Poll: Should There be Gay Characters in Kid's Shows/Films?
- Thread starter interspark
- Start date
Me too. Kid'ss shows should not show homosexuals, kid's shows should not show heterosexuals. Why mix sexuality into somethign that should not have anything to do with it at all? I don't have the lsightest against homosexuals, nor open homosexuals, I just don't think it's needed.SilentCom said:
Kid's shows is there to entertain kids, parents are there to educate kids.
Mickey Mouse should be there to make kids laugh, not to teach kids that it's wrong to steal, lie, murder or that homosexuality is wrong. Parents should do all of the above and not put the responsibility of raising their kids to the entertainment industry.
"Kids won't understand it"... only because they haven't seen enough of this kind of thing! If a kid grows up knowing their parents' gay friends or maybe even having gay parent, they don't question it.
Someone above me mentioned the Arthur episode with the girl who had two mothers. Of course not a huge amount of homosexual couples have children so it's not like we need to see two mummies/two daddies all the time, but considering roughly one in ten people are gay (and then of course there's bisexuals), one episode which shows a same sex couple out of hundreds of kids shows is not at all proportional. And this is one reason why kids grow up thinking homosexuality is something weird or not right.
It doesn't have to be a big deal. A kid's romantic cartoon film could still have the straight lead and their opposite sex love interest (after all, most kids will grow up heterosexual so most kids would relate to this), but at the very least, now and again, have something along the lines of a homosexual friend of the lead who gets their same sex love interest at the end of the film.
Someone above me mentioned the Arthur episode with the girl who had two mothers. Of course not a huge amount of homosexual couples have children so it's not like we need to see two mummies/two daddies all the time, but considering roughly one in ten people are gay (and then of course there's bisexuals), one episode which shows a same sex couple out of hundreds of kids shows is not at all proportional. And this is one reason why kids grow up thinking homosexuality is something weird or not right.
It doesn't have to be a big deal. A kid's romantic cartoon film could still have the straight lead and their opposite sex love interest (after all, most kids will grow up heterosexual so most kids would relate to this), but at the very least, now and again, have something along the lines of a homosexual friend of the lead who gets their same sex love interest at the end of the film.
Saying yes to adult shows and no to kids shows seems remarkably bigoted to me.
If being gay isn't a choice, then obviously some kids will end up gay and gay characters won't matter for straight kids because they can't choose to be gay.
If being gay is a choice, then you either have to acknowledge that some kids will choose it and try to give role models to them and exposure to the idea at a young age to everyone, or you have to come up with some justification for why being gay is objectively a bad idea beyond "it's not what I am" (spoiler alert: there isn't such a justification).
As for "sexualizing" kids, that's a remarkably stupid argument. Are we never supposed to show straight parents on television intended for kids? Adding gay characters is as easy as adding in a kid/animal/animate object with parents of the same gender. As a bonus, if it's a human or animal, the writers even get to do a horribly cliched adoption storyline!
In the same vein, you also have the option of showing characters who simply don't conform to some gender stereotypes. You can find a lot of these characters going back a ways into television programming, but more recently they're pretty hard to find, likely because such characters are immediately denounced as gay and somehow dangerous. Television for kids used to be filled with tomboys and boys who were more girly and, crucially, the message was always that you could be whatever you wanted to be and, in the end, those people were stronger and more interesting once they accepted themselves. Now whenever you see such a character, the moral is inevitably about how the kid will grow up to conform (the "just a late bloomer" storyline) or actually already does conform in some other important way (the "I may like dance, but I'm also a great football player" storyline). It's extraordinarily rare to see nonconformity in children represented as anything but an unfortunate, transient state or some weakness that a character is able to overshadow with some other conforming trait.
I guess you could feature some of the even smaller minorities like asexuals, but your requirements cut out, for instance, the possibility of any characters having natural parents on the show.
As has already been mentioned, no one here (well, being the internet, FEW people here) is talking about the actual sex part, just the relationship. There's nothing wrong, "confusing", or strange about a character having two same-gender parents. In fact, unlike adults, children will usually take it completely in stride. When you don't know much about reproduction, there's absolutely nothing confusing or contradictory about gay relationships or gay couples raising children. You see this all the time with kids too. When parents expose them to evidence that gay people exist, they typically try to "have a talk" with the kid to answer all the "questions" they expect the kid to have, but it's pretty rare that kids will have any questions at all until they know more about sex and reproduction.
If being gay isn't a choice, then obviously some kids will end up gay and gay characters won't matter for straight kids because they can't choose to be gay.
If being gay is a choice, then you either have to acknowledge that some kids will choose it and try to give role models to them and exposure to the idea at a young age to everyone, or you have to come up with some justification for why being gay is objectively a bad idea beyond "it's not what I am" (spoiler alert: there isn't such a justification).
As for "sexualizing" kids, that's a remarkably stupid argument. Are we never supposed to show straight parents on television intended for kids? Adding gay characters is as easy as adding in a kid/animal/animate object with parents of the same gender. As a bonus, if it's a human or animal, the writers even get to do a horribly cliched adoption storyline!
In the same vein, you also have the option of showing characters who simply don't conform to some gender stereotypes. You can find a lot of these characters going back a ways into television programming, but more recently they're pretty hard to find, likely because such characters are immediately denounced as gay and somehow dangerous. Television for kids used to be filled with tomboys and boys who were more girly and, crucially, the message was always that you could be whatever you wanted to be and, in the end, those people were stronger and more interesting once they accepted themselves. Now whenever you see such a character, the moral is inevitably about how the kid will grow up to conform (the "just a late bloomer" storyline) or actually already does conform in some other important way (the "I may like dance, but I'm also a great football player" storyline). It's extraordinarily rare to see nonconformity in children represented as anything but an unfortunate, transient state or some weakness that a character is able to overshadow with some other conforming trait.
...kids' shows shouldn't have hetereosexuals or homosexuals? That leaves remarkably little room for...well...humans.Yopaz said:
I guess you could feature some of the even smaller minorities like asexuals, but your requirements cut out, for instance, the possibility of any characters having natural parents on the show.
As has already been mentioned, no one here (well, being the internet, FEW people here) is talking about the actual sex part, just the relationship. There's nothing wrong, "confusing", or strange about a character having two same-gender parents. In fact, unlike adults, children will usually take it completely in stride. When you don't know much about reproduction, there's absolutely nothing confusing or contradictory about gay relationships or gay couples raising children. You see this all the time with kids too. When parents expose them to evidence that gay people exist, they typically try to "have a talk" with the kid to answer all the "questions" they expect the kid to have, but it's pretty rare that kids will have any questions at all until they know more about sex and reproduction.
Sure. Since its a kid show though it all has to be treated in that muted kind of naive lovey crush way. In addition, it should reflect the relative ratio of homosexual relationship in the world (i.e not everyone is gay yo).
This right here, spot on pal.Snake Plissken said:
I voted for option two simply because I don't believe that sexuality in any form should come up in really kiddy shows at all.
As a gay guy I can say yes to this, but you have to be careful in the overall tone and presentation of the characters that you choose and how they are portrayed. Either way it doesn't matter because someone will get mad about the characters. The best you can do is portray the characters in a positive light and hope that you can help the kids understand.
I know people who don't accept how I live. But me I'm a gamer, I'm clean living, and I don't shove my life down peoples throats. *shrugs* Either way I know my way of living will offend someone and the best I can do is state my case and if they don't like it. Screw them. The same goes for the kids shows though portrayal is the biggest problem because someones job is on the line I just hope people will be smart. Too forceful and you get the homophobes mad, to stereotypical and you get the members of the LGBT community mad.
I hate humanity sometimes.
I know people who don't accept how I live. But me I'm a gamer, I'm clean living, and I don't shove my life down peoples throats. *shrugs* Either way I know my way of living will offend someone and the best I can do is state my case and if they don't like it. Screw them. The same goes for the kids shows though portrayal is the biggest problem because someones job is on the line I just hope people will be smart. Too forceful and you get the homophobes mad, to stereotypical and you get the members of the LGBT community mad.
I hate humanity sometimes.
Ar... Are you oimplying that South Park and Family Guy are meant for kids?The_root_of_all_evil said:
Terrible idea. It would infect our children. All butch manly characters on kids TV. Definitely. Mehhhhhhh.
Dude... What the fuck?
Even The Simpsons wasn't really intended for childeren origionally.
I haven't seen anybody mentioning the angle that many queer people are aware that they're queer, at least on some level, from a very young age. I was peripherally aware by the time I was seven, and some well-done queer characters in the TV I watched (although admittedly I didn't watch much) might have helped me be slightly better adjusted as a teenager. That's true for a lot of queer kids, from what I've read.
When you say kids, I think 12 and under, and no, there is no reason for a show with the target demographic to shoe horn homosexual characters in it, besides Bert and Ernie. When they start hitting puberty, then it is fine as long as the characters are well written.
Hit point remains valid. Erny and Bert alone would have been enough to prove it.moretimethansense said:
Just because you don't stamp sombody with the mark "Gay" doesn't mean that there aren't any homosexual characters.
I agree for stuff like Teletubbies obviously, but by the time they're about 7 or 8 shows start have something where the boy has a crush on some girl and its played quite light-heartedly.SilentCom said:
Once its at that, then yeah. The only way you curb all this bullshit discrimination and hatred is by having it become something that's just normal.
I think the main reasons people thought what we did was because there's only so many ways to indicate that a character is gay.Bara_no_Hime said:
There are good examples of how to do this for kids, but it's a delicate subject to address any sexual preference as a characterization and not have actual sex factor in.
Again, though-- "Post Cards with Buster" from Arthur showing a little girl with two moms=fantastic method of exposing kids to diversity while staying kid friendly.
No, there is no need to highlight someones sexuality, acceptance comes when people stop making a big fucking deal about it and starts seeing other people as their whole being rather than one aspect of them.
"LOOK, LOOK, THIS GUY IS GAY AND HE'S IN OUR TV SHOW, LOOK AT HIM, HE'S DIFFERENT AND WE STILL LET HIM ON OUR SHOW! WE'RE SO ACCEPTING."
Im not saying don't put in various different characters, just don't highlight a gay character in particular and say it's OK to be gay. Positive discrimination is still discrimination.
"LOOK, LOOK, THIS GUY IS GAY AND HE'S IN OUR TV SHOW, LOOK AT HIM, HE'S DIFFERENT AND WE STILL LET HIM ON OUR SHOW! WE'RE SO ACCEPTING."
Im not saying don't put in various different characters, just don't highlight a gay character in particular and say it's OK to be gay. Positive discrimination is still discrimination.
As long as the gay character isn't there just for the sake of being there and they don't bury them in stereotypes I wouldn't mind seeing a gay character in a show like that.
I was actually going to post this myself when I saw a couple others had already done it. I'm not going to go into the "why" because that would be a topic in and of itself (and likely not a pleasant one), but I agree completely. There is no reason here to assume that just because the characters are homosexual/bisexual that there needs to be any sex involved at all. Quite frankly, this reminds me of the Cosby show.Bara_no_Hime said:
But aren't you kind of.. recruiting kids to be homosexual if you confront them with it too much? I'm sorry if it sounds crude but I don't think that our current situation represses homosexuality, aside from bullying and such ofcourse. In fact, the people I know who are homosexual have known all their lives, without kids shows telling them that it's an option.Bara_no_Hime said: