Student Name: Lu Jin
Section: A01
Instructor: Jeff Bennet
Paper No.2
Can a popular television show make a difference in how people think about gay men? As the issue of representation is central to this essay, the most obvious issue surrounding this is the stereotyping of gay characters on television. These types of programmes are no longer written by the homosexual for the homosexual, but have become integrated within “mainstream” mass media (Battles and Hilton-Morrow,2002). This paper will explore the extent of enabling and constraining effects that gay visibility and its accompanying representations have on the popular TV show “Will & Grace.” I will also examine how visibility has produced disciplinary discourses as well in the show as how it has created opportunities for resisting dominant ideologies. And then the paper will also explore how the media text shaped the societal and cultural attitudes towards LGBT individuals. Finally, the paper will address how the increasing visibility of’ LGBT’ individuals in the media tells us about our broader social, sexual, cultural world.
The Season 3, Episode 1, the title is “Will New City”, I was amazed by the first 12 minutes of the show which represents sophisticated relationships among the three main characters: homosexual Will Truman, heterosexual Grace Adler and “very gay” friend Jack. The overall theme of this scene is Will spent three months on the island, and finally returns only to learn that Jack and Grace have bonded in his absence and leaving Will feeling left out. Meanwhile Grace still can't decide between Josh and Ben, Will and Jack struggling with each other about who knows Grace better.
At the beginning of the show, Jack is flirting with a pizza delivery boy and says his name is Will Truman which is actually Will’s name. The surname ‘Truman’ suggests that Will is a ‘real man’. This is also put across in the way he dresses in the scene. As an attorney, the way he talk and acts illustrate him as a conservative style and uptight person. In the scene, Will and Grace have a very private conversation through the phone. After Will returns home, they both are extremely exciting to see each other. Will said: “I came home. I'm here. Where's the love? I just flew coach! I need some love!” Grace: “Oh, my god! Look who's back! Yay!(Hug Will and Straddling him). Will who is a more “straight-acting”, quite and less noticeable type of gay man. People would most probably not expect him to be gay when they first meet him. These all demonstrates that Will shows little of the usual stereotypical traits that signal to an audience that he is gay. What is more, his primary intimate relationships with a woman Grace. No matter, what conversation between Will and Grace, Will always represents composure and respectability, if I am a gay man, I will definitely feel comfortable to see him. “Do Will and Grace love each other? Clearly, they live together; they depend on with each other; they share their desires and neuroses; they praise, criticize and tease each other relentlessly in the scene. Each one of these behaviors is associated with the state of being in love. Thus, the scene representing the special relationship between Will and Grace more like heterosexual, it could be responsible for detracting from the audience’s understanding of the show as an exploration of a homosexual lifestyle.
In an article, "Will &Grace: Negotiating (Gay) Marriage on Prime-Time Television," Quimby studies the relationship between a gay man and a straight woman. She writes that the relationship between Will and Grace was in effect mirroring a gay marriage because the relationship between a gay man and a straight woman is often dismissed in popular culture as well as gay culture. This friendship survives, Quimby argues, because there is no sexual interaction between them. She also contends that the reason why Will & Grace is a commercial success is because their relationship is viewed as a heterosexual one, which depoliticizes the fact that Will is gay (Quimby, 2005). Therefore, Will gives constraining effects of gay visibility.
On the other hand, there is a tendency to view Jack through the lens of dominant cultural stereotypes. We can apparently tell that from the way he talks and poses in the scene. In the scene, Jack is so obsessed with the pizza boy and wants to marry him. We can see him as the most frequent humor and identify less with him than with other characters. In this scene, Jack was described as a ‘silly, irresponsible, immature, narcissistic, effeminate, and insulting, childlike unselfconsciousness, the epitome of the negative stereotypical gay male. For example, in the scene, Will and Jack is fighting about who knows Grace better, when Jack wins the situation, he gives a little wired dance to tease Will, and Will is driven beyond forbearance: “Your mother took the straps off your bed about 20 years too early!” Thus, Jack enabling the “gayness” visibility.
All in all, Will and Jack both “came out” at the first season, throughout the contradict performance, Jack’s “gayness” has been re-inscribed, Will’s “gayness” has been resisted, but his “normativity” has been re-inscribed, because, his “gay” meaning making isn which certain cultural norms are seen as acceptable to society (Jeff, 2011). Their apparent contradictory personalities are, says James Keller, the “respective embodiments of the familiar and the unfamiliar, although, paradoxically, what is coded as familiar here is actually unfamiliar in the history of gay representation” (Keller, 2002). He notes that Will is presented as the ‘norm’ whilst Jack is portrayed as unusual among gay men in a respectable, middle class situation. He also asserts that Will is offered as the ‘preferable alternative’ to the stereotype of the gay man, because Jack is much funnier and more stylish than Will he could easily also be a preferable alternative. This presentation of two very different types of gay men, both preferable to the stereotype, serves to not only expand the culturally accepted notion of “gayness” but also works to keep its audience interested.
According to Jeff’s lecture, Essentialist theorists state that LGBT people are bound together by the fact that their identities are determined by their sexuality (Jeff, 2011). Donald Hall suggests that such theorists would argue that “same-sex desiring individuals have always existed and that however much their context may have changed, they were, without a doubt, aware of their sexual desires and they must have thought of themselves as belonging to a distinct group of similar individuals”( Hall, 2003).
While it makes sense that the individual would have been aware of their sexual desires, according to the lecture, constructionist theorist would perhaps note that historically they may not have been aware of any sense of belonging, rather one of detachment due to the cultural influences in society at the time (Jeff, 2011). Richard Dyer observes, rather importantly, that “a major fact about being gay is that it doesn’t show…the person’s person alone does not show…that he or she is gay” (Dyer, 2002). He argues that there are ‘signs of gayness’ such as expressions, stances and clothing that ‘make visible the invisible’. Typification is a near necessity, says Dyer, for the representation of gayness, which he argues is the product of social, political, practical and textual determinations
What Dyer conveys here is that to be classed as ‘gay’, a person must be able to identify with not only the inner, biological aspects of ‘gayness’ (as put forward by essentialism) but also with the cultural aspects around them (as suggested by constructionism). This in itself is quite stereotypical because of the presumption about what is ‘gay’. Those who do not conform to this ideal are classed as ‘invisible’. Will & Grace attempts to deviate from the stereotypical notions of ‘gayness’ through its two gay main characters, Will and Jack, and provide an insight into ‘invisible’ gayness.
According to the scene I chose from Will and Grace one character is acting more according to the stereotypes present in society, while the other character is not fulfilling these stereotypes. Certainly, this shows the audience that there are different types of gay man and especially Will’s character emphasized that it is not always easy to determine who is gay and who is not. More and more people started to realize slowly that being gay is nothing too much out of the ordinary and certainly nothing “bad” or “sick”. People in the audience might even personally know a homosexual individual, they simply might not know about it, because the homosexuals they know don’t fit in the popular stereotypes that exist in society. As a result, I am unsure about the visibility is acceptable or unacceptable. In addition, another important theme of the show is the great relationships that exist between gay men and straight women. The fact that Will & Grace is not just focusing on gay characters but a mixture between gay and heterosexual characters is seen by many as one of the shows secrets to success (Battles and Hilton-Morrow,2002).
In addition to Will and Grace’s careful construction, its success is a result of the increased visibility of gays in society and the attendant familiarity of the larger culture, however circumscribed, with gay men’s culture, as well as the prevalence of a gay sensibility on many situation comedies. Hence, Will and Grace is much more familiar terrain to a heterosexual audience than it would have been ten or even five years earlier. Finally, the ability of Will and Grace to attract a large heterosexual audience may be attributed to the show’s producers and writers and to the talents of its actors, particularly Sean Hayes as Jack. While the time was clearly ripe for Will and Grace in 1998, it did not necessarily mean that just any show featuring a gay culturally intimate humor would be successful.
In conclusion, Will, on the other hand, though smart and successful, is the character that most needs personal guidance, about love and relationships in particular, and Jack is often on hand to give this advice. Between these two characters, then, are a fair number of characteristics that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight people alike would be able to relate to in some way. Gays and lesbians once had very little input into their own representations Dominant ideologies have therefore held virtually all control over how gays have been represented in the past, and only recently have they been able to acquire some control themselves. After a period of trial and error, the television sitcom Will & Grace, with its innovative balance of hetero and homosexual relationships, could be making its mark on society. During this time, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders have been continually trying to become fully accepted as part of mainstream culture. However, this in itself poses problems, such as when considering the positive/negative images approach, most definitions of what constitutes a ‘positive’ image would restrict the range of gay and lesbian representation as much as so-called ‘negative’, There still have something need to considered.

Reference:
Battles, K, & Hilton-Morrow, W. (2002). Gay characters in conventional spaces: Will and Grace and the situation comedy genre. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19, 87-105.
Bennet, Jeff, (2011), Gender Sexuality and Media, Fall 2011, Lecture Notes “Will and Grace”, University of Iowa, 2011 Fall
Dyer, Richard (2002). The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. London: Routledge
Hall, Donald E. (2003). Queer Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan
Keller, James R. (2002). Queer (Un)Friendly Film and Television. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc.
Quimby, Karin, (2005), Will & Grace: Negotiating (Gay) Marriage on Prime-Time Television. Attrieved at [2011, Nov, 18], Available at
http://faculty.ucc.edu/english-chewning/16889187.pdf