Tina Fey has a great response to criticism of ‘stereotypical’ gay characters
Comedian and writer Tina Fey has responded to criticism that one of her characters is “too stereotypically” gay.
Earlier this year the Mean Girls writer created Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – which features a young woman (Ellie Kemper) breaking free from an apocalypse cult and learning to live in modern-day New York.
The show attracted acclaim for breakout character Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), Kimmy’s gay room-mate and an aspiring actor.
Speaking to the Advocate, Fey addressed criticism that the character was too much of a stereotype.
She said: “I know people like Titus. If a person exists, it’s fair game.
“Titus makes Barbie clothes, for example, and that’s based on an old gay friend of mine who worked as a cater-waiter when he first moved to New York.
“He was too broke to go out, so he’d literally sit inside and sew Barbie clothes to kill time.
She continued: “I try to base everything in some kind of truth. I don’t worry about what the Internet says.
“Getting in trouble with the Internet is not real. The Internet is not a force you have to obey.”
Of Mean Girls becoming a gay classic, she said: “I didn’t [anticipate it], but Damian, the gay character, was in every draft.
“Someone once asked me, ‘How come everyone’s sort of paired off at the end but we don’t see what happens to Damian?’ I said, ‘Because it’s a movie about girls’.
“We should’ve made another movie about Damian.”
A report from media charity GLAAD recently found that streaming services Netflix, Amazon and Hulu feature more LGBT characters on their original shows than all of
Streaming media providers Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime feature more LGBT series regulars than all of US network TV put together.
It praised the diverse range of LGBT characters on streaming shows – including Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange is the New Black, Transparent and Sense8.
Watch a clip below:
