Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term's use as a reference to male homosexuality may date as early as the late 19th century, but its use gradually increased in the mid-20th century. In modern English, gay has come to be used as an adjective, and as a noun, referring to the community, practices and cultures associated with homosexuality. In the 1960s, gay became the word favored by homosexual men to describe their sexual orientation. By the end of the 20th century, the word gay was recommended by major LGBT groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex, (Reprinted from American Psychologist, Vol 46(9), Sep 1991, 973-974 ) although it is more commonly used to refer specifically to men. At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. Among younger speakers, the word has a meaning ranging from derision (e.g., equivalent to rubbish or stupid) to a light-hearted mockery or ridicule (e.g., equivalent to weak, unmanly, or lame). The extent to which these usages still retain connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized. This page examines gay characters in fictional works as a whole, focusing on characters and tropes in cinema and fantasy.
For more information about fictional characters in other parts of the LGBTQ community, see the corresponding pages about pansexual, and non-binary and intersex characters in fiction.
Gay characters and tropes
In U.S. television and other media, gay or lesbian characters tend to die or meet another unhappy ending, such as becoming insane, more often than other characters. Fans call this trope "bury your gays" or more specifically "dead lesbian syndrome". Increasing awareness and criticism of the trope has made creators attempt to avoid it. In 2018, Star Trek: Discovery aired an episode in which a gay character played by Wilson Cruz was killed. Immediately after the episode aired, Cruz, GLAAD, and the showrunners released reassuring statements intimating that the character's death may not be final, with specific reference to avoiding this trope. Indeed, in the following season, Cruz's character returned from the dead by science-fictional means, and Cruz was added to the main cast. But efforts to avoid the trope may also limit the range of stories that are told about queer characters: When the final season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power premiered in 2020, showrunner ND Stevenson said that they couldn't "see another gay character die on TV for the moment. Maybe one day we can have a tragic gay romance again, but that has been, like, the only norm for so long."
Apart from this, in many forms of popular entertainment, gay men are portrayed stereotypically as promiscuous, flashy, flamboyant, and bold, while the reverse is often true of how lesbians are portrayed. Media representations of bisexual and transgender people tend to either completely erase them, or depict them as morally corrupt or mentally unstable. Similar to race-, religion-, and class-based caricatures, these stereotypical stock character representations vilify or make light of marginalized and misunderstood groups. There is currently a widespread view that references to gay people should be omitted from child-related entertainment. When such references do occur they almost invariably generate controversy. In 1997, when American comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on her popular sitcom, many sponsors, such as the Wendy's fast-food chain, pulled their advertising. In news, the emergence of more explicit and serious segments of LGBT people began to emerge. In 1967, CBC released a news segment on homosexuality. This segment, however, was a compilation of negative stereotypes of gay men. The 1970s marked an increase in visibility for LGBT communities in media with the 1972 ABC show That Certain Summer. This show was about a gay man raising his family, and although it did not show any explicit relations between the men, it contained no negative stereotypes.
Furthermore, Popular television shows like Will & Grace, Sex and the City, Brothers and Sisters, and Modern Family routinely depict gay men but "most televisual representations" are usually of white men. Having both a queer and black or non-white character is creating multi-faceted "otherness", which is not normally represented on television. Additionally, while many shows depict LGBT people of color, they are often used as a plot device or in some type of trope. Moreover, non-white LGBT characters are often depicted as "race neutral". For example, on the ABC Family show, GRΣΣK, Calvin Owens is openly gay and many of his storylines, struggles, and plots revolve around his self-identification as LGBT. However, while being physically African-American, it is never mentioned in the show, and he is never seen as "explicitly black". Starting with hits like Modern Family, gay homonormativity is becoming a mainstay on broadcast television. There has been a cultural shift from white, gay men being depicted as non-monogamous sex-seekers, stemming from the AIDS epidemic to being "just like everyone else" in their quest to be fathers. Later, the final episode of the animated Disney Channel show Gravity Falls revealed two male cops, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland, as a romantic pair. Additionally, the movie Love, Simon is notable as the first film by a major Hollywood studio to focus on a gay teenage romance.
In 2017, Disney Channel's Andi Mack made history with the depiction of the character Cyrus Goodman (portrayed by Joshua Rush), making him Disney Channel's first-ever character to come out as gay. On February 9, 2019, Andi Mack yet again made television history when Cyrus came out to his male best friend, Jonah Beck (Asher Angel), saying "I'm gay", making him the first Disney character to ever use the word "gay" in its modern meaning. Cyrus developed mutual feelings for the captain of the basketball team, TJ Kippen (portrayed by Luke Mullen) and in the series finale, these feelings were made apparent and the two held hands, marking the start of the first romance between two male characters and the first gay romance involving a main character in Disney history.
Prominent examples There are many gay characters who have prominently appeared in media other than those previously listed in this article, including in literature, teen fiction, yaoi stories, slash fiction, bara manga, pulp fiction, along with in animated series, webcomics, and other media. This included Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar in the short story, Brokeback Mountain, where Jack and Ennis have a long term sexual and romantic relationship despite both being married to women and fathering children. There was also Oshima in Kafka on the Shore. Oshima is a 21-year-old intellectual gay trans man who is a librarian and owner of a cabin in the mountains near Komura Memorial Library. He becomes the mentor of Kafka as he guides him to the answers that he's seeking on his journey. On a similar note, webcomics like Kyle's Bed & Breakfast, Homestuck, Check, Please!, and Lumberjanes all included gay characters. Specifically, in Kyle's Bed & Breakfast, there are various LGBT characters, such as Jeff Olsen, a gay man with HIV, Mark Masterson, a gay scholar, and Kristian Janson, a Jamaican gay man, while in Homestuck, Dirk Strider states he is only attracted to guys. Furthermore, Check, Please! centers around a gay protagonist on a college hockey team and Jo, a trans woman of color and an "expert on what it means to be a Lumberjane" to the fellow campers, has two dads. Similarly, tomboy Charlotte "Charlie" in Lee Knox Ostertag's Witch Boy series has two dads who appear in all three graphic novels as recurring characters and are the only explicitly LGBTQ characters shown in the graphic novels
Video games and graphic novels also feature various gay characters. For instance, Saied in the 1989 game, Circuit's Edge, a gay man, is alleged to be the former lover of Yasmin, a trans woman, while Damien Bloodmarch is a gay trans man in the 2017 game Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator. Graphic novels include even more characters. Northstar in Uncanny X-Men, first appearing in Uncanny X-Men #120 (1979), was the first openly gay superhero in the Marvel Comics universe. Additionally, Andy Lippincott in Doonsbury, who first appeared in 1976, was the first openly gay character to appear in a mainstream comic strip. Other than these two characters Midnighter and Apollo, who appeared in the Midnighter comic book series, from 2006 to 2008 and 2015 to 2016 respectfully. Midnighter is one of DC Comics' most prominent gay superheroes and his relationship with Apollo is one of the most prominent gay relationships in DC Comics.
Film and live-action television had their share of characters as well. In the novel upon which the 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon, is based, Joel Cairo is referred to as "queer" and "fairy" but, in the film, his sexuality isn't directly addressed, likely a decision by filmmakers in order to comply with the Hays Code, which banned the depiction of homosexuality in American films. Later, in the 1959 film South, Jan Wicziewsky is a Polish army officer living in exile in the antebellum South, who is torn by his feelings for fellow officer Eric MacClure (Graydon Gould), and the film is believed to be the earliest television film dealing with homosexual themes. There is also Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series. The films are based on the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels. While Dumbledore's sexuality is not openly portrayed or explicitly mentioned either in the books or the films, J.K. Rowling, the author of the books, revealed that he is gay. At the same time, there is Hikaru Sulu in the films Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond, who is a gay character, as noted by John Cho who plays him in the 2009 film. However, George Takei, who portrayed him in the original series, said this was "really unfortunate" and claimed that Sulu "had been straight all this time." As for live-action TV series, the Stephen Colbert character in The Colbert Report was gay, confirmed in an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, In this video, Colbert has his "cousin," a double of himself, come on the show, with the character saying the following about Colbert: "I'm pretty sure he's gay. Where there's smoke, there's fire." as was Blaine Anderson in Glee and a gay couple (Sir and Charles) in A Series of Unfortunate Events.