9 Television Series LGBTQ Indians Should Be Watching

July 4th, 2016

Written By Guest Author

For all gays to binge on…

Television has come a long way since you once secretly streamed Queer as Folk or The L-Word and Google-d the gay out of Dante’s Cove. Whether you relate to Patrick or Kevin or Dom or any of the other flawed characters of Looking, you are now spoilt for choice with the wide variety of television series with LGBT leads. It doesn’t matter if you’re a sassy guy who likes other guys or if you are a dreaming girl who likes other girls, there’s a TV show for you. Go through some of these:

For the gregarious, hedonistic boy who likes other boys,

London Spy

What do you do when all of your self-pleasure has reached its worst apex and you are left gasping for a sense of reality? And just at that moment you have your knight in casual armour coming to your rescue, only for you to realise that your knight is Wes Craven’s Christian Grey? What do you do then? Well, all of this is just happening on screen and makes for brilliant television. Starring Ben Whishaw, best known for playing Q in the recent Bond films; Jim Broadbent, the quirky Horace Slughorn from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Charlotte Rampling (do yourself the favour and look her up), this five-part intoxicating series has quickly become a critic darling and has found itself in many a top-10 lists.

For the hopeful girl who likes other girls,

Faking It

This “smarter-than-average high school comedy” is quite refreshing in its take on sexual identity with two female leads who decide to portray themselves as a couple in high school only to be popular. While one of them might be an outspoken straight girl, the other is still coming to terms with the fact that she might just be in love her best friend. Faking It is also the first scripted series to have introduced an intersex character. From the executive producers of G.B.F., the series also aided MTV in recognizing itself as a network encouraging sexually diverse characters in its shows.

For the horny, hungry guy who likes other guys,

Cucumber, Banana

From the creator of Queer as Folk comes the television event of the decade; the Banana/Cucumber/Tofu trilogy is an interwoven series that explores the 21st century gay life in London in all its powerful, witty, dark and uplifting guises and glory. The hour long Cucumber follows the series of unfortunate events that seem to have befallen Henry Best and his long-suffering boyfriend of nine years, Lance Sullivan. The half-hour Banana follows the individual lives of younger characters revolving around Henry’s world, and their stories of modern love.

For the sassy guy who likes other guys,

Empire

From my fellow homosexual brothers who have come to accept Cookie Lyon as their spirit animal, Empire has the right amount of sass to give you the confidence to publicly embrace the Raven Symone in you that you had long since embraced in the privacy of your bedroom. Also, one of the leads, who is also ‘family’ has pipes that will make you wish you had tried harder to get in the school choir. Oh, and he also has a boyfriend who is ‘muy caliente’! If you haven’t seen this musical gem from Timbaland and Lee Daniels, then please binge on it this weekend. And my pitch for the Gilmore Girls fans is this: remember Paris Gellar’s love (?), Doyle? Well, Doyle, whose real name is Danny Strong is the co-creator of Empire.

For the bitchy homosexual who can’t stand other homosexuals but secretly loves them,

Vicious

Imagine you have the acting legends of the UK as bickering 50-year old couple and Ramsay Bolton in a role that will forever change your thoughts of him. That is Vicious, an absolutely stellar ode to classic British comedy from Gary Janetti, the writer of Will & Grace starring Gandalf, Madame Olympe and Ramsay Bolton in completely unrecognisable roles. By the end of fourteen episodes of this series you will find yourself giving your partner-in-love in sloppy puppie!

For the (believes he is, but is still trying to be) sorted older gay man,

Grace & Frankie

Hollywood legends Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin star as two women with little choice but to turn to each other after their husbands of nearly 40 years reveal they are gay and leave them for each of the other husband. But when you finally stay with your partner whom you have loved for 20 years, not everything is a smooth sail. In two seasons, you have the husbands Robert and Sol evolving into strong, yet flawed human beings who just want to spend the remainder of their lives with each other.

For the homosexual who is trying to find his purpose,

Sense8

Lauded for its portrayal of LGBT characters and themes, Sense8 has become a global phenomena and is quickly turning to be go-to series among LGBT personnel from all over the world. The series “links 8 minds in disparate parts of the world, putting 8 strangers in each other’s lives, each other’s secrets, and in terrible danger.” From the ridunkulous minds of the Wachowskis who were brothers when they made The Matrix trilogy and became sisters during the making of Sense8, the series has sexuality pumping in its veins.

Honourable mentions:

Shameless

For its fucked-up, yet brutally honest portrayal of young gay love and the epic love story that followed after. Remember #Gallavich, root for #Gallavich.

Shadowhunters