Memes

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.

Homophobia

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.