Gay characters in children's cartoons

[Treblaine]

This has been talked at length in the thread. Please read through it before replying or posting again because others have provided examples of showing homosexuality without sexualizing the show itself.

Oh, no problem. I'll just read through over 22 pages of blather, most of which I won't even remember by the time I'm done reading, before I form an opinion. Or... maybe I won't do that, and give my opinion anyway. That's how I roll, yo.

By the way, I still haven't read all the other posts in the thread.

In other words:

"Reading is for suckers, I'm not here to learn from this debate, I just want to impose my ideas on others and not have to absorb any in return"

I don't care which side you are on, without even skimming over a few pages is BAD forum etiquette and sabotages the thread. Hell part of the reason this has gotten to 22 pages is people not even skimming to see if their point has already been made (and countered) a dozen times already.

Also GrizzlyCow could be helpful and provide hyperlinks to the relevant posts but you could still do SOMETHING.

 

[nuba km]

well thought-out characters

to be honest I find that most children's TV shows don't have enough of these alone.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Spoiler

gay characters in children cartoon's you say

Perfect example of the kind of thing we don't need.

 

[Hamish Durie]

this reminds me of the drawn togethere episode where the yellow guy(its been awhile since i have watched them so i cant remeber) makes a childrens cartoon show which the princess objets to because it was so gay anyway in the future that childrens program airs and the whole world turns gay and then the only straight people from the future send back the most hetorosexual robot ever concived to go back and terminate the cartoon of course this is a terminator parady.
what i'm getting at is that the episode was funny and this thread reminds me of it.
No I don't share the opinions of the show and i like the idea of gay chacters in childrens cartoons and hopefully this will lead to a more tolerant tommorrow.
btw good topic.

 

[EvilPicnic]

Kids cartoons need more love, and less violence.

 

[ohellynot]

I think you guys are over shooting this. Being straight is biologically normal. Should we not present that as a norm? Yes, homosexuality is a part of life, but we dont need to stuff it into entertainment for the hell of it. Especially a kid's show. If a kid is going to be gay, let them find that out for themselves instead of doing it because this character from this show is gay.

Edit: Plus, i dont want to have to explain ANYTHING about sex to my children. Keep it simple.

You don't need to explain anything about sex - explain about love.

Also...

Being straight is biologically normal? Um, no. Homosexuality exists all throughout nature. Homosexuality is as biologically "normal" as heterosexuality.

Please don't make such ignorant and offensive statements.

Well, if were going by majority rule, since the majority of animals with a two sex mating system are heterosexual, you could say that makes it the norm as it's more common...

Although, normal isn't necessarily a good thing and abnormal isn't necessarily bad.
It would be abnormal for someone to donate their lives savings all to charity, but that doesn't make it make it bad, and something normal can be bad, it's normal for Humans to be greedy, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing...
Or in this case, since neither of these things are really so much worse or better than the other, a fitting analogy would be that most people like wearing their Shoes inside, but there's some who like wearing Socks or Slippers...

And yes, I did just write that entire paragraph after the first sentence to emphasize that I'm not Homophobic.

Going to have to garee with this, forst thing I did after reading this was look up the technical definition for normal so... yeah. Also not a homophobe

OT:Well gay people are a part of the world so why not include them. That being said due to the lack of sexualtiy in children's cartoon it may just go over their heads and if its put in without subtlty you know some poeple (the church) is going to go on about how "cartoons are turning our children gay!!!!" or some crap, hell they have a problem with spongebob because they think he is gay.
And he subject of Raibow Dash (Best pony), if they changed her dialoge in season 2 and make her gay/bi then i'd be fine with it. But when a charchter who is straight or just not shown to be gay/straight or whatev, and then the writers just say "oh yeah, he/she is also a omosexual", to me it just ounds like their just trying to draw attantion to it for the sake of getting noticed.

 

[Lavi]

Serious debate? Lame.

Spongebob is totally gay.

 

[ohellynot]

I see the LGBT community found something else to ***** about.

Sure, bring on more homosexual cartoon characters. As long as they are not overly flamboyant or another SpongeBob, I wouldn't have a problem. Basically, more Ian McKellen and less Perez Hilton.

But then if you had a homosexual who acted like a normal human being, you wouldn't even know he was gay without implementing the sexual aspect, so looks it doesn't work.

Sure it does. Again, using the MLP example:

Rarity (girl) has crush on Prince Blueblood (boy). There is an issue of romance, but not sexuality. We also learn that Rarity has a crush on Blueblood in episode 3 - she doesn't actually get a date with him until episode 26.

To create the parallel, Rainbow Dash (girl) who could have a crush on Spitfire (girl). Even if nothing ever happens - even if Rainbow Dash never even speaks to Spitfire, the fact that she has a crush on her would let the audience know that she was gay.

Still the sexual aspect. The fact that the girl character has a crush on a girl still unveils a small amount of sexuality, even if it is innocent. There is no way to bring a gay character into a show without him or her having to go out of their way as a plot device to show that they are gay. It is pointless.

That small level of innocent crush sort of thing is about as sexual as kid's shpos should really be, so at that point, yes, why not make it a gay crush in the show. And why not for a single episode go out of the way to deal with that, it makes an episode. Also If they did a straight crush for the show it would be as much work in terms of making the show, and in terms af charichterising the person, only they'd be charachterising them as straigh instead of gay.
So long as they don't harp on about it in every episode and stagnate the point then I don't see a problem with it.

 

[xqxm]

The idea bothers me, yes.

Why? Because there really is no reason to put nonsense like that into the heads of children.

Nonsense like what? "Being gay is okay?"

More like "homosexual people are fabolous and you should make up your mind whether you don't really prefer packing fudge when you're all grown up".

Why should sexuality even be a factor in children's cartoons?

 

[iphonerose]

gay characters in children cartoon's you say

haha cool clip!

 

[iphonerose]

gay characters in children cartoon's you say

haha cool clip!

how do you embed youtube vids?

 

[Chrinik]

Fair enough, but before i got the impression that you were discounting the role of society in its entirety. If you're suggesting that heterosexuals are genetically predisposed to be uncomfortable with the thought of homosexual acts, i can agree with that, but i don't believe there's anything in our genes that makes us oppose homosexual relationships in principle.

Well that wasn´t my intention.
See, what I meant was that the same thing that makes old people, deformed people, sick people and basically everything that wouldn´t make a good sexual partner be unattractive. It isn´t society that tells you to not fuck old people, they lost their unattractiveness because they are too old to bear healthy children, children at all, or wouldn´t be able to care for them long enough.
It´s the same with homosexuals...it´s actually not specifically aimed at them (although, looking back, one could have gotten the intention I meant that.), or even any of the others, but basically sais "No good for babies, don´t touch!"

Let me tell you that homosexuals don´t make good heterosexual life-partners XD
We don´t have a genetic hatred for gays<.<

But this little thing, given a few ten thousand years, evolved into "THOU SHALT NOT LAY WITH A MAN AS HE DOES WITH A WOMEN!" and all the other stuff, like "don´t have sex with kids. don´t have sex with your kids. don´t have sex with your relatives at large"...and so on.
They all seem to stem from the fact that, well people shouldn´t have sex with them, for health reasons, because possible offspring might be royaly screwed and unfit to live.
They then turned into societies "rules"...but they didn´t develop specifically there.

And no, by "we", I meant "Homo Sapiens Sapiens" as a whole and what we evolved from.

I begin to overargue again.
Closing statement:
No genetic bias against homosexuals
Genetic bias against people we shouldn´t fuck, or don´t make good partners
Genetic bias evolved into a social taboo-thing in some cultures
Church blew the whole ordeal into epic proportions like the ruler of an unspecified african country, and outlawed gayness...

 

[Chrinik]

The idea bothers me, yes.

Why? Because there really is no reason to put nonsense like that into the heads of children.

Nonsense like what? "Being gay is okay?"

More like "homosexual people are fabolous and you should make up your mind whether you don't really prefer packing fudge when you're all grown up".

Why should sexuality even be a factor in children's cartoons?

Because it is all the damn time? And because it´s friggin important?

Dude, check out Animaniacs, bet you heard of it at some point.
One line..."HEELLLLLOOOOOOOO NURSE!"

Now don´t friggin tell me that line and the usually acompanied imagery has NOTHING to do with sexuality at all...just dare.

Yakko: "Okay, let´s search for prints!"
Dot: "I found Prince!" *Holds Prince in her arms.
Y: "No...fingerprints!" *makes hand gestures
D: *looks at audience "I don´t think so..."

 

[Chrinik]

It's a stupid and French thing to do. Like France banning the Islamic veil but then making a song and dance claiming it is banning ALL face concealment. Utter nonsense, no French cop would ever arrest a welder for wearing a welding mask.

A welder is probably not going to wear his welding mask shield down to a grocery store...or anywhere else in public.

 

[SeriousSquirrel]

Well, I don't see any real problem with it as long as the cartoon doesn't encourage being gay. Now to make things clear, the cartoon shouldn't encourage being straight either. I don't feel the a cartoon should encourage either really, but handle sexuality in a mature and non-descrimitory way. Though, I feel that any sort of direct mention of sexuality should maybe be left out of cartoons aimed at really young kids.

 

[SeriousIssues]

Do we really need tv shows teaching kids about this?
If these characters are normal people anyways, why make such a large point out of it. It's taboo, so leave it as it is.

Sidenote: I'd rather not have any gayness in tv. Makes me kinda uncomfortable, to be honest, but I have no real problem with it.

 

[Falconsgyre]

Nonsense like what? "Being gay is okay?"

More like "homosexual people are fabolous and you should make up your mind whether you don't really prefer packing fudge when you're all grown up".

Why should sexuality even be a factor in children's cartoons?

Sexuality should be a factor because it exists. It's an important part of life, and both kids who are gay and kids who aren't should be exposed to the social aspects of gay characters (not the explicit, sexual part) from a young age. If you show gay characters in children's cartoons, it will ideally help future generations become more accepting of homosexuality because they've been introduced to characters who are homosexual.

 

[xqxm]

Nonsense like what? "Being gay is okay?"

More like "homosexual people are fabolous and you should make up your mind whether you don't really prefer packing fudge when you're all grown up".

Why should sexuality even be a factor in children's cartoons?

Sexuality should be a factor because it exists. It's an important part of life, and both kids who are gay and kids who aren't should be exposed to the social aspects of gay characters (not the explicit, sexual part) from a young age. If you show gay characters in children's cartoons, it will ideally help future generations become more accepting of homosexuality because they've been introduced to characters who are homosexual.

It's kind of a strange thing to be gay before you're even sexually mature.