Provide a 5 pages analysis while answering the following question: Gay and Lesbian Representation in Media. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. Media, especially television shows have always been used in shading light about sexual behavior and its trends, therefore. the discussion will reveal the reasons why there has been little representation of this main group and the current changes.

Knowledge, in accordance with the US beliefs, represents power. The media aims at promoting this belief. However, ignorance on the other hand is something everyone is encouraged to disassociate with. In relation to this, gay and lesbian orientation is considered ignorance about what society expects people of opposite genders. According to Netzley (p. 74), ignorance even if considered a powerful tool, can be used against such groups especially by media platforms in to oppress and completely deny them a voice to air their views. During the HIV/AIDS global outbreak in the 1980s, the media portrayed gay as the major cause of its spread. Actually, a large number of American television shows aimed at promoting a negative stigma among the society especially the male individuals who easily found themselves in such situations. Most documentation indicates that in the efforts to find a cure for AIDS, doctors in partnership with media platforms in the 80s and 90s always linked this deadly disease to this behavior and thus termed “gay disease.” For instance, in 1990, ABC was engaged in a tarsal when one of its episodes “Thirty Something” showed male characters in bed kissing. Most sponsors withdrew their support and media platforms refused to play the episodes (Netzley 68). In addition, most movies and television shows always portrayed homosexual characters as a problem by giving them protagonist roles that made them look like problems that required immediate solutions. These characters also escalated gender stereotypes in which gay males were termed effeminate and lesbians masculine. Even though the trend is changing, people still disassociate themselves from gay and lesbian acts. Today, only a handful of individuals have come out in public and confessed to being of this sexual orientation.