Gay relationships in children's entertainment

[glamorilla]

A lot of figures in ancient mythology and folk lore were homosexual but have had sexual undertones written out over the ages to make them more appealing to a general audience~hercules,apollo,athena,artemis and dionysius were portrayed as having same sex partners in many myths.

 

[BlueSugar]

I know about that it is in culture and is ages old... my point is that it is in disney, something the children are exposed to at an early age and is still happening...

Lion King, Peter Pan and ...oh damnit... i actually forgot the other one... i'll be back with it, eventually.

 

[Mischka]

I think it's kind of hard to expose children to homosexuality. Not wrong mind you just hard. I mean most kids know that woman and men have relationships but exposing them to homosexuality might mean exposing them to sexual explanations earlier on.

Waiting to explain homosexuality until after you explain heterosexuality simply reinforces that being gay is less acceptable, less "normal" than being straight. If it's approached from a matter-of-fact stance, then it's less about sexuality, and more about differences in people. Children don't think about their parents having sex; they simply think it's okay for a man and a woman to be together. If they saw a man and a man together, they'd reach the same conclusion. There is no sexual component to that dynamic just yet in a child's mind. The problem is giving children that exposure to gay couples and individuals. My godfather is gay, so I've "known" about homosexuality since birth. Most people aren't that lucky.

But speaking of children's entertainment, when I was five, I watched Three's Company with my parents. I also had three dolls at that age - two Barbies, and one Ken. Modeling them after the show, I made Ken gay. Obviously, the character wasn't really gay, but I knew enough at that age to know that being gay meant he didn't want to date females (slapstick plot aside). Perhaps some of the adult television sit-coms of today (Ellen, Will and Grace, ?) will have the same effect on kids, to make gay characters second nature in entertainment. I agree, though, that there should be more effort to openly include them in entertainment aimed at children.

 

[glamorilla]

It was so long ago they totally slipped my mind but in the early nineties the fox network produced a series of low budget sit coms that aired in the 7~8 pm time slot on sunday night. Although they proved low enough in the ratings to be cancelled off a prime time slot the shows were picked up in syndication and aired on the even more fledgling UPN network on saturday mornings. Aimed at children the shows "My secret Identity" and "Out of this World" both had episodes and characters dealing with homosexuality.

 

[LarzMachine]

That actually backfired BIGTIME for my ex-gf

I think it's kind of harc to expose children to homosexuality. Not wrong mind you just hard. I mean most kids know that woman and men have relationships but exposing them to homosexuality might mean exposing them to sexual explanations earlier on.

Yes, this is a WEIRD post. I've had a weird life. Sue me.

She's DID, and a few of her alters are hardcore militant lesbians (like so militant they make the stereotype look downright friendly) who hate men with a passion. Those ones have been teaching their little boy (he's 7 now) about gay people and how it's perfectly natural, some people are just wired that way, etc for a couple of years now. Most of the people who come over are gay and bring their partners with, so the kid has a pretty laid-back attitude concerning the GLBT community. No problem so far. It's really too bad more parents aren't so open with their kids about these things.

The problem is, she lives in a fantasy world where everyone is supportive and friendly all the time, no matter how unpopular your lifestyle is, or how earthshatteringly disgusting some people might find said lifestyle. As nice as it would be if everyone accepted everyone else's lifestyle, gender, sexual preference, and everything else, we DO just happen to live in a world where guys are tied to fences and set on fire for being gay.

So her kid goes to school one day, sees two boys playing, and asks one of them "hey, why don't you kiss that other boy?" This other kid is horrified, gets POed, and throws a big rock at my ex's kid. He ducks, the rock misses, and hits the other kid (the one the rockthrower was supposed to kiss) in the face. Kid goes to the ER and has to have some pretty serious facial and dental surgery done, other kid is up on charges for assault, parents are being sued for major medical and dental bills, and now they're looking at my ex as part of all this because of what her kid did to at least partially start the situation.

Now, I'm not taking the rockthrower's side in all this, since he's the dumbass who has no self-control, but knowing how unpopular homosexuality is among a LOT of groups in the real world, My ex was definitely quite negligent in how she'd been doing things. I dunno, I guess the moral of the story is that you should really watch what cans of worms you open with a kid, especially one that young, and if you're going to open it, you'd better dish up the WHOLE can -- not just the gummi worms while leaving the nightcrawlers behind.

 

[LarzMachine]

As I was watching I love the 80's, they pointed out the homo erotic tendencies of He-man..don't know if I buy it, but thought it was amusing to point out.

I caught a comedian one time, probably 10-15 years ago now (pretty sure I was still in middle school, if not high school at the time) who jokingly blamed his becoming gay on He-Man. He said his parents went berzerk when they caught him playing with Barbies, so they took them away and bought him a bunch of He-Man figures. He said something to the effect of "OK, lemme get this straight... playing with beautiful, buxom, blonde Barbie will make your little boy gay, so the solution is to give him rippling, smooth, fur-speedo-clad leatherman He-Man and his similarly butch friends..."

 

[LarzMachine]

A lot of figures in ancient mythology and folk lore were homosexual but have had sexual undertones written out over the ages to make them more appealing to a general audience~hercules,apollo,athena,artemis and dionysius were portrayed as having same sex partners in many myths.

You know about the Spartans, right? They were an entire culture of leathermen. The soldiers were only allowed to have a wife after like 30 years of age, lived amongst the other soldiers (often even after being married), and were expected to find their sex partners within the ranks. Go figure the same culture had gay gods.