despite the fact i haven't seen it in forever .� same goes for queer eye.� however, i flat out refused to watch boy meets boy, but that's just 'cause i hate "competitive dating" shows.

how I feel about them.....

Like, some are very entertaining, but I really don't see how one's sexual orientation is relevant when it comes to..... welll..... ANYTHING... other than your personal relations.
*shrugs*

To an extent, I feel that anyone who advertises their sexual preference is "exploiting" it.

Enhh. I think this is a pretty simplistic view, Nate. Almost every media depiction you see is heterosexual in nature. Yeah, there's the occasional "Will & Grace" or "Queer Eye" or whatever, but they're mostly notable because they're so different from everything else on TV.

Ideally, yes, I think that sexual orientation should be a non-issue... But I think that is vehemently not the case when Madonna kissing Britney Spears is front-page news.

yeah, you have a valid point there.

*sighs*
I guess I'm just far too idealistic.

I don't actually watch any of them but it is comparing apples and oranges. I don't watch any reality shows. Will and Grace is a sitcom which I've seen but it didn't excite me. I don't lump it with the other shows just because it has a gay character. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a TV show isn't gay or straight, it is merely well or poorly produced.

As with the first post, I have lousy antenna reception and no cable.� Mostly because the quality of programming has been going downhill since I reached adulthood.� OK, so the shows I liked growing up sucked too (anyone remember Sledge Hammer?), but I was a teenege boy and my expectations were lower.

As for "gay TV," Three's Company was the best.� Sure, Jack Tripper was really straight, but he showed us how ridiculous the stereotypes were (and still are).� When you add Norman Fell to the mix, you have a true quality program.

Yes, I typed that without laughing.

I was just discussing if Howard Hessman's character on the old Bob Newhart show was the first gay recurring character in TV history. Does anyone know an earlier one?

Bob Newhart was also the first show to show a couple sharing a bed. Before that they all had twin beds.

and then billy crystal on soap was the first regular?

and here is a lengthy response to the shared bed question.

Ugh.
Too bad soap was such a shit-ass show.
:P

i have no idea - i'm not big on tv.

*ahem*

stuff it, nate ;)

i love soap!

Soap was great though it jumped the shark a bit the last season when Jodie started channelling an old Jewish man. In general though it was funny, sharp, and observant.

the last season was insane. i think after Corinne left it kind of went to hell.

like jessica got taken off to Malaguay by the government because she was harboring el puerco, chester married Eunice's college best friend, Wendy got kidnapped and Jodie fell in love with the woman detective helping him find her, then he went to the psychiatrist and was hypnotized into a past life, where he was a little old jewish man, Burt became "Bat" Cambell and was on special task forces for the governer and became a big jerk, burt & mary's baby was an alien, danny falls in love with a hooker, gets shot protecting her, finds out chester is really his father because he needs a kidney transplant..

..i'm sure there's more, but i'm just reassuring everyone of what a loser i am :D

One more thing about Jodie. He was gay but he had at least three relationships with women but the only one he had with a man was with the football player the first season.

true�- most of his relationships with the women were like "oh my god! jodie and a girl!" the rest of the time was a bunch of cliche gay jokes, really.

actually he only had 2 relationships with women. with Carol and with Maggie. he had a date with a nurse once but stood her up. Carol seduced him at a cottage in cape cod and became pregnant with wendy. he had told her he'd never sleep with her again, because he lived his whole life a certain way, and wasn't going to change because of one experience. when they found out about the pregnancy, he tried to marry her and said he'd try - but she ran out on the wedding and took the baby to texas.�

most of the focus on him from the second season on was from the "single gay father" view.

I adored Soap when I was in high school, but I stopped watching before the contrived weirdness and character inconsistency that usually spells the decline and death of a show started.� I didn't watch tv at all in college -- too busy with other stuff�-- and that was when Soap deteriorated and was cancelled.

Jodie's character�was a revelation at the time, though.� He was a gay series regular, which was a big deal in and of itself, but more importantly he was the voice of sanity and "normality" and compassion on a show filled with eccentric, self-absorbed,�or just plain wacky characters.

Yes about Billy Crystal. That was a big deal at the time. I just realized the Bob Newhart character in retrospect. I watched the show regulary and no one seemed to make a big deal of it at the time. Which make me question if I right or not.

As for the Bed Question. They might be right but I'm pretty sure they are wrong about the Flintstones sharing a bed. As a kid I thought it was so strange that people on TV had twin beds and in real life every adult couple I knew had a double bed. So I think I would have noticed that.

Looks like it was on the BBC first.

1961 - 1970
The Roads to Freedom (drama) BBC 1970, seen on PBS 1971
Daniel Sereno (Daniel Massey)

Paris on the eve of the Second World War. Based on the novel trilogy of the same name, by Jean-Paul Sartre.

This was found on a TV page telling what shows contain gay, lesbian and bi characters.

American TV:

The Corner Bar (sitcom) ABC 1972-1973

Peter Panama 1972 (Vincent Schiavelli)

Set in a New York City neighborhood bar called Grant's Tomb. The regular customers included Peter, a gay set designer. The show was reworked for the 1973 season in several elements, including dropping him, but the show was cancelled again anyway.

Or maybe it was Peppermint Patty and Marcie from Charlie Brown? ;)

Also, what about Lance Loud on An American Family, one of the earliest (if not the earliest) tv reality shows? Granted it was a year later..

Nope, the Brady Bunch was the first Show that had a couple sharing a bed. Not Bob Newhart.

Love Queer Eye.

Didn't watch and though Boy Meets Boy was stupid (but I think that of all dating shows)

Will and Grace I have never liked, but not because it is a gay character, but rather because the writing has always been kinda bland and unoriginal.

I agree on W&G, but that's pretty much�my rule for sitcoms.��� Fake.� So, so fake.

I haven't seen Queer Eye, although I probably should watch at least one ep since it gets nearly-universal raves.� And I don't watch dating shows either.�

Queer As Folk rocks, despite some cliche plots or overly-neat wrapups.�� But that's only for those of us with Showtime.�� :)�

See, I had to choose other, because good is good and bad is bad, and that's not at all related to the gay factor.

I cannot stand Will and Grace. Really, I hate it so much, it makes me angry. I just don't like it, I think it's a bad sitcom, because I want to smack everybody. Every last one of them.

I've never watched Boy Meets Boy. I'm not opposed to it; I just never tried.

And I love love LOVE Queer Eye. It's been one of my favorite things since the very first episode. It's funny, it's clever, it's useful. And I have a huge crush on Ted Allen. {g}

I nearly chose the second option, because I wouldn't mind seeing more gays in the mainstream media, but I still hate the Will and Grace, y'know?

A far cry from the days when hollywood movies couldn't show a heterosexual couple kissing unless the man had at least one foot on the ground. That is the positive side. Now the networks' sponsors have woken up to the spending power of the quintessential dinks. Call me a cynic.

I voted for the "they suck because they're bad". The ones I've seen have just been painful to watch, and I'd rather be disembowled by a rusty car fender than watch Queer Eye. It's very cool that society has become more accepting of gays, but I'd much rather see them worked in naturally to real shows rather than creating hokey situations to make the stereotypes even worse.

At last! I'm no longer alone in not loving Queer Eye! :-D

I voted for the shrug though. Some are ok, some aren't.
It's TV.
I don't see anymore reason to like a show because of gay content than I would to dislike a show for the same reason.

I wouldn't know. the only tv I watch is the same episode of behind the music CHRISTINA AGULARA. and I watch it over and over again.

*laugh*

Since I have no TV reception and refuse to pay for cable, I have to admit that I wasn't aware that gay sitcom had gone mainstream. The last time I was aware of gay TV, it was because Ellen was dumped.� I definitely like the concept, though.

*binkbink*

wowzers sisinlaw... you're out of the popTV loop, or should I say poopTV loop?

I think they do two things: one, yes. they give more mainstream attention to gays in the media, which is good. . .BUT they do exploit stereotypes.

I think Will and Grace definately has its moments, but for the most part relies on the "I'm gay....Isn't that *funny*!?" kind of humour.� I found it got old after�only seeing a couple of episodes. �Has anybody out there ever seen "Queer as Folk"?�� I"m surprised nobody has mentioned it.� I haven't seen an episode of it myself, but I've heard lots of opinions on it from friends and I'm surprised that after 30 odd posts, nobody's mentioned it.

um ... I did!

Mention it, I mean. Up there. *points to Starfox's "Yay Queer Eye" thread*

It's groundbreaking in many ways, and I really like the show. It still feeds into stereotypes, however -- most insidiously, that gay men are wildly promiscuous party boys who have trouble committing to a monogamous relationship.

 SurgeonDeathPorn Keeps threatening to send my name in to the show.

I assume you mean Queer Eye not QaF.

Unless she thinks you should have one of those walk-on parts QaF periodically offers as contest prizes.

oops....jillian needs to learn how to read

never seen any of 'em

I got myself addicted to Boy Meets Boy... and I don't usually do the dating reality tv shows.

It was just the meanest thing I'd ever seen done on TV - have one guy choose from a group of other guys, but half of them are straight and just playing for money.� Judging by the interviews, it seems like the producers convinced the straight guys that they'd be showing the world how similar gay and straight people are, and broadening horizons.�

For the others, I like Will and Grace a lot.� Harry Connick, Jr. doesn't hurt the eyes, either.� Queer Eye is annoying.� And I don't get Showtime, so I've never seen Queer as Folk.� But I used to watch Hal Sparks on Talk Soup...