An interesting case of social engineering

I noticed an interesting thing the other night while I was watching television, in how certain "groups" of people are portrayed.

In African-American circles, there's a lot of outcry about how television wrongly depicts black people as this or that and how American television is actually responsible for a large portion of racism in modern America. From what I've seen and read, that is mostly viewed as borderline conspiracy theory. I'm not so sure I can say that television is responsible, but I do believe that television certainly perpetuates it, or at least doesn't do anything to abate the tide of racism that we have in our country. And really, I'm not so sure that it's television's job to conquer racism, especially Prime Time television. I certainly believe, however, that television should not be promoting racism as it appears to do on a regular basis.

In the past decade or so, a new "group" of individuals has been "showcased" on television: homosexuals. From what I've observed from the shows I've watched and the pop culture I understand, I've begun to see a bit of social engineering.

Just from what I've seen, I think that homosexuals are over-represented on television, just as much as black people are under-represented and stereotyped.

Basically, homosexuals represent a very, very small portion of the population, but they are represented through television in a large portion of shows. If you look at how often black people are represented, you will notice that black people are under-represented. Meaning, that, in real life, you will more likely run into a black person (about 17% of the population) than you will a homosexual (about 3-5%, according to most studies). In fact, it is a bit more likely you will run into say, an atheist (about 9% of the population), than a homosexual, but the representation of atheists on television is extremely small. Of course, that also leads to another question: Atheism is something you can't see, unlike race, as is homosexuality. Why is it such a big deal that some characters are determined to be characterized by something that is practiced in private? Does it really matter?

Additionally, something I've noticed is the kind of representation that homosexuals receive on television. Black people are generally represented as a kind of "token" character, like "we have to have a black person on the show, or else the show won't be believable." But, in a lot of these shows, black people are given every type of character, good and bad.

However, in all of the shows I've seen where a homosexual is in the cast, they are all cast as a "super-normal" individual. No crime. No hang-ups. Just a homosexual trying to make it through life, all the while letting everyone know that they are gay. Not only is this odd, it's completely illogical.

It is unreasonable to believe that homosexuals don't commit crime or don't encounter the same societal issues that the heterosexuals do and if they do have the same struggles as heterosexuals do, it is certainly unlikely that all of them come through it as easily or heroically as portrayed on television.

Why am I getting hung up on television when we all know television is fake? Because we don't all know that television is fake. Yes, we can intellectually understand that television is fake, but psychologically, when we are exposed to the same stimulus over and over again, fake or not, we tend to believe it as reality. We are basically conditioned by television every day of our lives.

So, am I saying that homosexuals shouldn't be portrayed on television as generally good people? Am I saying that homosexuals shouldn't be portrayed on television as much as they are? Not really. What I am saying is that it is completely ludicrous that homosexuals are being portrayed as often as they are, without all the problems that the rest of us face.

Of course, I don't watch every show on television, and I certainly don't watch every show that has a homosexual on it. So, it's possible that I simply haven't observed enough television to make an accurate statement. But, isn't that the point, that the television I do watch, about 2-3 hours a day sometimes, is approximately the same amount of television (at least!) that everyone else watches? Is it really fair that African-Americans get portrayed the way they do, usually with many issues, many times related to crime or poverty, but homosexuals are portrayed nearly as often as African-Americans, but without any of the hangups?