this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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When I was a kid “that’s gay” and calling people “fags” was very very common. Even in The Office Micheal calls stuff “faggy”.
It was pretty heavily shamed and my dad was very worried my brothers or I might turn out gay if we played with our sister’s toys. I had an uncle say to be careful or we’d turn out with “limp wrists” and he did that stereotypical gay wrist gesture.
And does anyone else remember “metrosexual”? I got called that because I liked wearing nice clothes and putting product in my hair (growing up the expectation in the town I was from was that men tucked in their shirts and made themselves look nice, so that being borderline gay confused the heck out of me).
Nowadays I never ever hear that kind of language (except for online trolls), and that family is very much fine with LGBTQ people (except still fairly confused on the trans parts).
Progress has been slow buts better than I thought it would be as a kid — even the Pope preaches acceptance of gay people (though this gets him some hate).
Yeah as a trans woman I was beaten up for being feminine as a kid. Nothing like how it was for older generations, but I definitely remember it. I remember learning to fear femininity in any form including looking nice in a polished masculine way because it was seen as gay and queerness came with ostracism or at least some people being uncomfortable with you.
It’s easy to forget that that era was a thing, but jeez I remember so many jokes about how anyone who drove a Prius had to be gay, ironically from the same people who constantly whined about gas prices.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, I was a straight kid and got pushed around for the mere accusations, I can't imagine how it feels to be beaten up for who you actually are inside.
For what it's worth, one of my best friends is trans and all my family mentioned above was very nice to her at my wedding, so at least in some circles people really have changed (my family was never hateful, just ignorant before). I wish I could say it was universal.
A friend of mine's brother came out to his parents and before they had processed it (they're accepting now), they blamed it on my friend's refusal to include him when my friend played football and such other manly pursuits.
Yeah people don't seem to remember just how accepted and extreme homophobia was. That fag word you mentioned? That was used at least once in nearly every episode of Will and Grace. A primetime sitcom. The vast majority of times it was said was also by a straight character, not by Will or Jack. Was also said in a derogatory tone or at least a shameful one. Was one of the reasons why W&G was loathed by a lot of the community. The gay characters were stereotypes that were used to laugh at but had no furthering of themselves. It's also why the revival failed so miserably. After 20 years it was made abundantly clear that the gay characters were flat and 2D.
Basically the flagship show for gay guys in the early 2000s was made with a surprising amount of homophobia baked in. That's how bad shit was. Even when we got what we asked for and when a lot of us were super stoked about it, we were happy about homophobia simply because it was still less than what was before. Things hve gotten a lot better but it's still pretty bad. Constantly reminded that I'm different and lesser.
If hairy sweaty men were not so monumentally attractive then I'd shred my gay card without a moment's hesitation.
I think I have to give some of those shows a pass, simply because as a small town straight kid Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy were the first gay people I ever saw.
I distinctly remember my brother put them on as a joke and then we all sat and watched them and learned gay people weren't that different.
I'm probably going to regret this comment but I think "homophobia" is too strong of a world for things like W&G. The people who wrote and acted in the show weren't "persistently and unreasonably afraid" of Gay people. What the show did was play on stereotypes but it used them in ways that were not meant to be directly and intentionally hurtful. It made the show possible and allowed a wide audience to be exposed to Gays as normal and human. It also gave the many people who didn't know any gay men a face, Eric McCormack's, instead of whatever image they had in their head.
W&G wasn't high art but it was a decent show for its time and it served to advance the cause as it existed in the late 90s and early 2000s.
In fact I'd argue that W&G was done in the same vein as shows like "Sanford and Sons" and "The Jeffersons"! Through their existence and popularity they were able introduce and then humanize a previous out group. It's easy to view them years later and see them as flat, cringe, or naive but they were the shows that were possible at the time and the good they did far outweighs the decades later criticisms.
I know its tough, as a society we have so much farther to go, but don't lose sight of how much progress has been made. We've come a very long way in the last 35 years.
Categorizing homophobia as simply "persistently and unreasonably afraid" ignores a truly enormous amount of what homophobia actually is. W&G playing on stereotypes isn't inherently bad. As you point out, there are many sitcoms and other shows which will play on stereotypes. Where the homophobia comes from is how it treated those gay characters. Notably that they were treated almost entirely as set dressing. Will and Jack are completely unimportant to the show. No decisions they make have any lasting impact or importance to the plot. In fact, their decisions are barely followed at all. In Season 1 or 2, Will loses his biggest client and as a result has to shut down his firm and start over at a new one. When he does, his boss ends up getting involved in more of Karen and Graces episodes than he does in any Will episode. When Will has a problem with his brother they do two episodes on it, mention it once in a later season and then never mention it again. Meanwhile Grace has multiple episodes about her problems with her mother. Even the episode where Will comes out for the first time to anyone? It's entirely about Grace.
How Will felt is used for comedic set dressing while Grace is the only one who's focused on for any emotional impact. In the later seasons, Will ends up in a relationship with a cop and it goes poorly. Again there is like no time given to this. In fact let's talk about relationships in general. How many relationships can you remember that Will had? There's Michael, a character who is only ever seen once but is referenced constantly to belittle Will. There's Vince, the cop boyfriend that I mentioned. That's fucking it. At least for the 8 season long original run. What's insane is that Will has had more female romantic partners than he has multi-episode relationships. Seriously. He dated his high school best friend (who wanted Wills babies which caused a whole thing with Grace being a controlling freak), he dated Grace and then he had a one night stand with a random woman after he told Grace he was gay. Which, of course, Grace immediately makes about her and gets angrier at will.
The Gay characters of Will & Grace are used entirely for comedic purposes and have no depth or important to the show meanwhile the straight characters have endless season long arcs about their relationships (Grace and Leo, Karen and Stanley are just two blatant examples). They are completely flat and two-dimensional and was an outright betrayal to the gay community by repeatedly reinforcing stereotypes and abandoning the gay community for the sake of a laugh. Anything that could be seen as even slightly subversive is immediately washed away as it's turned into a joke.
I love Will & Grace. I really do. Having that representation was important for me when I was younger and was important overall but it must be equally as important to remember that Will & Grace undercut the gay community at every chance to make straight people laugh.
Yes it did and I thank you for expressing it in such a clear way; it's what I was floundering towards with my own comment. Still, this is the pattern of the early shows centered around minorities; the stereotypes are played like a banjo with the intent of making the show popular with a wider audience. With that exposure comes tolerance and what normally follows tolerance is acceptance.
It would have been fantastic if those shows would have been made to the modern standard but a show built to a 2023 standard would absolutely not have been playing on NBC in 1998. It wouldn't even have been made let alone been playing in a PrimeTime slot. The wider audience simply wasn't ready and wouldn't have accepted such a show.
Respectfully we may have to agree to disagree on this. What you linked are validly sourced but IMO they've been updated so far that they've lost their meaning. The word "phobia" has a set clinical definition and what we're discussing simply doesn't fit.
Harvard Medical defines a phobia like this: "A phobia is a persistent, excessive, unrealistic fear of an object, person, animal, activity or situation. It is a type of anxiety disorder. A person with a phobia either tries to avoid the thing that triggers the fear, or endures it with great anxiety and distress. "
Take that pages example of Agoraphobia - "Agoraphobia is a fear of being in public places where it would be difficult or embarrassing to make a sudden exit. "
In short having a "phobia" requires fear and that fear cannot be temporary nor can it be reasonable. So then Homophobia is when someone has an unreasonable and persistent fear of Homosexuals. Those elements are simply not present in Will & Grace.
To press the point there simply isn't a grammatically or clinically valid function that downgrades the meaning of the word "phobia" when you prepend it with "Homo"; the word is being misused.
The problematic behavior is real enough but what is often labelled as homophobia is really bigotry or prejudice. Bigotry being intolerance that is inconsistent with facts, while Prejudice is holding a preconceived judgement or conviction. Side note: Prejudice isn't strictly negative, one can be prejudiced for as well as against.
So shows like Will&Grace were watched by people with prejudice but it gave them exposure that removed their preconceptions. This shifted many people away from their prejudice and what's left are the Bigots, who know what the truth is and don't care, and the Homophobic, people who are actually and for real afraid of Homosexuals.
It may seem academic but I think these distinctions matter because grouping all of these people together stymies communication and hinders progress. The Phobic literally cannot control their fear, at least not without therapy and possibly drugs. The Prejudiced are simply ignorant and holding an opinion based on that ignorance, their prejudice can be corrected by educating them and removing their ignorance. The Bigoted are the real problem, they are the ones who've been educated but refuse to change their opinions or behavior.
The Bigots are the problem and they need to addressed clearly and directly.
I'm sorry but you are simply wrong on the homophobia aspect and the definition therein. You are hyperfocusing on the 'phobia' part of the word and insisting that it only means a clinical fear. This is simply inaccurate and you do not have anything to back you up. You simply say "In my opinion, these extremely credible sources (including one that specifically works with LGBTQ+ folks) don't know what homophobia means." You're just wrong. There's no discussion to be had here. It's like you're trying to say 1+1=3.
I'm having a hard time taking anything you say seriously when you're trying to supplement a known, agreed upon and confirmed definition with what your personal opinion is. That's not how reality works (at least for anyone who lives in reality) and I have no interest in rewarding such behavior by continuing any conversation with you. Goodbye.