There’s been some complaining in the LGBT community as of late with some people upset about “stereotypes” on NBC’s The New Normal that premiered two weeks ago.
To those complaining about TNN. You ain’t seen nothing to complain about yet!
On Monday CBS will premiere its new “comedy” Partners which revolves around two men — Louis (gay played by Ugly Betty’s Micheal Urie) and Joe (straight, played by NUMBERS David Krumholtz) — who’ve been best friends since childhood and are also business partners. Their “relationship” begins to change when Joe enters into a serious heterosexual romantic relationship and Louis becomes jealous..
After watching the cringe-worthy preview while its good that some television shows are trying to reach out to gay audiences and include gay and lesbians characters in their shows. The gay stereotype in Partners of the character Louis in Partners, a yoga practicing, self-absorbed, jealous queen is about as offensive as it gets even if the show is being billed as a “comedy”
Now its alright for us to laugh at ourselves, but what about the other 90 percent of straight audiences that this show will reach. Without any other strong gay characters on television at the moment is this how the gay community should be presented?
At least The New Normal has a moral. One of that love is love and a family can be made of anyone.
All that Partners displays is that all gay men are silly, jealous, sneaky, vapid queens who want to grow up to marry Bette Midler and don’t like to share.
Partners should be dissolved and CBS should be ashamed of themselves.
I don’t agree with you at all on this Will.
A) It’s a situational comedy. Given not a very good one from the previews, but it’s still a comedy. Putting it in little quotes doesn’t change that fact. If it’s not good the ratings will reflect that, and it’ll go off the air.
B) Seriously? So now we can’t laugh at the more outrageous aspects of the gay community? This is what entertainment has always done. Find something small and raise it to the nth degree. This is a long standing tradition in TV. If this weren’t the case, then all the Jews, Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc. should all demand that shows be taken off the air. There would be no situational comedies if this were the case.
C) This show was created by David Kohan & Max Mutchnick, the duo behind Will & Grace. While Max Mutchnick’s humor may not align with yours, that does not mean that he’s out to harm the gay community; Mutchnick is gay by the way. Did you think Will & Grace was offensive? Jack was an over-the-top stereotype that helped to break down many barriers with middle-America.
To be 100% honest, just let entertainment be entertainment. Not everything is an insult.
While yes I agree that its situational comedy and it is fun to laugh. There are no LGBT day characters in dramatic series to set of the caricatures of these comedies.
So what you are saying is it’s all or nothing? Either we have gay characters on every television show, or none at all. In my opinion that seems incredibly naive and shortsighted. I don’t know what you mean by LGBT day characters being in dramatic series’, but have you forgotten about the plethora of daytime, NETWORK, soap operas that featured gay story lines?
There are more shows on mainstream television right now featuring lesbian and gay characters than ever before. To quote the Scottish author Samuel Smiles, “Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.”
What Bret said.