HBO’s Looking opens a window into the lives of LGBTQ people. But is this just another stereotype?
I asked out my boss while straddling a torpedo.
– Patrick Murray
Finding good gay characters is hard.
For many people in the LGBTQ community, finding representation in media is next to impossible. Even when we do find a character that’s like us, they’re never the forefront. It’s never their story that gets the focus.
Like the Bechdel test I discussed in my post about The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel, there’s another test that the Gay & Lesbian Allaince Against Defamation (GLAAD) uses to determine LGBTQ representation in media: the Vito Russo test.
Essentially the same as the Bechdel test, the Vito Russo test looks at LGBTQ characters and says that a film or show passes the test if there is an LGBTQ character who is both essential to the plot and who is not defined by the fact that they are LGBTQ (in other words, they are more than just “the gay character”).
The sad reality is, though, that in 2019 GLAAD found only 18.2% of major films contained characters that identified as LGBTQ (20/110). Of those films, only 13 then passed the Vito Russo test. The results are even slimmer when you start to break down those films into demographics, where still white gay men have a majority of the representation.
Segueing over to the small screen, HBO’s Looking definitely passes the Vito Russo test. Set in modern-day San Francisco, it focuses on the lives of three gay friends who deal with the assorted social professional and romantic problems that any millennial living in San Fran faces. While of course being gay is a major part of the show, the characters all have fully fleshed out lives beyond just being gay, and all of them are essential to the plot.
And yet for all the good Looking did by providing a platform to tell the story of gay people, it didn’t exactly paint the LGBTQ community in the best light. The main character Patrick has a long time affair with his boss which results in his boss breaking up with a long time boyfriend. Another main character, Augustín, breaks up with his boyfriend after it’s revealed that he’s been paying a male prostitute to let him follow behind and document events in the name of art. Even the name of the show is a reference to gay hookup apps (“looking” implying that one is actively searching for a hookup).
Now, HBO has been known to take on adult themes and stories before. The hit series Girls was known for putting its characters in very adult settings and were not afraid to show these settings on camera. However, women are way more represented in the media than LGBTQ people. While we still have a long way to go to see truly equal representation for women in media, a quick google search for “movies that pass Bechdel test 2019” will provide dozens of listicles discussing a plethora of movies (spoiler alert: there are more than 20 movies mentioned, unlike the number that passed the Vito Russo test).
The real problem here is that for all the good it does for the LGBTQ community, Looking also makes there appear to be harmful stereotypes about the morality of gay men. Suddenly we’re all made out to look like homewreckers or sex-fueled monsters. Every “open-relationship” shown on screen just makes it look like gay men aren’t mature enough to stay faithful to their partners. The relationships being discussed are very complex, but the show simplifies them too much. Uneducated viewers take these depictions as the norm and suddenly we see the LGBTQ community is immediately thought of as hypersexual and incapable of forming the same strong relationships anyone can.
So while I can say it was nice to see the LGBTQ community being represented onscreen when I watched Looking, I was also disappointed by it. The show should be lauded for how it normalized LGBTQ characters, but it’s also disappointing when one of the only shows in which that occurs is one where the characters are also constantly having sex. To me, that’s not a good look.
Midbrow 