Today, gay characters populate all of Ryan Murphy's TV shows ... and many TV shows, for that matter. But when Murphy was first getting started in the entertainment business, his characters weren't met with as much acceptance.
When his TV show "Popular" launched on The WB in 1999, the network told openly-gay Murphy that his straight characters were "too gay" or had a “gay sensibility," according to Out magazine.
Over a decade later, Murphy has "Glee," another high school dramedy on the air. And this time, it's full of gay characters.
“Now it’s like, if you don’t have a gay character, something is wrong with your show,” Murphy told Out.
The amount of gay characters the TV world has seen in recent years has been largely beneficial as far as gay marriage is concerned. In November, THR reported that 27 percent of people in a survey said that gay characters on TV made them more in favor of gay marriage, while 12 percent said they felt more opposed.
And while the characters of "Glee" largely love the attention they get for portraying gay characters -- Naya Rivera (Santana) has expressed her love for her fan base of "lovely ladies" -- Chris Colfer (Kurt) said he feels he gets typecast in gay roles.
"People tried typecasting me before they even saw me in anything else. I never understood that –- why don’t you wait until my next project before you start telling what my career is going to look like for the next ten years?" he told The Huffington Post earlier this year.
"Glee" airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.
