One "Shameless" Group of People

            In January of 2011, the premium channel Showtime aired the show Shameless. The show was originally made in the UK, but because of its popularity and success it was brought to the US. The show is about the Gallagher family, living in Chicago, and their struggles to make it day to day with the little money they have all while balancing multiple jobs, school, love lives, and a drunk absentee father. Majority of their time is spent getting themselves out or usually into some sort of trouble. Frank Gallagher is the Dad, however I’m not sure you can really call him that. He spends all of his time drunk while supporting himself with disability checks for the disability he doesn’t have. Frank has 6 kids: Fiona, Lip, Ian, Debbie, Carl, and Liam. Throw in some crazy neighbors, a psycho girlfriend, a car-stealing boyfriend, and other outrageous characters and you get one shameless group of people.

Ian Gallagher is the middle brother in the family and is gay. He struggles with this for a long time and doesn’t tell anyone in his family about his sexual orientation until his brother Lip discovers his secret. Ian’s character is described to be unlike the stereotypical gay man that you would usually see. Brent Hartinger in a review about Shameless says, “Meanwhile, also includes another yet regular gay teen character, Ian, who isn’t quite like any other character in recent memory.” He basically throws any TV stereotype of gay men out the window in the way that he acts, dresses, etc. In a recent interview, the actor Cameron Monaghan who plays Ian says, “He goes against the [common perception] of a gay teenager in just about every way, in that he's tough and strong, not flamboyant, and he's involved in the military with ROTC training. (Ocamb, 2011)”

There are two more gay characters on the show, Kash Karib and Mickey Milkovich, both who don’t fit the gay stereotype in anyway. In most TV shows there is a certain way that the gay characters talk and dress. The stereotype for most gay men is that they dress very well and in brighter colors. They are known for having a keen eye for fashion. All three of these characters dress like any typical guy would. Given, they are all on the poor side, which could have something to do with it. Ian, Mickey, and Kash also don’t talk in the typical “gay voice” one may picture. They are not over the top with their expressions and talk at a normal tone that makes them blend in with every other character. A study was done recently that showed that men typically raise the frequency of their voices when playing gay characters in order to attract to female audiences (Cartei, 2012). In this case, none of the characters did that in any way. They stayed true to their own voices.

Another thing that I found interesting about these characters is that all of them are hiding the fact that they are gay from majority of the people in their lives. In most shows, the gay men are already “out” and embrace that part of their lives. They love to talk about it and in some shows, even make jokes about it. In Shameless, it is the opposite. These characters want nothing more than to blend in with everyone else and fear what their families may think or say if they knew.

A stereotype that is being reinforced in the show is idea of class in a poor, run down neighborhood. Shameless shows the audience what it is like to be poor, and I mean really poor. Hartinger compared it to a show like Roseanne where that is “working class” poor, but in Shameless they are in outright poverty. This isn’t seen very much in television shows now a days and it is refreshing to see a family who isn’t swimming in their money. It is a nice change of pace, however the way that the family is portrayed can be taken offensively by people who are actually living in poverty. The show almost makes it seem like if you’re poor you must have an alcoholic father who is never around and a mother who left her children out of the blue.

The kids also get themselves into all kinds of trouble, which gives off the impression that if you’re poor then you must be a bad kid, as if maybe that means you weren’t raised the “right” way. They do things like sell weed and alcohol to minors out of an ice cream truck and light things on fire, as well as steal toddlers or old ladies from the nursing home. They also scheme to find different ways to get money, which usually ends up being something illegal. Every kid in the family somehow gets money doing something. Two of the kids are in elementary school and they too find ways to sell things at school or start their own “small businesses” like a daycare. This gives off a negative stereotype as well that poor families have to come up with anything they can just to put food on the table even if it means making young children work as well.

What is most interesting about the idea of class in this show is that Shameless is on the premium channel Showtime. This is a channel that you have to pay extra for in order to watch. It can be argued that most of the lower class cannot watch this show at all and therefore cannot take offense to the stereotypes that are being reinforced about their lifestyle.

Everything that the Gallagher family does is outrageous in some way and with each episode you want to ask yourself, “Wait, did that really just happen?” The mix of characters though creates a really entertaining, funny show. Even though you would never want to be in their situation, you can’t help but sometimes wish you were a part of their family while watching. The stereotypes of a typical gay man are completely thrown out the window, which is refreshing to see. Not all gay men act the way they are portrayed on TV and it is nice to see a show changing those ideas. The idea of class and poverty in the show is eye opening in a way. It makes you wonder what families living in that condition are really like and if they have to make decisions that may seem outrageous at times but are necessary in order to survive. The show Shameless does a good job overall of balancing out the idea of reinforcing, but also resisting norms and stereotypes in our society.

Works Cited

Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2012). Acting Gay: Male Actors Shift the Frequency Components of Their Voices Towards Female Values When Playing Homosexual Characters. Journal Of Nonverbal Behavior, 36(1), 79-93.

Hartinger, Brent. "Review: "Shameless" Tries Hard to Shock You." Thebacklot.com. N.p., 04 Jan. 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

Ocamb, Karen. "The Bilerico Project | Daily Experiments in LGBTQ." The Bilerico Project. N.p., 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.