Today I’d like to tackle a question that Aimée sent in back in November. Sorry for the delay! Here’s the question:
Do you think that fat gay women are more underrepresented in the media than gay women of colour?
Here’s my answer:
I think that both fat gay women and gay women of color are underrepresented in mainstream media, and simultaneously they face loud and often obnoxious stereotypes that tend to limit what representation they do have. I don’t believe it’s productive to rank who is less represented than who — that quickly slides into a game of "who’s most discriminated against," and nobody wins that game.
We’ve all heard of the ugly fat dyke stereotype. To battle that, shows like The L Word have casts full of beautiful, feminine, stylish, thin women. It’s a one step forward, two steps back situation, because while the ugly fat dyke stereotype may be diminished because of shows like The L Word, this also has the effect of erasing fat lesbians from the screen. There’s yet another layer to this specific situation: American media’s widespread worship of thin women in general. It’s difficult to find a straight woman bigger than a size 2 in the media, much less a gay one.
In terms of gay women of color, they are hampered by the fact that being a person of color makes it more difficult to be cast in a mainstream show. I remember that at the 2008 TCA summer press tour, I was shocked by how few television shows included any people of color in their casts. The only network that included a noticeable contingent of people of color was the Disney Channel. Their audience is primarily children, and I applaud them for representing their audience faithfully, but I was truly disappointed by pretty much every other network.
There are lots of reasons for the lack of diversity, and that’s why we have places like AfterEllen.com and GLAAD and the NAACP, etc. — to bring mainstream attention to minority issues, and to demand that every minority gets a seat at the mainstream (entertainment) table.
When I was writing this blog post, I kept coming back time and again to the issue of responsibility. As a writer and a minority — both a person of color and a queer woman — do I have a responsibility to write stories that include people like me? My gut reaction (which may change after further thought) is that the issue of responsibility as a minority creator/producer is a complicated one, and is separate from the general goal of creating more inclusive stories in the world. What do you think?
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I remember Margaret Cho saying that when she had her short-lived T.V. series “All American Girl” the producers asked her to lose weight — to play herself! LOL.
And “The L Word” — puh-leese! As a lesbian, I don’t find any of the women on that show attractive except for Pam Grier, who is both a woman of color and a woman of size (which in Hollywood means non-anorexic), but she unfortunately was not cast as one of the lesbians. I stopped watching after Season 2, but didn’t they cast one of the rare women-of-color roles on the show with a white actress?
Personally, I think it would be nice to have more actresses that are a “real size” on TV. Period. If they’re gay and a minority, that’s good. I am a woman “of size” who happens to be white. But I have friends of many different ethnic backgrounds. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a TV show that reflected my life? Real people having real friendships regardless of what you look like or where you came from?
KT, I don’t find many of the women on TLW attractive either, but actually TLW does deserve some props for casting women of color in lead roles. They haven’t always done well with their casting choices (Janina Gavankar as Papi, for example, but mostly because Papi was so poorly written), but some decisions were great (Jennifer Beals, Rose Rollins).
Pugs, I agree. I really recoil in horror from how thin some of these actresses are on TV! It’s disturbing because most TV caters to people’s fantasies as escapist viewing, and if mainstream America’s fantasies are skinny white women with their ribs showing, well, it’s sad.
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