Communications and Media

    The episode shows an accurate presentation of a straight man s introduction to a majority-gay world. The culture shock experienced by a conservative, former youth minister and once a member of the military as he was introduced into this world is a natural reaction especially because his values are deeply Bible-rooted wherein he was taught all his life that being gay is wrong. As the shock wore off, the initial reactions of Ryan in which he was unaccepting, confused and even disgusted at times were not exaggerations. When one s values and beliefs are put into question in a situation such as this, the natural reaction is to fight to maintain them.

    Furthermore, the reaction of the members of the majority to the guests which is one of doubt, animosity and even hatred is also a clear and fair portrayal. When you are a part of a minority group discriminated upon and hated and one of the majority s members enter your territory, you either tend to mirror the treatment or show off to the representative in order to prove that the perceptions about them are wrong. The initial questions would be - what are you doing here what is the purpose of your visit should we treat you the way you treat us My humble opinion is that, these are also normal reactions.

    In terms of providing a fair context in which to evaluate the experiment, the episode did not fully cover this primarily because of the choice of the area. The San Francisco s Castro District is notoriously known as one of the gayest areas in the country. That choice alone is limiting because gay people are not fully represented in the area because there are areas in the country where there is limited acceptance of homosexuality affecting the way of life of gay people in said areas. Needless to say, a gay person acts differently when living in an area where all of the people there are gay as opposed to living in a place where there are straight people around. Thus, Ryan have not seen the whole picture.

    The traditional stereotype of homosexuals is given a twist in this episode. Homosexuality is perceived to be wrong and a sin, thus, all religions frown upon it. The  wholesomeness  of church services or sports does not fit in with the image attributed to homosexuals but this episode shows this side of them.  Here in this episode, we see gay friendly church services which is surprising and debunks this theory.  In addition, Ryan joined a gay sports team which is something that is not in harmony with the stereotypical view of gay people wherein they have always been attributed to deviant or criminal behavior and that they are rarely thought of engaging in a wholesome preoccupation such as sports. 

    Majority of movies portray gay characters as loud, colorful, flamboyant or dangerous. Media blames them for the rapid increase of AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases. Basically, homosexuals hold a negative image and somehow this episode  cleans  this image leading to the conclusion that homosexuals can indeed live a decent, if not wholesome,  life. Even Ryan s beliefs regarding this were affected as he was quoted saying in the end,  I guess the thing that I learned about myself was I really was falling into the stereotypes. I really was being more close-minded than I thought I was being, and I was making uninformed opinions about something I didnt know about. You know, you have to go and learn for yourself.