Underrepresented overrepresented?

[PozTalkAuthor]

Hi, I don't place this topic in "politics" because it is not directly concerning that subject. I want to share my thoughts from a queer HIV positive author/blogger perspective.

The topic is "TV series".

I just finished watching one called "breathless" from Netflix, it's Spanish and it is a medical drama ... kind of medical drama.

Haven't you got the impression that our community is being exploited for marketing purposes?

I frankly regret "E.R." if someone remembers, where patients and workers stories were quite well balanced, at least until 6 or 7th season - it lasted 15 and latest ones were so damn boring! At least for me.

But anyways: I take "breathless" example as it's the first of 2024 series I'm watching but I feel it's everywhere.

Gay characters are being placed everywhere and grow up like mushrooms, but they're mostly stereotypical.

From a medical-oriented series I'd honestly have expected something better, talking about serodiscordant couple; those two met in a chemsex party and the most drugged discovered to be poz -he took no Prep-, Prep has been mentioned but if you don't know what it is, you forget it fast.

Then the lesbian, non-biological mother wants to kidnap the baby her ex-girlfriend just gave birth to...

What the fuck are we? Men are disasters and girls are at the least bad?

This is not representation IMHO, it's an over-representation which inevitably leads to under-representation.

I personally loved "Queer as folks" USA - the old one, not the spin-off they had recently.

Those characters were well developed, some stereotypes were in that show as well but they build a variety of complex characters who could better fit with most gay life samples, despite obviously life is generally complex and no series can cover them all.

 

Conservatives have invented those fake words "woke / gender theory / politically correct / cancel culture" and bullshit, they mean anything and nothing in order to induce people to accept censorship on any content.

But I fear that this kind of representation in TV series is like "put salt in the coke's bottle just because I have to empty salt package and throw the empty box away".

A marketing purpose like saying "Let's place some LGBT character, so the community is happy. But we'll develop it with usual old clichés so we satisfy conservatives too".

Is it just me? Am I malicious? Unfortunately I'm used to question myself when I find something not fitting well in the narration. For example having 4 homosexuals (two men and two women) all working, or at least somehow connected, to the same hospital.

I'm puzzled and fear that this mechanism is gradually bringing us to the opposite effect: people wanting us back to invisible state increase like virus.