TAGGED AS: BBC America, Comedy, Drama, FX, HBO, LGBTQ, Logo, MSNBC, NBC, Netflix, Showtime, Starz, TV
Pride Month may be ending in a few days, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop celebrating. Rotten Tomatoes asked the cast and creatives of some of our favorite LGBTQ+-centered series — including The L Word creator Ilene Chaiken, Pose creator Steven Canals, Vida creator Tanya Saracho, activist/Pose director and writer Janet Mock, and Pose star Mj Rodriguez — to reveal what their personal favorite LGBTQ+ television shows are, and why. Here’s their curated list so you can keep celebrating LGBTQ+ contributions to pop culture all year long.
Ilene Chaiken: Killing Eve is everything. It’s the television game-changer of the moment. It’s spectacular in every way. Those two women both as actresses and characters are stunning. Jodie Comer is my new favorite sexy twisted hero villainess. And it’s just – what can I say? The added bonus is Fiona Shaw, who, on the show, is playing this wicked character but she is also just an icon in gay, elevated, acting royalty.
Tanya Saracho: Killing Eve is inspired storytelling. I will continue to love it for its complicated, flawed and morally ambiguous protagonists. I choose to disregard [star Sandra] Oh’s comments about this not being a lesbian story and will take it for what I think it is: A f–ked-up queer tale of love and obsession.
Steven Canals: Noah’s Arc is a really great one. It’s one of the few shows I can think of that centers queer black men.
Mj Rodriguez: When Noah’s Arc came out, that slayed for me. It was the validation. And also there were trans women on that show. Granted, they were featured, or they were guests, or they were background, but they were still there and that’s what really made me feel good.
Ilene Chaiken: Ryan Murphy delivers for me in American Horror Story. In everything he does he delivers. Nobody tells our stories and portrays us and provokes us in the way he does, but American Horror Story is my favorite because he does genre, and genre gets at us in such a profound way.
Janet Mock: I love Vida. I love what Tanya has done with that series. I love how much deeper they go in season 2 — I watched it in a day and a half. I love a half-hour drama. I think that she’s doing such important work. I love those actors so much. I love the world that’s there. That’s literally right over here, right, a little east of us where we’re at right now. And so yeah, I love that series and I hope that more people watch it and support it.
Tanya Saracho: Pose is necessary television. And it’s overdue. It’s a beautiful thing to see all those brown and black faces on screen, living their truest lives.
Mj Rodriguez: Now granted, there were no trans women on that show at all, but it was still representation of the LGBT community. And I can only relate to it somewhat because I mean, it was an all-white cast.
Ilene Chaiken: Maybe it never found the audience that it should have, although I know it has some very devoted fans. It’s a beautiful work of art, something we don’t often see on television. It works as story, but it works as just ethereal, ephemeral, profound art.
Tanya Saracho: I’m crazy about Gentleman Jack (and that top hat!). I love everything about the show; the aesthetic, the tone, the story — but mainly, Ms. Suranne Jones. She took her character, Anne Lister, through the emotional paces from cheeky breaks of the fourth wall to stirring exploration of what it meant to be queer in a time when that was a viscerally dangerous thing.
Ilene Chaiken: Even if there hadn’t been gay and trans clones, I still would’ve said it was a gay show, but it’s just progressive, it’s subversive, it’s brilliant, and also, and really important for me, I have been looking for gay genre shows, or for genre shows that feature gay characters and gay themes forever and ever and Orphan Black finally delivered for me.
Mj Rodriguez: Laverne Cox is like my sister, and she was the one who broke down that door and opened the space up for us to come on in and take our craft seriously.
Tanya Saracho: I heart One Day at a Time so much. Elena and Syd’s beautiful relationship is poignant and bold and so now. I love how they love.
Ilene Chaiken: And also Anderson Cooper, but Rachel Maddow in particular. Where else do we look for icons, for just a touchstone to our own rage and hope and truth?
