To be fair that's basically the case for straight characters too. Hollywood is fine with normal-looking men but all women have to be supermodels to even get a role (with a few exceptions, of course)
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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A lot of cartoonists have pointed out that most alien races are drawn with the males looking completely alien, and the females looking like hot human women with some makeup.
Thanks. They have another one along the same lines.
I remember seeing a Tarzan satire where the hero finds a lost city in the middle of the jungle.
All the men look like apes and all the women are beautiful.
The heroes ask each other how this could be.
There's a note at the bottom of the panel, 'It's because it's easier to draw monkeys than people, but more fun to draw beautiful women
As has been mentioned previously, the same network censors who would have lost their minds if Kirk kissed Uhura [much less Sulu] were fine with a white guy necking with a green hottie.
Yep.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Radar/LiveActionTV
All the Star Trek entries are hilarious:
Back in The '60s, U.S. TV networks, particularly NBC, wouldn't allow women to show their belly buttons, most famously affecting Jeannie on I Dream of Jeannie. In the original Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror", Uhura's mirror outfit included a bare midriff and her navel is visible in several shots. The producers achieved this simply by having someone take the Standards guy out to lunch and lowering the bottom half of her costume while he was gone. The shots with her bare navel were edited into the episodes and evidently no one caught it.
“If” isn’t the right word, since Kirk famously did kiss Uhura. But yes, the censors were against it. The scene was filmed both with and without the kiss, so the actors “accidentally” ruined every take that didn’t include it.
I checked with an English major and they told me that "if" is perfectly cromulent.
and for a while all the movie stars looked like Harvey Weinstein’s preferred type…
Hollywood is fine with normal-looking men but all women have to be supermodels to even get a role
Some American pointed out they love watxwhing UK shows becase that's not the case, they commemed that Vera (from the TV show) os made to look dishevelled for example.
Male gaze dominates. Women are required to be attractive. Men aren't, unless they're the main character.
It's something you see a lot on American TV. Everyone is SO beautiful all the time (well, most of it).
You get much wonkier looking people on international shows.
This always amuses me watching true crime documentaries.
The criminal's mugshot comes up and they look like absolute shit, and then the guy playing their part in the reenactment is a total looker.
I guess NOT being pretty is a very difficult and unconventional start to a successful career in acting.
The male gays dominate, that they do
As a cishet man, even I've noticed a jarring trope with LGBTQ+ representation across media.
I don't want to get lost in TV tropes (again) to see if this is a "thing" but what stone tablet has it been written that gay characters, particularly lesbians, have to all have tragic love stories that end with death or disaster?
"Sure, we can show lesbians kiss, that's hot, but we can NEVER allow them to live happily, that would be unnatural!" - Some movie studio board of investors.
It was called the Hayes Code. It was basically the condition on which gays could be represented without being seen to "promote" it.
don't worry I got lost for you :)
it's a common and frustrating trope for sure.
"Dead Lesbian Syndrome"
JFC
Is there a list of shows that have LGBT+ representation that don't end in tragedy?
The Bert and Ernie archetype has a lot to answer for.
This is Abbot and Costello erasure.
It’s well documented, see:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LipstickLesbian
And all the links/categories.
That's odd, because as a straight man I find gay men more appealing than lesbians 🤔🤔🤔
Yeah, Ive seen so little of gay man representation that when I do it feels almost like finding a shiny pokemon. Lesbians are not threatening to the bigot's eye and thus if media shows gayness, it's almost always lesbian gayness
Are you sure? I've seen plenty male gay family member representation in series and such, but almost zero lesbian representation.
I can think of several series and sitcoms with some male gay couple; modern family, shameless and Brooklyn 99 come to my mind, the only one where there's some lesbianism that comes to my mind is "la que se avecina" , which is a trash show anyway and both women are bi, not even lesbians.
Brooklyn 99 has a whole story line about Rosa coming out as bi. That's not exactly the same thing as writing her Lesbian, but it's representation.
Bi women are allowed to be lesbians if they want
Maybe I just don't see the right stuff, actually that's the most probable explanation
It could just be a marketing thing or a Hollywood is sexist thing. I mean if you look at male and female actors, men can be a lot uglier and still get work. Women are expected to conform to a certain aesthetic. It stands to reason that the characters they play also conform to the same aesthetics.
One of the main characters in Agatha All Along is a gay man, at least according to the Talmud. According to Agatha he's a kid
I wonder if your phone would do that really satisfying "rr-rr-RRRRRR-RRRRRRR-rr" vibration pattern like it does encountering a shiny in Pokémon Go whenever you face a genuine representation of a gay man in a public space?
Attack: 9
HP: 8
Authenticity: 15
Gay men are trying to be attractive to men after all, while lesbians are not so I guess it's not super surprising. Might mean you're not exactly a zero on the Kinsey Scale though.
That was the joke
The exception seems to be if they're a famous stand-up.
Tig Notaro, Rosie O'Donnel etc
Because we're already comfortable with them. No need to scare anyone with a scary new masc.
Nice modern family reference.
Applies to Cam, but I always thought Mitchell was conventionally attractive, provided you like redheads.
Y’all never seen queer eye? It’s literally the opposite
100% Also, y'know Ellen, or Will & Grace...
Sure but the comparison is insane when you get to queer eye. Mostly because it’s their job to give people a new style.
Consider: "Bubbly femme" and "Goth".