Spanish series lack women, trans men and non-binary people

Three researchers from the University of Salamanca and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have analysed the sexual orientation, gender identity and other aspects of characters in 38 Spanish series such as Antidisturbios, Merlí: Sapere aude, Patria, Física o química or Veneno streamed between 2020 and 2021. The aim was to find out the main traits of LGBT+ characters compared to those of the other characters in order to provide a basis on which to study the representation of this collective in Spanish fiction series and its societal impact. The initial results are clear. Series are lacking cis women, that is, people assigned female at birth who also identify as female, who account for more than half of the Spanish population but only 38.9% in fiction. There is a lack of trans men, i.e. people assigned female at birth but who identify as male. And there is also a lack of non-binary people, that is, people with diverse gender identities or expressions or with bodies that are considered non-normative.

The research, published in open access and online in November 2022 and in print this summer, was carried out before the approval of the so-called 'Trans Law' and using the term LGBT+, which has now been extended to LGBTIQA+. These are two changes that could influence new productions, as explained by one of the authors of the study, Ariadna Angulo Brunet, a researcher with the UOC's epi4health group within the Faculty of Health Sciences and related with the eHealth Center, and a member of the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences: "There is evidence showing that recognizing same-gender marriage in 2005 led to a change in the strategy for depicting homosexuality on television, providing a more positive image of these people. Today, audio-visual production and forms of consumption have changed, but we should expect a more positive view of trans people to be introduced following the approval of the new law. In fact, one of the findings of our study has been that there is a lack of positive representation of trans people."

Angulo Brunet carried out the analysis together with the University of Salamanca researchers Beatriz González de Garay and María Marcos Ramos. The article is part of an international research project called LGBTIQ+ screens. This project, which is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, aims to study three aspects of Spanish series between 2019 and 2024: the traits of LGBTIQ+ characters; how these can help reduce prejudice, and what educational actions can be taken to contribute to them. In addition to the three researchers mentioned above, specialists from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University, the University of Murcia, Rey Juan Carlos University and the National University of Singapore, as well as freelancers from Brazil and Serbia, are also working on this project.

Trans characters: few and stereotypical

In order to carry out the study, the researchers analysed the 749 characters appearing in a randomly chosen episode from each of the 38 selected Spanish fiction series, which were broadcast on one of these six platforms: Movistar, HBO, Amazon Prime, ATRESPlayer, Netflix and Disney+.

The fact that one of the series studied was Veneno has helped inflate the proportion of trans characters in the results: a total of ten out of the 749 analysed. "According to the WHO, there are between 0.3% and 0.5% trans people in the world; in this study, we found 1.3%, most of them in the series Veneno. They are all adult trans women: we didn't find a single trans male character. None of them have any academic qualifications, unlike cis characters, who have a university education in 60% of cases; and 75% of trans characters have a low socioeconomic status, compared to 9% of cis characters. We also found more smoking and illegal substance use among trans characters," said Angulo Brunet, which illustrates the rather negative stereotypes attributed to trans people.

Many gay men, few lesbians

With regard to sexual orientation, the UOC faculty member noted that 19 of the 30 non-heterosexual characters studied were gay men, while only 9 were lesbians. "According to the 2017 Control Barometer, non-heterosexual people account for 10% of the population in Spain. Although we were unable to establish the sexual orientation of all the characters in the series studied, of those that we were able to analyse, 8.8% were not heterosexual. This suggests that, although there is underrepresentation, it is close to the real number. However, 63.3% of these characters are gay cis men, 30% are cis lesbian women and only 6% had other sexual orientations," said Angulo Brunet.

The researcher thus warned that streaming platforms have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to normalize LGBTIQA+ people in their productions: "We often feel that they make an effort to include these people but, beyond looking at whether the group is covered as a whole, we have found that it's important to analyse how they are represented."

However, she is optimistic: "A lot of progress has been made in representing diversity in series since the project began. Fortunately, if we repeated the study for this past year, the picture would probably be different. Streaming platforms have opened the door to offering content that reflects the social context in which we live, series that give rise to questions and concerns for viewers, series that allow LGBTIQA+ people to see themselves represented on the screen when they consume audiovisual materials. It's very important to be able to continue making progress along these lines, and above all it's key to include realities other than just gay cis men when we talk about LGBTIQA+ people," she said.

Angulo Brunet is now working on three experiments to study stereotypes about gay, lesbian and trans people: "We want to go one step further to understand how the way these people are represented can affect viewing figures for these audiovisual materials," she said.

This research supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5, Gender Equality, and 10, Reduced Inequalities.

Reference article:

González-de-Garay, B., Marcos-Ramos, M. & Angulo-Brunet, A. LGBT+ Characters in Original Spanish Video-on-Demand Series. Sexuality & Culture 27, 786–804 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-022-10038-y

LGBTIQ+ representation in Spanish fiction series and the effectiveness in reducing prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity (LGBTIQ+ screens PID2019-110351RB-I00)

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