7 Dangerous Stereotypes In Glee

5. "Exotic Lesbian"

Santana Lopez, the Latina lesbian cheerleader is probably my favourite character on Glee, and the writers have actually shown her coming to terms and fully embracing her sexuality in brilliant, engaging ways, and I am thankful there is a strong sympathetic and truly interesting lesbian character on the show. This is not a criticism of the character, simply the overuse of characters of races other than white portraying homosexual characters on television. I am not a fool, I know that there are many lesbians of every ethnicity in the world, and it would be wrong not to represent them in television, however TV writers and producers too often pile on all the interesting character differences into one character, and it seems, if your cast is made up of mostly white people and there are one or two racially diverse characters, show creators like to bundle them all into a neat package. Tara from True Blood for example, one of the only non-white characters on the show who started off the show straight (she had a major crush on Jason), has now seemed to have turned lesbian with very little character development leading to this sudden character change. Callie Torres from Grey's Anatomy is also Latina and bisexual and Jesus from True Blood, again Latina and gay. This isn't to say that there aren't plenty of lesbian white characters on TV, but I just feel white show creators think other races are somewhat "exotic", therefore mysterious, so because of this they like to make these characters homosexuals.
In this post: 
Glee
 
Posted On: 
Contributor

I am a recent Screenwriting for Film and Television graduate from the UK. I am an unashamed geek who loves everything Marvel, and anything Joss Whedon has ever touched (except for maybe Alien Resurrection and Titan A.E). My current favorite TV shows are Breaking Bad, Family Guy, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Homeland and Glee. I look forward to debating things with all of you in the future. (As of January 2013 I have had over 1 million views since joining WhatCulture in September 2012. You can reach me at danieljamesbowen@hotmail.co.uk)