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gay fathers

Daddy Issues: The New Normal, the Same Old Bigotry

TV post by Diane Shipley on December 11, 2012 - 2:29pm; tagged Daddy Issues, gay dads, gay fathers, Modern Family, sitcoms, The New Normal, tv.

Two men and a woman stand in front of a bathroom mirror, looking at a pregnancy test. A slogan says: The New Normal: A post-modern family., The New Normal isn’t the first time we’ve seen gay dads (in this case, dads-to-be) on TV. But from Will & Grace’s Jack McFarland to LeRoy and Hiram Berry on Glee, they’re usually non-custodial fathers or secondary characters. The aughts brought sitcoms It’s All Relative and Normal, Ohio, both of which centred around gay fathers, but neither found an audience.

It wasn’t until 2009's Modern Family that a successful network sitcom showed gay men being full-time fathers — and even there, their portrayal is stereotypical and desexualized. That’s something Glee and The New Normal creator (and out gay man) Ryan Murphy publicly criticized in 2010, stating that if he were to make a show with two gay leads, their kissing would be shown as no big deal.

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