Coming out on Neighbours

In February 2010, the first regular, male gay character, Chris Pappas, joined the cast of Neighbours.  Chris’ character plays a senior high school boy who is head of the Basketball team and is dating regular cast member Summer.  I think that the development of Chris’ character is done well with subtle hints over a number of months that he may be having feelings towards his best mate, Andrew.  In August after building tensions Chris finally comes out to his schoolmates, friends and family.

A number of issues were addressed within the series that related both directly to Chris’ character but also to how his school community, friends and family deal with his homosexuality.  These included Chris’ confusion over his sexual feelings, being bullied by his classmates and the way his family and friends came to terms with finding out.  The storyline focuses on the relationship between Chris and his girlfriend Summer and how she also deals with finding out and then goes on to be a supportive friend.    Chris’ mate Andrew also plays a key role, discovering that not only Chris was gay but that he had feelings towards him.

Sexual identity can be a difficult subject to approach with youth but important as more and more youth are openly identifying as being Queer.  Queer youth can often feel isolated in their communities if they feel they have no role models or people they can talk to in a safe environment.   The recent suicide deaths of several queer youth in the USA which have been associated with harassment and bullying, demonstrate that queer youth are still feeling isolated in their communities.  Popular culture can play an important role in providing youth with representations of different sexualities that can help queer youth develop their identity.   Therefore, I feel that it is important for youth to be able to see more realistic representations of different sexualities in the mainstream media of film and TV that they can relate to and feel like they are not alone.

It was fantastic to see Neighbours step away from the stereotypical portrayal of male homosexuality and  actually look in depth at some of the issues that are faced by queer youth.  One month later, the only question left to ask is where has Chris gone? 

Julie