GLBT - Four letters not found in CSI:NY

[Faylinn]

People seemed interested in a thread about homosexuality on the show, so here we go.

This isn't me trying to push Danny/Flack or any other same-sex pairing between two main characters. While I would expect that to come up, my purpose was simple: to discuss the overall lack of non-heterosexual characters in the series.

The fact is, you just don't see many GLBT (LGBT, etc--whichever term you prefer, if you prefer one at all) individuals on this show. I was thinking about it earlier and came up with these examples (from ~90 episodes):

• The transgender victim in "The Lying Game"
• The bisexual(?) victim in "Oedipus Hex"
• The killer in "Stealing Home", in the case with the "trinogamous" couple, was bisexual (correct me if I'm wrong)
• In "The Closer", the victim was killed over a same-sex kiss--just the suggestion of homosexuality

(Please add more if you can think of them.)

Victims and killers. What about grieving family members? Friends, neighbors, colleagues, witnesses? What about victims whose deaths don't have to do with their sexuality or gender identity? What if, heaven forbid, non-heterosexual people worked in the police department or the crime lab?

What are your thoughts about GLBT representation--or the lack thereof--on CSI:NY?

 

[dutch_treat]

Thanks for opening this thread Fay, I hope it will lead to some interesting discussion.

Living in a country were it’s not a major issue at all anymore and there are GLBT’s in every kind of TV show just like there are in every layer of society it often makes me cringe when I watch some American shows -the CSI’s included- and notice the quite obvious absentness.

On one hand I personally think it’s appalling and I even dare to call it discriminating on the writers/producers part to not acknowledge the fact that there are people with non-heterosexual feelings out there. I’m glad Fay took the effort to find some examples (I couldn’t even come up with that many) and it really saddened me to see those numbers.

I believe that CBS is a public network and I think that that’s probably one of the reasons why they shy away from addressing the subject, but in my opinion especially public networks should use their status to try and be as open-minded and unbiased as possible and they need to make their shows for everyone and about everyone and not let the fear of losing viewers (which I feel is the main problem) stop them from trying something bold for once.

Even those who (for whatever reason) don't approve of gay people, cannot deny (try as they might) that they have always been and will always be here. So if they are shocked out of their ostrich policy because this show finally acknowledges that too, I can only encourage that.

I would already give the people behind CSI:NY a big applause if they showed someone with a different sexual orientation and not make that same orientation a reason for being either killer or victim, but just a fact ; and if they ever dare to be so undaunted to make a CSI, cop or any other recurring character GLBT I would give them a standing ovation.

On the other hand I’m a bit afraid that if they make Flack or Hawkes (the two most plausible ones imo) or anyone else gay or bi that it will become the new ‘Montana’ . Once they’ve taken that major leap there will be no turning back and I fear that it will be turned into something more than it should be, something along the lines of “Look at us, look people, look, we’ve got a gay cop!” and then every other week all the clichés in the book will be used to keep pointing that out.:brickwall:

So at this moment they should try and more show the immense diversity of people who live in NYC with their guest stars (fat people, ugly people, GLBT’s, a combination of those, etc.), but I don’t think that this show (on the writers’ part, not on the viewers’ part ) is ready for a main or a recurring character to be GLBT yet, simply because that character’s sexual orientation would become its own character.

 

[Elsie]

Victims and killers. What about grieving family members? Friends, neighbors, colleagues, witnesses? What about victims whose deaths don't have to do with their sexuality or gender identity? What if, heaven forbid, non-heterosexual people worked in the police department or the crime lab?

What are your thoughts about GLBT representation--or the lack thereof--on CSI:NY?

Well, I think that CSI: NY seems behind the times in a lot of ways, many shows now at least feature GLBT characters to some extent, although whether those portrayals are particularly good or actually rather stereotypical is another matter, however I would say that the CSI franchise as a whole is behind the times, it's not just NY. It isn't just GLBT characters that are missing on NY, it's any semblance of real New Yorkers.

Starting small, would it really kill them to have, say, a male suspect whose alibi for a crime was that he was out for dinner with his boyfriend? Something simple like that, which is entirely believable and likely and has no bearing on the case. They don't need to do any grand gestures, or even recurring or regular gay characters, I'd be happy for them to start small and work from there.

On the other hand I’m a bit afraid that if they make Flack or Hawkes (the two most plausible ones imo) or anyone else gay or bi that it will become the new ‘Montana’ . Once they’ve taken that major leap there will be no turning back and I fear that it will be turned into something more than it should be, something along the lines of “Look at us, look people, look, we’ve got a gay cop!” and then every other week all the clichés in the book will be used to keep pointing that out.:brickwall:

So at this moment they should try and more show the immense diversity of people who live in NYC with their guest stars (fat people, ugly people, GLBT’s, a combination of those, etc.), but I don’t think that this show (on the writers’ part, not on the viewers’ part ) is ready for a main or a recurring character to be GLBT yet, simply because that character’s sexual orientation would become its own character.

Absolutely agree about the diversity of people in NYC. I'm highly unsure that the writers would be able to pull off an convincing gay character from the current cast, I'm not sure that the viewership in general would be quick to accept that, except maybe for Hawkes, who if I'm correct doesn't have much of a back story about relationships. It's not because I wouldn't accept it, and I absolutely agree that people can be bi-sexual or gay regardless of their previous relationships, but knowing that in real life and having it portrayed on screen are two different things.

A new recurring character being gay would be no problem, there are no negatives I can come up with for that scenario. But I can't help but think that it would undoubtedly end up being stereotyped in some way. Either cops, which (generalising a lot) is not a profession that is particularly known for being overly tolerant, bullying or commenting, or as CSI:NY is a crime show, the character being the victim of a crime because of their sexual orientation. Whilst I'm sure that the moral of the story would be that we should all be more tolerant and that ignorance is not acceptable it would be awfully cliched and undoubtedly a disappointment.

Maybe I'm wrong, I'd like to think so. The writers do some fantastic stuff, but their previous showings of GLBT characters does not fill me with confidence.

 

[racefh853629]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only think of a handfull of shows that have ever had a gay character as a part of the main cast- Will and Grace being one of them. The problem goes far beyond the reach of CSI, in my opinion, into the depths of American culture.

Most of us here are open-minded individuals, myself included. We have no problem with gay characters being portrayed as more than victims and killers. But what the writers adhere to is the point of view of those who don't like seeing homosexuality portrayed hugely.

Brokeback Mountain was a slight scandal when it came out.

I don't agree with this, and I would love to see a character (any character) who was not a victim or a killer and is GLBT. I think it would do wonders for our culture, to stop showing these people in a relatively negative light (i.e. victims and killers).

 

[stormymac]

Starting small, would it really kill them to have, say, a male suspect whose alibi for a crime was that he was out for dinner with his boyfriend? Something simple like that, which is entirely believable and likely and has no bearing on the case. They don't need to do any grand gestures, or even recurring or regular gay characters, I'd be happy for them to start small and work from there.

In "The Ride-in", one of the suspects was a woman who wanted revenge on the victim because he had conned her out of her life savings. When they interviewed her she said that her girlfriend had left her because of the scheme. It was just one line and it wasn't treated like anything special.

 

[Elsie]

Good point stormymac, that is a good example. I had forgotten about that one.

 

[Sammy11]

Starting small, would it really kill them to have, say, a male suspect whose alibi for a crime was that he was out for dinner with his boyfriend? Something simple like that, which is entirely believable and likely and has no bearing on the case. They don't need to do any grand gestures, or even recurring or regular gay characters, I'd be happy for them to start small and work from there.

In "The Ride-in", one of the suspects was a woman who wanted revenge on the victim because he had conned her out of her life savings. When they interviewed her she said that her girlfriend had left her because of the scheme. It was just one line and it wasn't treated like anything special.

I Absolutely agree, I think it is terribly sad that it is never seen in a positive light. It's either treated that said GLBT is a vitim (for their lifestyle) or can't live with their lifestyle.

And whilst yes, whilst GLBT hate crimes do happen (along with racist hate crimes) I think it's about time it was occasionally protrayed in a positive light.

In this respect I do agree that CSI:NY (not being american I can't speak for the network) is behind the times and that is a crime in itself.

As has been pointed out, they managed to mention it in the "Ride In" and as you've said it drew little attention, but once in three seasons is still pretty appalling.

Well done Fay for pointing this out.

 

[xfcanadian]

It isn't really a CSI New York thing, more of an american network tv thing. A good portion of Americans freak out over crap like this, just look at all the Harry Potter stuff. The US in general is behind the times socially compared to Canada and Europe, so its no surprise to see American tv behind. Also, its more common for American tv characters to all be likable and have good qualities. Even Dexter only kills bad people. The US is by far more of a religious country, and is really ruled by religion, so homosexuality is viewed as 'evil' or 'sinning'. So i wouldn't say its just CSI NY, but american culture as a whole.

 

[origin-nknwn]

To be honest, I don't think TV is very good at dealing with stuff that lives outside of the box - inside the box being healthy, white and heterosexual. I'm hardly surprised when it comes to CSI:NY, where Manhattan constitutes New York in its entirety. (Funnily enough, in French the show is called Les Experts: Manhattan.) How is there supposed to be diversity in a show when all it concentrates on is the middle and upper classes of one of five boroughs of a huge city it's supposed to be representing all of?

 

[origin-nknwn]

It isn't really a CSI New York thing, more of an american network tv thing. A good portion of Americans freak out over crap like this, just look at all the Harry Potter stuff. The US in general is behind the times socially compared to Canada and Europe, so its no surprise to see American tv behind. Also, its more common for American tv characters to all be likable and have good qualities. Even Dexter only kills bad people. The US is by far more of a religious country, and is really ruled by religion, so homosexuality is viewed as 'evil' or 'sinning'. So i wouldn't say its just CSI NY, but american culture as a whole.

I think honestly that it is more down to the United States being a 'young' and 'developing' country than it is the actual implication of religion. Bearing in mind, there are many countries in Western Europe that are equally as 'religious' as the U.S. yet the same level of ignorance towards the LGBT community is not present - my home country, the Republic of Ireland, being a good example. It is still a very catholic country in many ways yet most of the people - over 80% in fact - believe gay people should have civil union rights, and nearly 60% believe they should have the same marital rights as heterosexual couples.

People really need to stop letting religion and belief in God be the curtain behind which narrow-minded Americans hide.

 

[Surreal_44]

I don't really have a problem with there not being more homosexual issues/characters on television.

It's not that I don't care about the issues or that I dislike one type of sexuality or another, I just don't care if it's in a fictional show or not. Especially a show like CSI, where I am far more interested in the cases rather than the personal romances and/or sex lives of the characters.

And while I realize that the statement above sounds shallow, the only difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals are their sexual partners. We're all people and unless we want to get weighted down with more hideously written romance (see Danny/Lindsay for more on this) then I think leaving homosexuality out of CSI is peachy.

If we're talking networking in general, I don't think people are as shy or angry about it as they used to be. What I think the networks fear more than showing homosexuality is that there is a fine line to it. How much is too much? How much of an agenda can the shows push on gay rights without angering people? What can you say about gays that wouldn't upset the gay community?

Once you open that can of worms, there's not putting them back. Things will and can get ugly over "too much" or "not enough" or "generalizing".

Although, in general, "Law & Order" do a decent job of bringing up the tough questions (although they rarely answer them), and the new show on CBS this summer "Swingtown" will probably be quite racy.

We may have a bit to go, but America is making its way, right?

 

[JellyBelly]

]
People really need to stop letting religion and belief in God be the curtain behind which narrow-minded Americans hide.

Yes they do. They also need to stop hiding behind a concept such as righteousness where correctness in social terms overshadows any sort of sensible thinking. But, all the while that political leaders are doing it, there's not much chance for the average Joe now is there? An example that comes to mind is George W. Bush advocating the use of abstinence from sex in African countries to reduce the spread of HIV. That to me was a classic attempt at using religion/righteousness in an attempt at saving his own economy and excusing a refusal of financial support to a coutry/continent in terms of the distribution of condoms in order to prevent a prevalent escalation of a disease that still ultimately results in the untimely death of millions across said continent.

I digress.

I live in the UK and we first visited the whole portrayal of gay characters on dramatic genre tv quite a few years ago. Mostly it was handled relatively well (with some notable exceptions). We witnessed the first gay couple in a soap opera, followed by a 'scandalous' lesbian kiss in another soap opera a few years later, both done very well imo. Now, in terms of soaps I think gay characters have virtually been integrated across the board.

In terms of police dramas I don't really watch any UK ones but I understand the whole issue of gay characters has been tackled a number of times although am not sure what the overall outcome has been.

US tv networks really do need to tackle this issue. Sure, it may be painful at first but in the long run portraying gay characters in terms of professional, everyday characters will have the greatest impact in terms of overall social development and the breakdown of unacceptable, non humanist prejudices.

As for CSI:NY I agree that it would be difficult to represent a gay character within the current cast. Mainly because they have taken them so far in their current make-up that it would take considerable effort to make the change realistically. And if there's anything I've learnt about CSI:NY it's that they don't have the 'considerable effort' required for such a task in terms of character/relationship development.

But, there's absolutely no reason why they can't make more of an effort to portray gay characters as everyday, normal citizens or even to bring in a main cast member as a gay character at some point. My only concern is that they may not have the ability to pull it off, we all know they like their cliches and stereotypes so I'm not sure they would be able to portray a gay character in such a way as it also fulfills a degree of social responsibility to the watching community.

 

[Top41]

I think this is something the CSI franchise is behind the times on, but it's also American television in general, as others have said. Like xfcanadian said, so much of our country's ideals are founded on religious ones, and that influences television today. It's why violence is more accepted on television and movies than sex, whereas in Europe it's the other way around.

I also see the point that were CSI: NY to include a gay character, it would be Montana 2.0, with a reference in every episode. :lol: Ahhhh, subtlety is sometimes lost on this show, and the franchise as a whole. I think it would be turned into an issue: Character faces prejudice from co-worker (insensitive guest star of the week), Character faces prejudice from suspect, Character has some sort of dating crisis, etc.

That said, to simply say it would be badly handled so the show shouldn't go there is pretty short-sighted. That's like saying, "Well, the majority is presumed to be white heterosexuals, so that's all we should see on TV, right?"

To look to a show that incorporate a gay character very well, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had the character of Willow, who, after having a serious crush on one guy and dating another, got into a relationship with another woman. It evolved naturally and realistically and made sense for the character.

Before someone tells me CSI: NY is a crime drama and not about relationships, I feel the need to point out: Danny/Lindsay, Stella/Frankie, Mac/Peyton and Flack/Angell. We've seen them all dating/flirting on screen.

I do agree that the story has to be there, which is why I like the idea of exploring something that isn't coming out of left field. As my example, I've always put forth Flack having romantic feelings for Danny, because I think if you look over all the things Flack has done for Danny over the last four seasons, well, there's an argument to be made that Flack's feelings aren't simply platonic. The feelings would probably be unrequited because Danny seems to be both heterosexual and not romantically interested in Flack, but again, it could be a natural jumping off point for a storyline that would give us insight into the characters.

I wouldn't object to finding out Hawkes and Adam had been going at it in the broom closet for the last season, because we know little about these characters' romantic lives other than that both have dated women in the past.

Or what about Danny, who acted baffled when a killer told him he'd committed murder in "The Closer" after a rival male fan kissed him on the lips. "All that over a little kiss?" Danny said (or something to that effect). That's something that could be followed up on in some way.

I don't think it needs to be "forced" on the show; I think there are some places where it could be very naturally included. To use another show as an example, in Torchwood right now, the main character is involved with one of his team members--a male team member. No big deal, no hoopla, just the two of them in the beginning stages of a relationship. Surely if we can see Mac and Peyton out on a date or Danny and Lindsay hooking up on a pool table, there's room for two characters of the same sex to do the same.

 

[PalmettoHunna]

The very nature of the show causes almost any GLBT characters to be either victims/guilty party. With the recurring (not main)cast members how much about them (Peyton, Jane, Chad, Pino, etc)? I know it sucks but one of the reasons I believe they don't have many GLBTs is because the original CSI took a lot of heat for the faact that anytime they were portrayed they were always victims/suspents. That is how the show is almost everyone who we come across in an episode that is not a cast member is a victim or suspect.

I would love for their to be a gay cast member on the show, but it is probably not going to happen...writers have a hard time capturing a gay character without their sexual orientation becoming their whole identity. That's not just true for American television, it seems to be true all over the world. Probably will be until their are more GLBT writers, but honestly in America we just let everyone sit next to each other on the bus 50 years ago we have a long way to go.

ER recently main Dr Pratts younger brother a young gay man. So they are trying but it is difficult to ease it in without it become the entire identity of the character. I understand that shows have been able to have a character be gay, but honestly Will on Will&Grace every other joke was by the way just look at how gay he is.

I think Kristine brought this up in one of her reviews.This may just be my black and living in the south...can we get all kinds of diversity on television. Most shows I have seen from other countries while at home, or even while I was in other countries seem to be way less ethnically diverse than I would like (I just graduated with a journalism degree, so I have been traveling a lot)...even within all three CSI franchises they have exactly two people that are minorities returning for next season, Hill Harper and Adam Rodriguez. 14 white cast (main)members...even with one leaving at the beginning of the season...Bigotry is bigotry...that's all I'm going to say about that.

Sorry if this doesn't make any sense I'm in a hurry to get off my lunch break. And if I'm out of line then I apologize it's just how I feel.

 

[Surreal_44]

If I thought the storyline would be handled appropriately, I wouldn't have any objections to it. The problem is, as much as I love the writers, they just suck at romance. I haven't been inspired by any of the romances they've presented us with thus far, and the only relationship they've managed to put any real depth into is Mac/Claire.

I'm not arguing whether or not we should have homosexual romance on tv; the Torchwood episode where Capt. Jack meets his namesake is probably the most beautiful kiss in all of televised history; I just don't think the writers of CSI: NY could do it proper justice, so I'd rather they just leave it alone.

If they can manage to make D/L less contrived and make it feel less like badly written fanfic, I might have more faith.

I do agree that the story has to be there, which is why I like the idea of exploring something that isn't coming out of left field. As my example, I've always put forth Flack having romantic feelings for Danny, because I think if you look over all the things Flack has done for Danny over the last four seasons, well, there's an argument to be made that Flack's feelings aren't simply platonic. The feelings would probably be unrequited because Danny seems to be both heterosexual and not romantically interested in Flack, but again, it could be a natural jumping off point for a storyline that would give us insight into the characters.

Oh no. No, no. Danny would sleep with Flack for all the wrong reasons and it'd ruin their friendship. Besides, it's totally Flack/Mac. All that saving of life stuff and then boiling anger in Season Three, and all the confiding and comfortable teasing this season...*happy sigh* Off-topic, sorry.

I think a better couple would be Danny/Hawkes. They come off as far more slashy to me and although I don't think Danny is technically gay, Hawkes has always sort of come across that way to me. Then when Danny sleeps with Hawkes for all the wrong reasons, Flack can at least still be his friend and have his back. And I mean that in a totally non-slashy, completely mature way.

Actually, a fun thing to do is have Flack's sister be a lesbian. It could open a lot of possibilities into why there's conflict in the Flack family, and the producers/writers/network can stay away from the scary idea of actually making a main character gay.

I feel a plot bunny coming...