LogFAQs > #979789424

People express themselves in a variety of ways. Somebody announcing their gender identity or sexuality in a public setting might be doing so for personal affirmation, for example; not necessarily for outside validation, either. Others still might not feel safe or comfortable doing so, or may already have that affirmation with a strong support group and therefore may not feel the need to.

There's no right or wrong way to go about it, and it might seem like the former gets more attention just by the nature of its publicity. Movies and TV might show bias to more public or obvious displays of a character's sexuality or gender identity mostly because that's what a majority of audiences were previously exposed to and make it easier to digest before moving on to another plot point in the story.

Rarely will you see a more nuanced take on these traits if the story isn't directly about them. Books and other written media have more opportunities to explore these ideas even for minor characters, but translating that to the screen isn't exactly an easy endeavor since visual stories don't often tell us or direct us to exactly what a character might be thinking.

Not to mention there's a much smaller pool of writers for visual works versus written ones, combined with TV/Film's... history... with women, queer people, and racial minorities leaving a pretty wide gap in representation that's still trying to be bridged to this day.