GLAAD has released its annual “Where Are We On TV” report. It’s a comprehensive look at how and where LGBT people are depicted on television. Beyond that, it breaks down what roles (leading, supporting, recurring) and the race of the actor playing that part.
Among GLAAD’s findings:
At the launch of the 2009-2010 television season, GLAAD estimates that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) scripted characters represent 3% of all scripted series regular characters on the five broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, and NBC. This is slightly more than last year, with 18 series regular characters identified as LGBT.
In contrast, the number of LGBT series regular characters found on scripted programming on mainstream cable networks has decreased even further from last year’s analysis, from 32 to 25. The presence of LGBT-focused cable networks here! and Logo, which program specifically for LGBT viewers, add additional representations. These two networks alone will provide 27 additional series regular LGBT characters, more than all of the other cable networks combined.
“Glee” is there. “True Blood,” too. And it looks like Syfy is keeping its promise to be more LGBT-representative.
The report is available in PDF and also on GLAAD’s site. It’s worth checking out and clicking around.
1. October 2009 at 3:05 pm
It’s interesting in that the report made no mention as to the fate of Eric @ Gossip Girl and Justin @ Ugly Betty.
2. October 2009 at 2:00 am
And all the gays suck. They are always a stereotype. Fuck Glaad and fuck those shows.
3. October 2009 at 1:05 am
The more gays, the more Emmys. I had to catch up with GLEE, because I rarely watch network TV and had FUX blocked on my channel lineup. Now that GLEE is available all over the web, I don’t have to worry about surfing into FUX