Recently, there has been a significant surge in the incorporation of LGBTQ individuals in the media. However, this portrayal has historically received harsh backlash through its intolerance and being against conventional cultural norms. The media has come forward to urge society to accept inclusivity and consider the rights of the LGBTQ community. The increase and positive media portrayal of this community have fostered its support and acceptance by society. This article deeply analyses the influence and progress of the media in promoting the acceptance of the LGBTQ community based on the sitcom Modern Family Show featuring homosexual couples. Moreover, the analysis incorporates other materials in exploring deeper insights into the community.
Sitcom History
Sitcoms is a blend of two words: situation and comedy, which literary means a situational comedy. The started to air its content in the 1950s and became a dominant narrative form on television. These comedies were filmed for a live audience in the studio and later aired through the main broadcasting networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. These comedies had a formulaic structure that included a set of fixed characters in every episode. The narratives in each episode contained a problem resolved at the end. Over the years, sitcoms have been based on cliches and stereotypes, negatively portraying LGBTQ characters as violent victims and predators (Raley & Lucas, 2008). It was not until the early1990s and 2000s that some sitcoms experienced a shift in their content and started to challenge the stereotypes, with Ellen Degeneres and Will and Grace being the landmarks of the shift. From then, henceforth, more films supporting the LGBTQ community emerged, which eventually led to the making of the modern family show.
New Queer Cinema
The cinema was developed and filmed in 1992 by B. Ruby Rich and marked the start of the production of queer-themed autonomous and independent filmmaking. The film explores the themes of sexuality and gender as socially constructed entities and subserves to the conventional interpretation of sexuality. Queer was an inclusive word to cater to gay, transgender, lesbian, and bisexual identities. The cinema rejects the aspect of heteronormativity and advocates for the necessity of an inclusive society. Similarly to the Modern Family sitcom, the Queer challenges the mainstream depictions of the LGBTQ community and tends to describe the community in a more complex and authentic form using its characters.
Modern Family Analysis
The Modern Family was first aired through ABC in 2009 and described the life experiences of two LGBTQ characters who form a gay couple. The couple is between Mitchel Pritchett and Cameron Tucker, who adopts a young girl named Lily. Cameron stays at home with Lily but later secures a job as an acting vice-principal, while Mitchel is an attorney who feeds and looks after the family. Mitchel and Cameron exhibit different characteristics as Michael is well organized and insensitive while Cameron is dramatic and unconventional. These characters do not face one-dimensional LGBTQ stereotypes on LGBTQ but portray personalities that are so distinct.
In the cinema, the couples are rarely seen touching, kissing, or depicting any signs of sexual attraction. Mitch’s fear of displaying these acts clearly shows how the stereotypes have affected Mitch. His failure to portray these signs signals how the LGBTQ community is repressed in society towards publicly showing affection between people of the same gender. In another context, Haley Dunphy uses a sexual orientation slur to emotionally destroy Alex Dunphy and win their argument by saying that Alex was a lesbian. Similarly, the show portrays the gender identity problem in the Earthquake episode. Mitch says, “If they find us in these outfits it’s going to be very bad for the gays.” The statement depicts the self-esteem and LGBTQ’s inner debates concerning society’s perception and their reputation by the society and how the community uses sexual orientation to diminish individuals of the community, which leads to low self-esteem. These scenarios showcase the internal fear of the LGBTQ community in expressing themselves and blending into society. Moreover, the scenes reveal the dominance of conventional heteronormality and how negative society perceives homonormativity.
The cinema moreover portrays various LGBTQ individuals, including Alex Dunphy, Pepper, and Mitchell’s boss. Through this, the media is trying to show the diverse representation of the LGBTQ community, advocating for inclusivity in society. The argument at the airport between Mitch and Cam shows Cam’s dramatic nature, a characteristic mostly associated with women in some moments. Cam is flamboyant and almost breakdown when talking about Bill’s love to dance with Mitchel, which normally describes the LGBTQ community. Moreover, Cam’s emotional and melodramatic behaviors and actions suggest he is not a real man (Stoiljkovic, 2019). The cinema uses Cam as a portrayal to strengthen the stereotype of what is reflected as gay conduct.
The airport scene ends with heterosexual kissing while Mitch and Cam only hug. The scene shows how dominant heteronormativity is in society and the fear and reluctance of LGBTQ individuals to publicly and physically show their love. The media received multiple criticisms on the scene because of the media’s willingness to feature a gay couple but was hesitant to show the physical love between the homosexual couple. The scene contributed to reinforcing stereotypes about homonormativity in society by showing that heterosexual couples are more readily accepted and can exhibit love emotions publicly and physically compared to homosexuals. This may create the mentality that heterosexual relationships are better and possess much more freedom than homosexual relations. Consequently, the media is responsible for potentially creating stereotypes about certain social groups, including sexual identity (Scharrer & Ramasubramanian, 2015). Therefore, people may tend to embrace heteronormativity and stay away and reject homonormativity in society.
In conclusion, Modern Family has significantly portrayed the stereotypes that the LGBTQ community endures in society. Through the protagonist, Mitchel, and Cameron, we learn about the difficulties the LGBTQ members suffer and how heteronormative society is structured. While the show may receive critics for displaying the stereotypes the community faces, it represents a stereotype toward ensuring a broader representation of the LGBTQ character in the media. The show encourages and supports the need for the inclusion of diverse characters in the media to ensure a society that is free from biases and inequality.
References
Raley, A. B., & Lucas, J. L. (2006). Stereotype or success? Prime-time television’s portrayals of gay male, lesbian, and bisexual characters. Journal of homosexuality, 51(2), 19-38.
Scharrer, E., & Ramasubramanian, S. (2015). Intervening in the media’s influence on stereotypes of race and ethnicity: The role of media literacy education. Journal of Social Issues, 71(1), 171-185.
Stoiljkovic, A. S. (2019). Representation of race, gender and LGBTQ+ on Modern Family.
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