Poll: Should There be Gay Characters in Kid's Shows/Films?

[XxSummonerxX]

Don't worry gentlemen, I took Psychology in High School.
Any form of relationship in shows aimed at children 9-12 should be limited as much as possible.
But if it must be there, equal representation.

 

[dancinginfernal]

Snip

Damn right.

 

[AngloDoom]

Kid's shows don't exactly show two people forming the beast-with-two-backs on a regular basis. Having two men or women stand next to each other and hug occasionally isn't much to ask but I think it will do a lot for making homosexual relationships the 'norm' for other generations.

I don't think for a moment it'll remove homophobia, but the biggest argument I've heard against it so far is that they're afraid their children will 'catch homosexuality', which is ridiculous, or we'll have a society of bisexuals which really doesn't seem likely and doesn't strike me as a particularly bad thing anyway.

 

[masticina]

Obviously

The "But the kids won't understand" is such a thrope of weakness! Children already do have understanding of what attraction means. Little children already have their small relationships. So why wouldn't they understand two female or male characters in a children problem doing so?

It would only show even more how normal it really is! We definitely can use more children books like "My Uncles Marriage"

 

[Korten12]

Depends, if the gay character was there for a reason thats fine, but if they had them just for the sake of having them, I don't know if that would be good.

 

[Aetera]

Male and female characters showing interest in each other are quite often shown in kid's shows intended for a very young audience. As long as, like the portrayals of heterosexual crushes/relationships, homosexual situations are not explicit in the least, I don't think that there is any reason not to. In fact, I think that it can be extremely helpful to kids as they grow up. Due to the lack of any sort of representation of homosexuality at all in any media as I was growing up(23 year old, here), I wasn't even aware that it existed at all until late in middle school. Even slight, subtle representations in media intended for kids would have really helped in the, "ooooooh. I'm gay. That explains a lot) department. I think that it would help lots of other gay, clueless kids understand themselves.

 

[Renegade-pizza]

Maybe not, since they probably won't be able to understand it yet. They may just see the characters as being "weird"

 

[Darkstriker]

kiddy shows show a kid having a crush on a girl, have a kid have a crush on someone of the same gender, it's not fucking complicated, it's not offensive but it lets people know that we exist >_<

"Why not?" is a better question. Seriously, what is the big deal?

Pretty much these two comments. Seriously, why not? It's a part of life. There always will be people who aren't heterosexual, and right now we're kind of shoved to the back of things like this in case it offends some poor sensitive soul. Homosexuality is a normal thing, so why not treat it as you would heterosexuality?

While I do agree that homosexuality is nothing a society in general should be ashamed or afraid of and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, after thinking about this issue for a while I found myself thinking that despite the fact that I wouldn't mind my kinds ultimately becoming homosexuals, I don't think I would want them to be exposed to homosexual themes in day-to-day things like television shows.

This may sound incredibly wrong to some of you but from a scientific/biological/evolutionary point of view, this will make insanely much sense: Humans learn everything by copying or trial and error. The latter, however, does not actually account for a lot of our perceptions. Thus kids will imitate what they see (be it their parents or on TV) and it is simply not desirable to give kids the impression that homosexuality is just as normal and natural as heterosexuality. While many studies have shown that homosexuality is something that does occur in nature, they have also shown that nevertheless these only make of a very small percentage of the actual behavior. So while I would encourage my child to accept homosexuality as a choice once it has matured to a point that it can consciously deal with the issues, I would not put it as a part of the daily routine in things like television while the child is still in a subconscious developmental phase. The first things a child should learn about sexuality should come from the parents and thus by design me heterosexual. Because, biologically and evolutionarily speaking, homosexuality is not desirable at all and will by the simple fact of its nature, cause the genetic material that has such tendencies to parish.

Bottomline: I wouldn't make an outrage of one gay couple among 100 princesses and princes, I would not allow my kid to watch a show that has an equal distribution between heterosexuality and homosexuality because it isn't and it SHOULDN'T be that way in real life.

Edit: This in no way means that I think that homosexuals are not equal in a social or humane way!

 

[KiraTaureLor]

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I don't get it...

Homosexual means "sexual attraction to one's own sex". How can sex not be a part of being gay? If you simply feel a strong connection with someone and 'love them' like a friend, that isn't homosexual.

It seems like you are trying to suggest one can be in a gay relationship that doesn't involve sex. Unless you are physically attracted to them in a sexual way... well, there just isn't a gay relationship there.

I do get the feeling I'm not understanding and/or missing something of your point. Help me out?

I like your point; a lot of people miss the points of relationships, if your not sexually attracted to the same sex that doesn't make you gay even if you think you are.

this is a huge misunderstanding mainly because traditionally relationship were usually lead to marriage, and there was no sex before then, but now marriage is a far away option in modern day relationships.

 

[Alexias_Sandar]

This is somewhere the Japanese do pretty good. Watch, say, Card Captor Sakura, or many other anime or manga along those lines. You'll find a good representation of a wide variety of relationships.

 

[interspark]

this has been bothering me for a while, we have a community that is in a largely public agreement that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, and yet, in kid's shows you'll often see male and female characters who are attracted to one another but never those of the same sex? and you can say "kids wont understand that" but i know for a fact that when i have kids, i certainly won't let them grow up under the delusion that only people of opposite genders can fall in love and get married!

so what are your opinions?

I do NOT think sexuality of any sort belongs in kid shows who's target ages are from 0-12... at that point, it's entirely up to the parents to teach about sexuality and to what degree.

Perhaps the 10-12 demographic could have subtly gay characters, but the idea their sexuality has to come into play is ridiculous.

The thing is, why do gay characters have to be treated any different? It's just a sexual preference. If you want equality, be satisfied with being equal.

yes but they're NOT treated equally, that's the point! in Alladin for example, Alladin is all in everyone's face about how in love he is with Jasmine, and everyone's fine with that, if however, he had chased Jafar around instead everyone would have cried out in shock and covered their little childrens eyes, and that's NOT equal treatment!

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Excuse me for saying so, but sexual preference shouldn't eve be and issue FOR KIDS WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT SEX IS YET!..... I'm not being homophobic here, I just think that anything involving moral/sexual issues like this shouldn't be presented to kids under 12.

 

[Arkzism]

yes i think we should treat it as normal

 

[SenseOfTumour]

We probably need to straight things out here (excuse the pun), we're not saying there should be hardcore man on man, hot oily action on Sesame Street, we're saying that occasionally, if a character was seen to have two moms, or two dads, that might help kids in not being freaked out by the concept later in life.

I'm sure the lessening of racism is in some small part down to kids seeing presenters of all races on TV, and thus not being shocked when they see a black or asian person.

I'm also in agreement with Mims above, we need quit pandering to the eight people who phone up and complain they were offended, when it's a show seen by 10 million people.

Considering it takes effort to bother complaining, maybe 1000 complaints about a show watched by 10 million, would mean there was a reason to look into the complaints at least, but I should say, NOT if some news station or paper has gone to the trouble of desperately rerunning the 'offensive part' to drum up more whining.