‘Layered, nuanced stories are missing in TV representation’: Why we need more LGBT variation on-screen

metro.co.uk:

Russell T Davies’ Queer as Folk, another series that focused solely on the lives of LGBTQ+ people – many continue to be amazed at how far we’ve progressed.In 2021, everyone was talking about Davies’ Channel 4 masterpiece It’s A Sin, which stars Olly Alexander and Neil Patrick Harris and follows the lives of a group of young men who together endure the horror of the HIV/Aids epidemic of the 80s, as well as the pain of rejection and the prejudices that their peers faced throughout the decade.

However, while LGBTQ+ representation has reached all-time highs in some facets of the media with shows like Modern Family and Orange Is The New Black, filmmaker and director Kevin Morosky believes there is more to be done, and has called for future TV shows to create space for ‘truly intersectional’ characters.‘With It’s A Sin, don’t get me wrong, it’s about a particular moment in time, but I think it’s a little dangerous when the narrative comes from a negative place,’ he told Metro.co.uk.Morosky – who retold his experience of heartbreak through short, poetic vignettes in his self-published novel Notes – expressed there were ‘other ways’ of telling stories like this ‘that give more power to the character.’‘I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this,’ he added.‘I didn’t think that show was super progressive, of course; it was a story that needed to be told.

But I think it’s a story that’s been told again and again. I didn’t enjoy it in a sense of… I get very worried when the narrative in queer LGBTQ+ stories is centered around trauma.‘I didn’t enjoy it, to be honest.