Misrepresentation Of Bilinguals

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The LGBTQ community is often perceived as collaborative and collective, and it is to some extent, particularly in fighting for equal rights. However, based on an analysis conducted by Dr. Mackey Friedman (2013, par. 4-5), almost 15% of his study’s sample—composed of 1,500 adults, identifying as man, woman, lesbian, or gay—was “in disagreement that bisexuality is a legitimate sexual orientation.” People from the sample find even the mere existence of bisexuals questionable despite being included in the community, and mainstream media reflects this today as it misrepresents or, in some cases, erases bisexuality. This paper then aims to explain why bisexuals are misrepresented and why bisexual invisibility occurs, through the spiral of silence …show more content…

There is a preconceived notion towards bisexuals that stereotypes them as “sex-crazed” or “incapable of monogamy (Alpert, 2013, par. 6-7).” This is reflected in mainstream media, as it is guilty of committing bisexual invisibility and misrepresenting bisexuals in producing television programs, films, and such, this becomes an arising mass communication problem. An example of the misrepresentation of bisexuals can be seen in Sex and The City on their “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl…” episode (Thomas & Bicks, 2000). The episode features Carrie, a woman and one of the main characters of the show, dates an openly bisexual man. Carrie tells her friends about this and they consider it to be a “problem,” including in their discourse that the farthest Carrie and the man could go is a sexual affair and not a serious relationship because of his sexual orientation. Carrie’s friends also added derogatory comments about bisexuality, such as “a layover on the way to Gaytown,” and “it’s greedy; he’s double dipping (Thomas & Bicks, 2000).” Another example would be the character Brittany Pierce from Glee. The producers of the program appropriately represented bisexuals through Brittany, however viewers often assume that her character is a heterosexual who realized she was a lesbian later on in the series. Despite Brittany openly …show more content…

This further causes more people to support them more openly – online and in the real world (2014, p. 27). This is highly applicable to the situation of the LGBTQ today. Currently, the community appears to be gradually breaking away from the isolated minority through online communities, making them the emerging vocal minority in the real world. However, similar to any other community, the LGBTQ community also experiences conflict. As much as society is learning to accept lesbians and gays in the community because of their transformation into a vocal minority, other denominations in the community should learn to transition into this level as well. This is an essential step for the bisexual community in order to achieve proper representation in mainstream media and most importantly, in our

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