This has probably been discussed before, but I really believe that gay lifestyle is not correctly portayed in our soaps. It is either patronizing, misinformed or downright unrealistic.

What we need is a typical young gay lad who is open about who is, comes in trashed from GAY on a sunday morning with a bottle of poppers in his pocket and tells all about the events from the other night.

Not some bloke who has been straight for years, suddenly becomes gay (ie todd corrie) and is completely unrealistic. I mean, did we ever see him out clubbing in a sleeveless top? NO! And his boyfriend - he was the most unconvincing gay boy i have ever known.

And that other geezer in corrie, the blonde one, that is so stereotypical its unbelieveable.

With all these new characters coming into eastenders surely they can sort somethin out, instead of rehashing old characters in new incarnations (Janine/Stacey etc)

come on people sort it out!

and while your at it get rid of alfie moon and this awful molfie storyline

Do you watch Family Affairs? They always represent gay people fairly and realistically, IMO. Recent gay characters include Sean, who was straight acting and had a female best friend (clichéd, I know) and more recently Max and Sami, a gay couple, bought the local corner shop. Max has been married before but has always been gay since his first on-screen appearance. Also, he is a Jew and Sami is a Muslim, hardly stereoptypical.

Oh and recently Sami and Yasmin were planning to go to Gay Pride.

FA is getting axed though! What does that say about what the public and the channel think of their representations? And, the only decent lesbian character in recent years was in FA and they killed her! They killed her!

I've got the same gripe with lesbian representations as moro_bar seems to have with gay ones. The only lesbian (please, correct me if I'm wrong because I'm likely to be) in soap at the moment is Zoe from Emmerdale and, for me anyway, her credibility was shot to pieces by her little relationship with Scott last year.

Prior to that she was the most positive role model for gay women in soap, having gone through many storylines such as the coming out process and the (admittedly unsucessful) gay wedding. And, yes, the fact that she is still around and still definitely a lesbian is a good thing but she is leaving and I wonder where lesbian visibilty in British soap will go then.

Out of the window perhaps.

i dont really watch FA these days, but i find sami and the other bloke completely unrealistic.

i agree with charmed lassie about lesbians.

maybe this is why there are shows like queer as folk etc, to show what its really like!!!!!

So Coronation Street, hire a gay actor to play a gay character and you say it's stereotypical.

Actually your comments are:- "patronizing, misinformed or downright unrealistic"

There is as much diversity in gay men & lesbians as there is in the straight community.

>>What we need is a typical young gay lad who is open about who is, comes in trashed from GAY on a sunday morning with a bottle of poppers in his pocket and tells all about the events from the other night.<<

Well, that says it all doesn't it. So, every gay young lad is open about who he is, comes in trashed after a night of clubbing & sex & then proceeds to tell everyone about it??

What a pile of bo!!ocks.

Not all gay men are "out", not all gay men are go out on the scene, not all gay men are comfortable with their sexuality, not all gay men shout about their "conquests" from the roof tops.

Your views are just as stereotypical & unrealistic as those you say the soaps are portraying.

Yeah, that's how he is in real life.

they maybe stereotypical, but not unrealistic, believe me

at the end of the day (apologies for the use of that phrase) soaps are really all about stereotypes in my opinion, a group of people from different backgrounds

im merely saying that a slutty gayboy would be a welcome injection to a soap as it is a field which currently is not covered!

belive me, being a gay bloke i know the different kinds of gay men, the one i mentioned is merely one lifestyle is not being portrayed

LMAO Yes, but the public have poor representations of gay people anyway, the will believe what they want.


Zoe is the biggest joke of a lesbian character ever.

So that makes it alright for a certain segment of society to be overlooked then? Soaps are about portraying real life, or at least the part of real life they want to portray. Surely they should be giving strong and positive representations of gay and lesbian characters so that the public's view might be altered.

No, it doesn't make it allright. Believe me, a gay storyline in a soap will not challenge a bigot's views. My mum said she was disgusted by the Todd gay storyline on Corrie, and said the were only doing it for ratings, etc etc.

Soaps will only cater for their audience. Family Affairs had a primarily gay and women based audience, hence the amount of gay characters.

Not all gay people go clubbing in sleeveless tops!

Exactly....case proved.

It isn't just about trying to change views though! Soaps, being a vital part of the schedules, are the programmes most likely to influence people. I know that watching Family Affairs and Emmerdale helped me come to terms with what I was. I don't think I'd have been as at ease if I hadn't found a role-model, being able to watch it on screen helped convince me I wasn't abnormal.

If it disppears from screens or the only representations are mindless stereotypes (not agreeing with any of that by the way) then there's going to be a society of teens who don't know how to interpret what they're feeling. You can cram it into as many books as possible but the thing that really drums it into a person that they're fine after all is seing it regularly on a programme and in several different forms. Not just 'the token gay'.

It's strange to think now that she was the first lesbian character on a British TV soap - she came out before Beth Jordache did.

Was that Kelly? Didn't she fall down the stairs or something? Stupid. I was already fed up after Holly got blown to smithereens and Susie never came back!

I hate to be the one to say it but GAY is not the taboo subject about to leave our society's lips.

Didn't you know? We have more PC subjects to discuss it seems.

I do

What about the charater in EastEnders years ago, played by Michael somebody (who was also gay). I stopped watching EE in about 1989 so it was quite some years ago.

As a young gay lad I completely agree with your comments.

I'll second that

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If you're not satisfied with what soaps have to offer, then switch off your TV

I agree. Family Affairs are the best at gay characters. Corrie hasnt done it very well IMO.

They had Tim who was a straight acting, good look, young gay man yet they turned him into another Karl Foster.

I know alot of gay men who have women as best friends.
The women tell me that they feel safer with gay guys than straight ones, sorry lads....

michael cashman i believe it was and he played colin i think in ee whos on off boyfriend was barry

I think the gay characters in Corrie have been ok. Sean , yes he may be some peoples idea of stereotype , but that is his way. With Todd the storyline was not a straight man who suddenly becomes gay, he was gay but had been fighting against it and he found himself in a situation where he no longer wanted to fight it and came out.

AS for young lads clubbing in sleeveless t-shirts , do they all ?

I used to work with two gay guys in a hotel. One was as camp as christmas , he made Paul O'Grady look positively macho ! And the other guy , well the women were always after him , if you go on stereotypes then you would think he was as straight as they come. But he was gay , yes he went out on the town , but I never saw him in a sleeveless t-shit. Both of them brilliant people , both gay , but both completely different.