The portayal of queer, more so gay characters in television and movies has always been quite controversial. It goes without saying that fifty years ago, an openly gay character on a television show would have been a rare sight. Slowly, as the times went by, the gay characters started to appear at first on cinema screen and later on also on television. Still at the beginning, the homosexual characters were often presented as an objects of laughter. It was obvious that they were different and that they should be laughed at. They were often lacking any character development and were just defined by their sexual orientation. At that time, it was unknown how to deal with homosexuality or how to respond to it. That is probably one of the reasons why the pairing žstraight woman and her gay best friend" has become such a trend: in its own way, it still denies the gays their own storylines and sexuality. .
There has been more representation to the gay community in contemporary television than ever before. Most notably, the shows Glee and Modern Family are the ones, in my opinion, that stand out with their portayals of the gay characters. Gay characters are no longer the main focus of laughter and although they are still stereotypes in some ways, they are slowly but surely starting to become more three-dimensional. In my essay, I will analyse different episodes from both Glee and Modern Family and compare them to each other " how the gay characters are portayed and what are the main problems. I will also take into account different articles and other people's research done about the same topic. .
Glee is a musical comedy-drama television show that airs on Fox and is known for its gay-friendliness, since the show is literally packed with different LGBT characters. The character Kurt Hummel is by far the most known out of all them and also the most influential. In the second season, Kurt got a boyfriend, also openly gay Blaine.
