Remember I wrote a blog two days ago about the fact that more and more people from the LGBT community are represented in television shows and films?
Well, I recently discovered it’s not only happening in other countries but also in Belgium, where the headquarters of DAA are located.
When I was younger my family and me used to watch this television soap opera called ‘At Home' ('Thuis' in Dutch). It’s about families that live in the same village and practically everyone knows each other. It’s a typical soap opera where it seems like everyone had been in a relationship with each other at least once, and had a baby, married, got divorced and married again. The most unreal things happen in" At Home", going from murders, doppelgangers, trying to kill someone but afterwards just hanging out with each other again, dating your own father but only knowing that afterwards, to adopting the child of your brother. I guess I can just keep on going writing down all those unbelievable events, but it works as the series is very popular.
Recently I discovered that they are trying to represent something very important in the television soap opera genre, something very 'now' and meaningful: Franky is a character in the series who has admitted he is gay years ago and who married another guy and went to live in America. Now, after a few years of living there, he came back to his family and told them he got divorced and, here it comes, he wants to change into a woman since he has been feeling more like a woman than a man. The series is portraying an actual theme of society this way. The person that is being replaced is a woman and Franky’s name is now Kaat. Even if the producers couldn’t find any real transgender actors for this role -or at least none of them applied- I think that the message they try to give is still clear and good!
After a bit of research I found out that the characters also had to do research their roles, so they went to Flemish transgender organisations and talked to several transgenders, to make the story even more credible.
Another good thing is that it’s just one of the many storylines, so the characters don’t really make a big deal out of it. Which is how it should be, since everyone is entitled to feel however she or he wants to feel and make decisions without being rejected by their family or friends.
I’m so happy that ‘At Home’ finally made this good storyline besides all the others and that they decided to help bring the LGBT community to the attention without making a big deal out of it. Because that’s how it should be: a normal thing, in order to make people feel comfortable.
Especially our family or friends should be our 'home', the place where you can be yourself without worrying and where you can say whatever your heart desires. Home is where the heart is, at least that’s how it should be!
Excuse me while I go watch the next episode of ‘At Home’ now.
