Analysing gay characters on the BBC

The BBC is known to have an audience with a political interest. This means that the shows that they broadcast must contain a variety of views and opinions which cater for their audience.
In recent years they have been successful in portraying more gay characters in popular shows such as Eastenders.
In previous years the gay characters, Syed and Cristian, were treated badly when they confessed their relationship. This also had links to the religion of Syed and his family as they are muslim and his sexuality is highly frowned upon.

The fact that there is always so much controversy and/or excitement surrounding gay characters and shows is representative of the lack of broadcast of this nature. It is regarded as 'special' or abnormal broadcasting because people are not used to seeing gay characters as other normal people.

A two-year long study specifically of the BBC revealed an under representation of the gay community in their broadcasting. They have received comments from the public telling them to be 'more creative and bolder' in their representations. This is due to lots of disappointment regarding the stereotypical representations in the current media, potentially damaging the image of gay people in society and overshadowing any positive representations that there might be.

The highest represented LGB people are gay men. However, they are frequently stereotyped as camp and feminine, and are usually the victim of jokes and other potentially homophobic behaviours. Lesbian characters are usually invisible and their sexuality is not often mentioned. Tina's character in Eastenders for example is represented as a quirky, sometimes childish 40 year-old woman, however, when she has a sidelined story about her, it is more often than not focused on her sexuality or other things that surround it, for example when she has to deal with being a victim of domestic violence from her masculine girlfriend Tosh, creating a negative representation of 'butch' lesbians and linking their masculine personalities to violence.

The table below shows the percentage of which the British public feel that their communities and cultures are represented and the gap between this and the percentage of which these cultures and communities should be represented.

















According to the BBC report, it is lesbian women that still feel under represented and bisexual people that have next to no portrayal at all, but when they are present, the representation is often degrading. Bisexual women are usually married or in another heterosexual relationship and hide their homosexual feelings from the people they're close to from fear of rejection.
Trans characters are also very under represented and when they are it is always a short story and then it becomes sidelined. I also found that it often focuses more on how the family and friends of the transexual character are affected and the impact it has on their lives, as opposed to what it really means to the transexual character to be the way that they are.

BBC 3
BBC 3 is like the 'E4' of the BBC network. They are similar because they are the channels that are aimed at the younger generations, with an audience demographic between 16 and 34 years-old. BBC 3 have broadcast shows such as Lip Service and Being Human

Marry Me

Marry me is a new show on E4 about the lives of a heterosexual couple and their group of friends. In this post I will be focusing on the lesbian character named Kay and the gay couple called 'The Kevins'.

Kay is a member of the friendship group and is a lesbian. When watching the programme, I found that she is very open about her sexuality and uses it to her advantages when making jokes and sexual innuendos. However, her innuendos are often met with comments such as 'Ew'  or a slightly disgusted facial expression which suggest slight opposition to the idea that there is a gay female in such a mainstream show even though it is very obvious from the first episode that her friends have no problems with her sexuality.
Her dress sense can be mixed and sometimes quirky, but she usually just wears baggy but feminine clothing such as jumpers or 3/4 length sleeved tops.

Unlike the popular show 'Modern Family', This programme shows a kiss happening between Kay and her girlfriend, with no censoring or distraction. This scene is very powerful in the television industry because it is rare for any kind of homosexual affection to be broadcast.



The other gay characters in this particular show are the two Kevins who are the dads of main character, Annie. Although they are not married throughout the first series they are engaged and are actively planning a wedding along side their daughter. It is refreshing to see two gay couples who are so open and confident about their sexuality in a show that is broadcast on such a popular channel.

As well as their sexuality, they are also an interracial couple, making the show even more risky with it range of controversial ideas.

The show had great success in the US and is on its way to achieving the same level of success in the UK. The representations of the gay people in this show are not biased but they are slightly exaggerated when it comes to the 'Kevins'. They are both rather camp characters and they tend to have small 'bitch fights' in each episode over small things.

Women in Cucumber and Banana

Cucumber and Banana

Cucumber, Banana and Tofu are a set of new shows on the Channel 4 network, written by Russell T Davies. Cucumber is broadcast on Channel 4 and contains the main characters and plot. Banana is the second show, broadcast on E4 straight after Cucumber and Tofu is the spin-off web documentary, exclusively on 4oD. E4 has an audience demographic of 16-34 years old so it is the perfect channel to broadcast a show about homosexual relationships.

Banana and Tofu are directed more at the audiences who wish to look deeper into the lives of the characters and find out more about their love interests and personal issues, whereas Cucumber just looks on the surface at them and focuses on the same characters throughout the series enabling the audience to build a complete relationship with them.

In this post I will be looking into the characters of Cucumber and Banana as they are the two that are shown on television.

Cucumber

Cucumber primarily explores the romantic relationship between two middle aged men, how one of them does not want to marry the other and his years long refusal to have sex with him which causes tension between them. This refusal could be seen by audiences to be a way for Henry to deny his sexuality to himself. Unfortunately, this is the reality that we expect of most gay people when they first 'come out', but not when they are middle aged men in a long term relationship. This representation of Henry is fairly negative as it portrays him as being 'scared' of who he is, as he also turns down his partner, Lance, when he asks to marry him, becoming quite offended by the idea.
Davies uses this show to focus on Henrys life and the lives of middle gay men and does not sway from this to represent other characters.

This is why he created 'Banana', to enable him to focus on other LGBT characters and relationships, for example, lesbians, young men, trans, older women etc.

Banana

Banana is a more youth-orientated series, focusing on a different character each week. It follows the lives of lots of different characters and their standalone stories. However, all of these characters know each other, and even Henry is involved, creating an obvious link to 'Cucumber'.
The stories of these characters don't necessarily focus on their sexuality as the main plot of the story, it simply informs who they are, but is only a very minor part of the plot.
This is a list of the female characters in Banana, and the problems that they experience.
Scotty: She has a shy, quiet personality and holds down four jobs, whilst also looking after her sick mother.
Sian and Violet: They are in a fairly new relationship and throughout the series they discover the joys and pitfalls of getting together.
Helen: Helen find herself dealing with an ex that won't leave her alone. When he starts to become obsessive and wants to take revenge, she needs to use all resources available to her.
Amy: She is her own worst enemy and spends all of her time thinking the worst, at the same time as trying to start a successful relationship.
Vanessa: The oldest of all of the characters, and also the toughest and wisest. She finds herself with the fate of a young Nigerian girl in her hands.
Zara: The young Nigerian girl in Vanessa's care. She does not speak any English  but she has a secret to share.


From these descriptions of the characters, we can see that the sexuality of all of these female characters is not important to their stories.

Lip Service character analysis

Lip Service

Lip service was a fictional show focusing on the interwoven love lives of a group of Scottish lesbian women. It is aimed at all audiences aged 16-34. This audience is key to the topic of homosexuality because they are the two ends of the spectrum of how people feel about their sexuality. Around the age of 16, people begin to experiment with their sexuality and find out who they are and by the mid 30's people are clear on who they are and are comfortable in that. Because of this, the show is viewed extremely differently by these age groups. For example, the younger audiences may use TV shows such as lip service as a guide and a help to who they should be whereas older audiences will just use these shows as a source of entertainment or a look into the lives of homosexuals on TV.

Frankie is a very emotionally guarded character. She is seen as the 'butch lesbian' type although she still possesses feminine qualities. Her representation is skewed at times when we see her clearly showing feelings for her ex. This reverts the original perception we have of her, and changes our opinion. Using her persona, I aim to create a character that represents her feminine, emotional side as well as her 'butch' closed off personality, all in an image.
Through doing this, I will be representing a number of stereotypes in one, effectively creating an 'all-in-one' image, merging stereotypes and not keeping them separate from each other.

Tess is a character whom is represented more as a typical girl with relationship and life problems rather than being represented primarily a lesbian. Her appearance tends to subvert the usual lesbian stereotype because she has a feminine dress sense. However, she also dresses with a quirky style, therefore conforming to this stereotype. She does not have any kind of 'butch' features or characteristics which makes her easy to represent as an average emotional women with no bottled-up emption to show in an image.

Channel specific posters- E4

In this post I will be analysing the conventions of existing E4 posters.

In the E4 Brand Guidelines, it is stated that the E4 logo should be placed in the bottom right-hand corner with at least 10mm of space around it when used alone and should produced at a minimum of 8mm in height, but there is no maximum. When used with tape, the two parts must form a unit, with the logo placed over one or both pieces of the tape on either end, and may be placed anywhere on the page. 

As seen in these first two posters, the characters are always a main focal point and the photo is usually centred.

This poster has a large picture of the comedian placed in the centre of the page in full focus. He is addressing the audience with direct eye contact in the image. The colours are very bright and artificial which gives the poster a 'fun' feel and appeals to a younger audience. The vibrant colours instantly catch your attention and make the poster aesthetically pleasing. The comedian is fairly well known for being eccentric and different, which makes the artificiality of the images quite amusing. The tape and the logo are quite smooth and prominent on the page, making them easy to notice.

This is a poster for the popular teen drama 'Skins'. The colours in this poster are darker and more dull, which makes the poster more sinister. The ripped wallpaper in the background makes the scene very uneasy and gives us the impression that they are maybe somewhere they shouldn't be, perhaps in some kind of abandoned house. This suggests the rebellious nature of teenagers in today's society. The logo and tape of this poster are more dull in colour compared to the previous poster and they are placed slightly further towards the right of the page, making the image of the people in the background the focal point. The logo and tape are also more dishevelled than the Noel Fielding poster, suggesting the genre and themes of the show to be more serious and slightly dodgy.

This poster is different from the others because it doesn't use any image of the cast. The poster is for a show called 'PhoneShop'. They used the slogan 'The future's not very bright' on this poster which was amusing to audiences that knew the Orange Mobile slogan of 'The future's bright'. This instantly gives the show comedic value because it is using a brand that is very well known by the public. Again, because of the genre, the tape and logo are very bright and prominent on the poster.

Modern Family-Character Analysis

My analysis of Modern Family will be looking into the representation of the characters and how they fit the typical stereotypes. Although I am not doing moving image, I feel that their personalities are easily caught in still images taken from the show.

Modern Family features 3 groups of people, all linked through family relations. There are three different representations of homosexual and camp characters in the show; Mitch and Cam (The openly gay couple) and Manny, who is straight but has a camp manner about him.

- Cam and Mitch are the openly gay couple in the show. Mitch has a less camp persona, whereas cam is the complete opposite.

Cam

• He is a very maternal figure when they are deciding to get a baby and is the one driving the decision.
• This makes him a very feminine character, conforming to the typical social stereotype of homosexual men.
• He is flamboyant in the way he dresses with bright colours and patterns, matching his big personality.
• Cam is a very sensitive character and doesn't react well to arguments. He has mood swings and tempers, representative of a feminine personality.
• He is also quite stereotypical in the way the career that he has. He is an actor and singer.
• In the most recent series of the show, he becomes a football coach for the high school.

Mitch

• Mitch's character is a more manly representation of a homosexual man.
• He usually dresses in darker, plainer clothing, also matching his more conserved personality.
• He has a camp manner about him, but he isn't as over the top as his partner, Cam.
• Mitch has a job as a lawyer, which is quite a high position. Also thought to be a more masculine job.

Manny

Manny's character is not gay. However, he shows traits and behaviours that could make us think otherwise.

• Manny is a very sensitive character and clearly expresses his emotions.
• He is much like Cam in the way that he is very comfortable with expressing his upset in certain situations.
• He wears his heart on his sleeve and always seems to have a love interest.
• His sensitivity and caring for others is often lost on stepdad Jay
• The way that he is represented as a camp character is showing that it is as acceptable for straight people to act camp as much as it is accepted that gay people act in the same way.

From this analysis I have found that it is very easy to make someones personality clear from the way they dress and it is easy to assume things from the way the character acts (Manny). However, you cannot impose a sexuality on a character just from how they act, you also need to think about other characteristics to define them and make it clear to people how you wish your characters to be perceived.

Poster analysis 1-Looking

'Looking' is a show that was broadcast first in January 2014 in America on the HBO network. It then came to the UK and Northern Ireland later in the same month, attracting 67,000 viewers. The show is a fictional series about a group of gay men and their lives in terms of careers, friendships and relationships. We see them on nights out and in more casual situations such as having a coffee together and visiting each others houses etc. I have decided to analyse this poster because the show focuses on homosexual cultures and the representation of the characters is important in the still images.

- A mid shot is used and all three characters are visible, even if slightly blurred.

- The characters profile, in the foreground is out of focus and looking away from the camera and he appears to be looking at someone or something else with a slight smile on his face.

- The middle character is assumed to be the main protagonist due to the fact that he is in full focus in the centre of the image and he is the only one looking directly to the front. Although we cannot see his full face, we see that he is facing the front with direct eye contact with the audience. However, this could also be interpreted that he is looking at the foreground character.

- The background character is slightly blurred but not as much as the man in the front. He is looking in the opposite direction also possibly at another person.

- They are all well groomed characters and they look on-trend. A common conception of gay men.

- The typography of the title is blue. The most common connotation of this is masculinity. This creates irony against the sexuality of the characters.

- The typography also closely resembles the look of neon lights, possibly suggesting the mention of clubbing and the nightlife of these men.

-The fact that the show has not started yet, the poster gives us an enigma due to the unusual image of three protagonists that are all male. How are they linked? What are their relationships?

- The time of the show is 10:30pm suggesting that there may be some kind of explicit content or adult themes, unsuitable for pre-watershed broadcasting.

- The light in the background has a vague representation of shedding new light onto a situation. The image of the three men possibly suggests homosexual themes.

- The colours go from darker in the foreground to more feminine on the clothes of the character in the background.This could suggest personality differences or how homosexuality doesn't necessarily fit a colour.