How do television show portray homosexual men and women?

There are several ways in which gays and lesbians are portrayed on television, many if which, arguably, create problems both for the program maker and for the viewer. Homosexuality is still not fully accepted in today's society and traditional patriarchal portrayals of both men and women are still dominant, with few exceptions to such images. However, men are still seen to be powerful, successful and rational in thinking. It is still uncommon for a man …

…stereotypical characters and plot conventions occurs for many reasons and, it a great extent, results in negative portrayals. Although such categorization is negative in that it effects viewer's reactions to gays and lesbians, it is essential to the program makers in order to visualize individual characters. As the evidence suggest, there are exceptions to the visualization of gays and lesbians within the genre of soap operas where characters can develop over a period of time.