GLBT show.

Which show was the best for GLBT visibility.

You had to put in that vapid "Queer Eye" and not an "other" option? I hate that show. Oh' yes, all gay people are shallow and only care about your looks, your clothes, your apartment, your hair, and how you shake hands. It's the only thing that matters in life!:eyes:

Currently Brothers and Sisters has a decent portrayal> I guess I am shallow , I really enjoyed QAF and W&G also. Just saw Ugly Betty, very funny, especially the Gay kid(Indelicato) more than Michael Urie.

although it was one of the crappier shows on your list. "Queer As Folk" was probably the best.

Then I realized it's just because it's a lame sitcom with a modern setting.

stations. No glamour, just a real person have her autobiographical character come out at the same time she did.

Will and Grace is too "straight" for my taste. Too much how straight people want to see us, and not at all how we are. I did like the actress who played Karen though.

place. :D Well, maybe like for a few hours at a time, but not groups of women like that who hang out together day after day. Not too much diversity among that group.

The show especially irritates me because of the whole "Shane chart." As if all groups of lesbians eventually sleep with every other woman in the group. But I guess it's no less realistic than straight soap operas. It simply doesn't represent us any more than those soaps do straight relationships.

(I do love watching the show though.)

:bounce:

Grace made gays on TV acceptable. And because the ones on Grace stuck to stereotypes, they were accepted and considered "safe."

Ellen made gays on TV RESPECTABLE.

However, since her show died an untimely death, it didn't do as much for VISIBILITY as Will & Grace did.

A REAL person and not a character, or in the case of Will and Grace a Caricature. What better visibility than a real gay person just being herself and in turn loved by millions of "regular" old straight people?

Will and Grace just helped further stereotypes, in my opinion. I don't think it did much for the visibility we actually need.

They also accepted advertising from Sandals, a company with a pretty poor record of LGBT-friendliness.

Like when she talked about Lawrence King's death in her opening minutes on one show, and mentioned being gay herself (again).

Will and Grace is on NBC, which is owned by GE, do you really want to start talking about the merits of all the peripheral advertisers and such, just to claim that one show might not be LGBT-friendly?

with an audience of straight people, gives visibility to us all. She doesn't even have to talk about gay issues. She just needs to be. Being out is as visible as we can be.

When Archie finds out that his butch friend is gay.

It had a lot of visible characters for being set in a small Illinois town.

Mostly because it was earlier than the others.

I think that it at least got the door open a great deal.

Billy Crystal was a main character whose character was on a top rated show. His character, Jody, got a lot of people talking back in the day about gay rights. Do you remember when he was fighting for custody of his daughter and people were actually talking about gay parenting? Which may have been in response to Anita Bryant's campaign to "Save the Children" and her misguided belief that adoption by gay parents was a way of recruiting more gays. (I swear, the stupidity of some people is unfathomable sometimes).

"Ellen" was groundbreaking in a lot of ways, and I think it was widely accepted as the first "openly gay" TV show...at least in prime-time. It helped to put a face to the GLBT community to mainstream TV audiences and helped people to realize that we're people just like everyone else, that we're not all child-hungry demons and perverts like the RR would like people to believe we are. I equate "Ellen" with the Norman Lear shows of the 1970s with how they tackled racism and gave a positive face to African American communities, and how they allowed white audiences to realize, reflect upon, and conquer their own racist attitudes in a real and positive way in the safety of their own living rooms. "Ellen" tried to do the same for the GLBT community, and the show was undoubtedly ahead of its time.

That show opened up a huge closet door in terms of GLBT visibility, and paved the way for many other shows, including a number of those you listed in this poll. For example, I doubt there would have been "Will and Grace" or "Queer Eye" without "Ellen" coming before them.

I watched it faithfully,

While "Queer as Folk", "Ellen", "Soap" and others were groundbreaking, "Will & Grace" was a mainstream hit that focused largely on homosexuals. Love it or hate it, it definitely did the most for gay visibility, in that it was seen by far more people than any other "gay" show.

But I think Queer as folk was more important because it showed that gays are not sterile.

Queer as folk was great television, built around some bad stereotypes. Neither of them represent glbt people very well.