I think every time there's a show like 'Modern Family' or 'Will & Grace' that portray gay and lesbian characters and is successful, it just further opens the door.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I was a kid, there were hardly any gay story lines or characters on television that I recall. Then when I was in college, 'Will & Grace' started up.
And I'd like to believe that's true, you know, kind of showing gay people in this kind of light and - where it's not about that, it's just about the characters for the first time, like those shows were.
ABC's intelligently hilarious sitcom 'Modern Family' depicts a gay-male marriage in which both partners are refreshingly dimensional, believable human beings. The writers dare to make them flawed and thus fully delineated, but they're not flawed in the silly, stereotypical ways that once dominated such portrayals.
They might have a long way to go before truly accepting gay people into their lives, but they have accepted the show into their living rooms each and every week.
I kind of cheer the presence of any gay characters at all - I think the more we can saturate television with any gay character or lesbian character or transgender character, I think that's a really great thing. We're kind of getting past the fact that they're the punchline or that they're the novelty.
The writers have slowly taken the show, with subjects other gay shows have dived right into, slowly. It was over a year before Will even started to date.
Gay TV has been immensely important in transforming American culture in a more gay-positive direction.
I remember on the pilot of 'Will and Grace' some executives from NBC saying to me, 'There are too many gay jokes.' I said, 'If not on this show, then what show?'
I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.
I think people love shows that are relationship-oriented. I think they love family shows.
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