For whatever reason, it seems to be the dream of a lot of young girls to have a “gay best friend.” For shopping, for singing show tunes, for talking about boys while getting an expert insider opinion from them, regardless of the reason, it’s a very common theme in younger teenagers. Of course, the wish is entirely harmless, the desire to have a gay best friend on your arm is most likely the result of the romanticization of the “gay friend” in television. But it wasn’t always this way. Before Will and Grace, which premiered in 1998, there were no shows with any principal gay characters. The acknowledgement of gays in TV shows were few and far between and for the most part, they’d appear for one episode, usually as a punchline, the female protagonist would be pining over him the whole episode, only to find out he was gay. Before this, featuring a gay character was somewhat of a taboo. Nowadays, almost every show made for an audience old enough to comprehend such an idea has at least one gay character that is either recurring or even a main character. Shows like Glee, Skins, Degrassi, and more have brought the homosexual character into modern media and completely changed the way television shows worked with them. They aren’t just punchlines or comic relief characters anymore. A lot of the time now, the character’s sexuality will take a backseat to the real plot of the show, it’s no longer the entire basis of the character. Some shows do a better job of this than others, but the point is that the gay character has gone from being completely ignored to being in the spotlight, becoming more and more normalized in modern media.

Will and Grace may have been the first show to feature a gay main character, but it can’t be denied the reason the gay character has taken the stage now, nearly six years after the show went off the air: Glee. Yes, Glee, the sometimes ironically named, hit comedy series on FOX, which features Kurt Hummel as one of its main characters. Chris Colfer, the actor who brought Kurt to life and has come out in real life as well, is credited with playing the first openly gay teenage character on primetime television. For the first time, the world saw a gay kid in high school for more than just a few seconds. The show made a point to show the way Kurt is bullied in his small-town, Ohio high school and this was important, it brought to light the dangers gay teens face every day in some schools.. One commenter on the patheos.com blog “Bad Catholic” put the abstraction of the gay stereotype in television into words: “According to Hollywood, gay men are…just fabulous. You can hardly turn on a sitcom, read a novel, or watch a movie without seeing the Gay Man Abstraction,” a guy who’s “funny, cute, kooky, has great taste in clothes, and will always solve [the] straight female protagonist’s problems by the end of the episode.” Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, tried to stray from this and give Kurt more depth. Quite honestly, it’s hard to tell whether this goal was reached. Kurt is a fashionista, obsessed with his looks, his hair, and show tunes (one of the first songs he ever sang on the show was “Defying Gravity” from Wicked,) and for the first few seasons, his plot revolves around trying to live with people bullying him and fruitless attempts to woo his straight classmates. Unfortunately, because of this, his character was criticized early on for being a “predatory gay.” As the show progressed however, Colfer’s character started to have more normal teenage story lines that didn’t entirely revolve around his sexuality. This was mostly because, in season two, Kurt Hummel got a boyfriend. So this show isn’t just praised for having the first gay teenage character, it also has the first gay teenage relationship. Before, most gay characters either remained single for the duration of their appearance, or were rejected by the straight people they were pursuing. Glee also features one of the first lesbian teenage relationships in modern telvesion. Still more, Glee also featured a teenage transgender student, who regularly changes what gender he dresses up as freely. Glee has paved the way for more and more shows to “come out” and create their own gay characters. Because of this, the homosexual character is becoming more normalized.

Shows like Glee, particularly Glee, have actually had an effect on the “public’s attitude on homosexuality and same-sex marriages”, something John Stonestreet, a writer at LifeSiteNews.com, calls the “Glee effect.” A survey done by The Hollywood Reporter reported that “twenty-seven percent of viewers…said that gay TV made them more in favor of gay marriage, while twelve percent said they felt more opposed.” Despite still more opposition, the fact that the shift in television’s view of gay characters can have such an effect of the public’s actual attitude towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage says a lot about the power of TV. Also, the “Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reported on their ‘Where We Are on TV’ segment that a record of 4.4% of actors regularly appearing on primetime network drama and comedy series during the 2012-2013 season will portray lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) characters… up significantly from 2.9% in 2011.” A pollster for THR stated that “views on gay marriage have exponentially gone in its favor since 2002,” while Will and Grace was still on the air. “Obama voters are watching and saying, ‘Okay, I’ve changed because of what I’ve seen.’ Some Romney voters are saying, ‘The more I see, the more I’m against it’.” Regardless, the introduction of the gay character into primetime television has had an effect not just on the way TV treats the gay character, but to how the public and society as a whole might see homosexuals.

It was a probably a huge shock to many when FOX, of all networks, was the network to unveil this gay character. But since, the idea has spread to more and more networks. Disney Channel has announced that it will be introducing a lesbian couple on its popular show Good Luck, Charlie, and the popular comedy Modern Family has put a new perspective on gay parents, it has probably done a better job normalizing the idea of a gay couple than even Glee did. By putting the two fathers on par with two other couples, both heterosexual, and equating them, the show works to put the homosexual parents on the same plane as the heterosexual and is therefore normalizing the idea. Even more shows have started featuring gay characters, such as Degrassi, a Canadian high school drama, and Teen Wolf and Skins, both American comedy-dramas. And the spread of equal love has transcended television.

Though there is an abundance of gay characters in movies, there are very few in any children’s media at all, which was why the twist at the end of the Tim Burton movie Paranorman was so important. Through the entire movie, romantic tension was built up between the meat-headed jock and the pretty blonde cheerleader. At the very end, the girl finally gets up the guts to ask the boy out to a movie. He says yes, and that she would “love [his] boyfriend, he’s a total chick-flick nut!” By waiting until the very end of the movie to make the point that the character was gay, the viewer was forced to form an opinion about him based on his character, not his sexuality. Not only was this a brilliant plot device, it was also recognized as the first gay character in an animated children’s movie. Additionally, in Marvel’s Young Avengers comic series, the writers have introduced an unlikely romance between the Hulkling and Wiccan, two teenage superheroes who fight crime side by side and are dating in their real identities as well. Marvel also introduced Wolverine’s son as a bisexual and DC has recently announced that the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, was also gay. DC also announced the first gay wedding of two of its heroes. Writers on the rival Marvel’s side stated that this shouldn’t happen, but not because of the sexualities of the characters. It shouldn’t happen, according to Marvel writers, because “superheroes aren’t supposed to be happy.” (Is that not the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?) Even some of the characters that are saving the world are LGBT characters now. Even the long-running comic strip Archie has unveiled a gay character. A  great message can be sent through the heroism of a gay character. It might teach younger generations who read the comic that you don’t always have to get the girl to be a hero.

Despite the progress the world of media has made with gay characters and relationships, there are still some people who are unconvinced. Fans of the popular video game Mass Effect 3 were appalled and disgusted when the new game offered a story line where your character is gay. The entire relationship arc is purely optional, as if the option in the game to be gay, but despite its versatility, the idea stirred up some tension for followers of the game series. Also, Glee’s character Kurt Hummel has been described as a “dangerous cliché” by more than one critic. One writer for The Guardian criticized Kurt as a “tired gay cliché” and “America’s poster boy for FOX-approved homosexuality with his wholesome goodness, a dazzling Colgate smile, and a passion for Madge.” The article goes on to say that his “fondness for makeovers, dance routines, and the boy troubles of his girlfriends” make for a dangerous “gleeché” (gag.) The writer suggests that it possibly would’ve been better if Kurt had been a “lousy gay”, if his “makeovers had been a disaster or if he’d turned out to be a darn good football player” (for those who don’t follow the show, he actually did turn out to be a great football player… but only after performing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” dance to pump himself up. Close, yet still so far.) And of course, there’s still the viewers who disagree completely with the idea regardless and as such gather nothing from the show and its message about the gay character. The normalization and introduction of gay characters in primetime television has set the stage for change, but the writers and creators must be wary of clichés that make the character predictable and unrealistic, possibly distorting the message they are trying to send.

Since the debut of the gay main character in Will and Grace in 1998, the gay television, or overall media, character has become more and more common, especially with popular shows like Glee, which show the gay character’s life up close and personal and make their character more about them as a person, rather than their sexuality. Since then, more and more shows have introduced gay main characters and made an effort to normalize the idea. The effects of this new characters on television, which continues to introduce more and more LGBT characters, go beyond media, some of these characters have also had an effect (positive or negative,) on the public’s attitude towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Bringing the gay character to the center stage has not only made the public more aware of the reality of homosexuality, but may have even changed their outlook on it as well.