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CBS to add more gay characters

CBS responds to a recent report from lobby group GLAAD that gave the network a fail for its inclusion -for the second year in a row.

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CBS will be adding more gay characters to their shows following a recent report from lobby group GLAAD that gave the network a fail for the second year in a row.

New characters will be added to new comedy $#*! My Dad Says, Rules of Engagement and The Good Wife.

“We’re disappointed in our track record so far,” Entertainment president Nina Tassler said. “We’re going to do it. We’re not happy with ourselves.”

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation recently declared youth-oriented networks MTV and the CW devoted the largest shares of their prime-time hours to depicting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters, including shows such as The Real World: Washington D.C, America’s Best Dance Crew, Gossip Girl, Melrose Place and 90210.

GLAAD looked at nearly 5,000 hours of prime-time shows on the five broadcast networks and 10 top-rated cable networks and noted whether gay characters were featured in major or minor storylines as well as their ethnic and racial diversity.

Following CW were FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS in last place.

Source: Hollywood Reporter, LA Times

19 Responses

  1. I agree with AJ. Briothers and Sisters has two characters who are integral to the storyline and the sexuality is not necessary important in many of the episodes. Obviously having a baby via surrogate is, but often it is baout characters work, life balance and other family.

    I agree if they “need” to add them, they should be part of the show not just a token. I agree that other minorities are important too!

  2. Speaking as a gay man I find this notion of “adding a gay character to an existing show to meet the GLAAD expectations” to be totally ridiculous.

    You can’t just throw a gay character into a show (especially an existing show) and expect them to have a meaningful connection and interesting storylines.

    And until America loosens up a little and allows men to have passionate kissing scenes and sex scenes in the same vein as hetero depictions (you too Home & Away and Neighbours), then it is pointless adding another gay or lesbian character just to be the annoying queenie sidekick or supportive shoulder to lean on.

  3. That’s absolutely ridiculous! The gay community in society is considered a minority, so to have them in a lot of your tv shows simply over-represents the minority.

    There are a lot of minority groups in western society, why aren’t we seeing more of them represented in tv shows? I thinks it’s unfair they’re giving preference to the gay minority.

  4. A gay character is only an interesting addition if they are a good character and not just a token character.

    There’s no point adding any character (gay or straight) to an existing show if they’re not going to be well written and developed.

    That typed, it would have been cool to see Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory make a “connection” with a guy (as well as a girl) and then possibly decide he was interested in neither.

    As for King Russel on True Blood, how can anyone “forget” that he is gay? He has a husband who has appeared in almost every episode with him and their 700-year long relationship is referred to in most episodes.

  5. i agree with andrew. surely the message tv gay characters should be sending is that their sexual orientation isnt what makes their character interesting, but that they are normal like everyone else. if i based my knowlege off tv, i would get a very warped sense of what gay people are like- i.e not normal people.

    On true blood, i forget that the king is gay/bi. when watching normal storylines on will and grace, i had no idea that will was gay, and i think that is the message that should be portrayed on Tv, not the silly “lesbian crush on best friend thats over by the following episode”….

    1. Not sure what show you were watching if you had no idea Will Truman was gay. It was an integral part of the show. I am sure GLAAD would agree that G&L characters should be driven by exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as heterosexual characters, but visibility is also valid which I think was the point of their stocktake.

  7. Don’t you just love affirmative action. I think it’s ridiculous you have to have a quota of gay people, black people or Asian people for TV shows.

    Say If a gay guy is put in Rules of Engagement, it will just be about Jeff being uncomfortable at them and jokes at their expense, if it was a gay woman it would be about Russell making lesbian jokes all the time. So how is that a benifit to the GLAAD group?

    We have enough shows like Glee, Will & Grace, True Blood etc.. If anything it will just ruin shows for the forced additions to the cast.

  9. As far as I know, in my immediate circle of friends none of them are gay. But if they were to recast my life as a TV show, proportionately at least two of them would need to be cast as gay to fulfil this expectation, and their sexual proclivities would have to be the subject of most of their stories, their characters defined by it.

    This just seems the wrong approach.

  10. CBS is the “old people’s network”, look at their scedule, it’s pretty much, 2.5 Men and crime procedurals.

    The thing about CBS crime procedurals is that they are procedurals, you watch an episode of season 1, it’s the same as an episode of season 10, the main difference being the hairstyles and the phones used, they don’t delve deep into emotional character development and all that stuff, they deal with the situation at hand, and by they I mean the writing staff of the shows. Point is, when characters aren’t very 3-dimensional, and they spend the majority of the 43 minutes finding the killer(s) and not in the bedroom of one of the characters, there isn’t too much time to find a gay character and develop him/her.

    The reason CW shows have so many gay characters is that they are soaps, with saps, you run out of storylines VERY fast, and when every character has nailed every character of the opposite sex, you pretty much go “let’s make gay character(s), guaranteed publicity practically means guaranteed viewers”

  11. The networks in Australia could take note – gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered are poorly represented here too, especially as most shows are from the Sydney/Melb centres and have large gay populations. I kind of agree with others though that tokenism is a step backward; if the networks are smart – they would figure that gay/lesbian audiences often, not always, butoften have disposable income, the pink dollar it was once known as. Despite paving the way nearly 4 decades ago, we are sadly behind and lacking in courage and initiative in the way our narratives represent the overall make up of the population.

  15. Well this seems kind of forced then dosn’t it? I have no problem with people/characters being gay but just to add gay characters for the sake of it seems ridiculous.
    They could make one of the replacements in Criminal Minds a lesbian, seeing as they need more femal characters anyway. That makes more sense than adding additional characters to fill the ‘quota’.

  16. Hope they’re not just gonna be token gay characters or worse steroetypical ones. I’d be much more happy if there’s just a character, who happens to be gay, and not a thing mentioned of it. No self discovery, hidden secrets, uproar kind of thing. Just a normal relationship and treated no differently.

  17. They’re sticking token gay characters into existing shows to satisfy a lobby group? I don’t disagree with sentiment, but this just seems lame.

  18. I’m not homophobic, have nothing against anybody actually. But I think it’s a bad idea to pander to the commitee… if they have good story lines for gay people, sure they can add them, but if they just want to get a pass from the council and just slap together a story centered on gay people that’s bad because slapping together a story means less coherence and just less interesting stories…

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