thursday,april1,2004
news
the university daily kansan
5A
Queers shows cause controversy
Students question if shows entertain or reinforce stereotypes
By Marc Ingber
minger@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Although it's highly debated whether queers should be seen walking down the aisle together, it has become more common to see one on television.
Whether it be on sitcoms such as NBC's Will and Grace or reality shows like Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, programs with a queer theme have become part of the popular culture.
This trend isn't necessarily being greeted with open arms by everyone.
Fans of these shows may pass them off as harmless entertainment.
But critics argue that they reinforce stereotypes that the queer community has tried to shake off for years.
Aaron Glover, Wichita freshman and co-secretary for Queers and Allies, said that he didn't particularly enjoy the popularity that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was receiving.
He said the argument could be made that any visibility was good visibility, but the idea that all gay men know how to dress
and design well was stereotypical.
"I don't think it's an accurate portrayal of the gay community, but I watch it because it's entertaining," she said.
Meade Phelps, Fort Scott senior, said she thought the Queer Eye guys were funny.
Jimmie Manning, Liberal graduate student and co-director for Queers and Allies, who is writing his thesis about how gays are portrayed in the media, said that the queer community was split on the issue.
"Itbecomes a Catch-22. I don't know which is worse," Glover said.
For every one person who thought the exposure on television was a good thing for the community, there was another who thought it was simply reinforcing stereotypes, he said.
For many in the community deciding whether to sacrifice accurate representation for exposure is a complex decision.
As much as he criticized Queer Eye, Manning saved his harshest words for shows like Fox's Playing it Straight, where gay men pretended to be straight in order to fool people to win
money, and Bravo's Boy Meets Boy, a bachelor-style show with straight contestants who pretended to be gay.
"Those are morally reprehensible," he said of the shows.
He said Playing it Straight reversed progress for queers in the sense that it brought it back to a time when gays had to pretend to be straight for fear of being looked down upon.
Shows like Roseanne and Ellen were good examples of how to represent the queer community, Manning said, because they were responsible in the way they handled the coming out of their characters.
Glover said he thought the rise in the popularity of queer television coincided with the rise of the so-called "metrosexual," typically thought of as a fashionable urban male.
He said soccer player David Beckham was a textbook example of a metrosexual who became popular.
Manning said that although it may have appeared that there was a lot more queer television programming, it was just an illusion created by the popularity of Queer Eye.
QUEERS IN THE MEDIA
What: "Queer Eye for the Straight World," a discussion on queer TV as a part of the Diversity Dialogue series
When: 7 tonight
Where: Kansas Room in the Kansas Union
QUEERS ON TELEVISION
This is a look at the queers' role in popular culture.
This is a look at the queens' role in popular culture.
Number of queer characters debuting on TV shows:
1961 to 1970: 1
1971 to 1980: 58
1971 to 1989: 89
1991 to 2000: 306
Source: David A. Wyatt,
University of Manitoba, Canada
In reality, the number of gay people on new shows being produced was decreasing, he said.
No matter the amount, Glover said it was more important to represent the queer community accurately on television.
"If they are showing two homosexual people in a stable relationship, I'm all for that," he said. "That is what needs to be seen."
- Edited by Ashley Arnold
The Associated Press
Soldiers from Kansas killed in Iraqi blast
TOPEKA — Five soldiers from Fort Riley were killed yesterday in Iraq, a post spokeswoman said, making it the deadliest day for the Army installation since the war began last year.
The soldiers, whose units and names were not immediately released, died when a bomb exploded under their M-113 armored personnel carrier in Malahma. The area is in the Sunni Triangle — roughly between Baghdad, Ramadi and Tikrit.
Fort Riley spokeswoman Christie Vanover said officials were still notifying family and unit members about the deaths, which brought the number of soldiers from the Kansas post to die in Iraq to 35.
The deaths also came one day before the one-year anniversary of the first Fort Riley death in Iraq.
Sgt. Jacob Butler, 24, was a scout with the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division. He died Apr. 1, 2003, in Assamawah, Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle.
About 4,600 Fort Riley soldiers are in Iraq. The five soli-
ders who died yesterday were part of the 1st Infantry Division's 1st Brigade, which deployed in September.
Members of the 1st Armored Division and the 937th Engineer Group, which are also based at Fort Riley, were deployed at the start of the war and are scheduled to return to the base through April.
Vanover said news did not widely circulate through the 100,000-acre post yesterday afternoon. Previously, the bloodiest day for Fort Riley soldiers was three deaths on Jan. 27.
"They come from all over the country, but they're Kansans right now," she said.
Family, clergy and military support groups would meet with soldiers' families to help them with the loss, Vanover said.
The death toll surpasses that of Operation Desert Storm, when Fort Riley lost 17 soldiers. Thousands of soldiers attached to Fort Riley units were killed during the Vietnam War.
In all, at least 597 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began Mar. 20, 2003. President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1.
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