Adolescence and Homosexuality in Fiction Series: Narrative Analysis of I Am Not Okay with This and A Million Little Things

Abstract

In the last two decades, new avenues in which to screen fiction series, such as the Internet and Video-on-demand plat-forms, have broadened the range of genre representations. The inclusion of both secondary and leading lgbtq+ characters in serial narratives seems successful. The present work analyzes two recent television series with homosexual adolescent characters: A Million Little Things and I Am Not Okay with This. To evaluate how these characters are portrayed, narrative content analysis is carried out from the psychological perspective, following Carlos Grossocordón’s methodological model. The results reveal certain gender differences in the representations of adolescent lesbians and gays; however, they provide new and positive portraits of homosexuality, away from stereotypes, which offer greater visibility to the lgbtq+ community and are more widely accepted by the audience.