Week 13

I really did enjoy the activities, readings, and classes this week. The main theme we covered in class this week was all the different homosexual television shows, movies, and when we had our speaker come in last week we discussed some homosexual theatre and plays. The reason why I thought this week was so interesting is because a lot of the shows that we discussed are shows that I am thoroughly interested in and have watched in the past. It helps a lot when we use examples of things that I can relate to. For Tuesday's class we had to bring a one page paper of us describing the character, plot, and setting of a television show that involved a gay character. Some of the TV shows that we discussed were Will and Grace, Desperate Housewives, Grays Anatomy and many more popular daytime television shows. We discussed all the homosexual characters in each of these shows and how they were all viewed and how in pretty much every single television show there was a stereotypical gay person. We had an interesting discussion about the fact that societies views most homosexual people the same way they are portrayed in these shows. Jack, on Will and Grace is probably the most stereotypical gay male. Jack's character is a feminine, outgoing, flamboyant gay male who most of the Will and Grace viewers absolutely adore. Since his character is so popular most of society expects that when they meet a gay male that person will be mirrored to Jack's character or at least have some of the same personality traits.

In Thursday's class we viewed some different American movies that included homosexual characters and an Indian film that included a lesbian couple. We were able to see a lot of different examples with the American films that there was usually a butch woman in most of the lesbian couples. In the Indian film we saw two very feminine looking women lying in the water caressing each other.

In one of our assignments we had an article to read titled Articulating "Indianess (page 60)" it discusses the movie Fire that we watched a clip from on Thursday's class. In this section it discusses how 'right -wing groups that have been protesting this movie claim that lesbianism does not exist.' This startles me because I can't imagine how someone can truthfully believe that there are no lesbians in their country just because they don't accept that type of lifestyle or behavior. In another section of this reading it illustrates between Radha and Sita's character how they may not be lesbians because of they have husbands. They try to justify this by explaining how may females in their culture show a lot of affection for each other without anything going on between them.