Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???
as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name
for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!
I think I know how this works.
For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.
So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?
Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?
Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.
Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.
Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm
Whatâs the solution then? Or if thereâs no solution, should we make things even queerer and more diverse?
The solution would be for these people to be less upset by just seeing other people existing in a way they don't like. And I don't just mean "people stop being racist/homophobic/etc." Genuinely. Like my homophobic dad will watch all sorts of shows with queer people in them. He really loved the She-ra reboot when I showed him for example. Because he recognizes the TV show has no bearing on his own life. His belief that being gay is a sin, and watching a gay TV show, or seeing gay people on the street for that matter, is not in conflict. Any more than his beliefs on divorce being a sin, seeing a show with a divorced couple, and seeing someone who he knows is divorced IRL. Exposure can be a good way for this to happen for some people, especially if they get used to it as kids. No watching gay tv shows will not turn your child gay. But it may normalize gay people so they don't get upset at just the thought of gay people existing.
Older people are more set in their ways, if they're unreasonable? They're unlikely to change their emotional processes unless there's a major change up in their lives. Maybe their kid comes out and so they actually go to therapy and try and figure out how to be a decent parent to a queer kid or something. But a TV show is rarely going to instigate change in these types. So yes, more diversity. Not just because "fuck it they complain anyways" but because it will eventually make the world more tolerant. If all the homophobes on earth were like my dad? Then the world would be a much much better place. (Ideally no homophobes at all but, you know)
