POLITICScircuits, specifically those that allow us to experience empathy. This
approach uses strengths that are quintessentially conservative to gener-
ate greater acceptance of people who threaten change.
Let’s go back to the apparent contradiction of conservatives advo-
cating for deportation of illegal immigrants as a group while provid-
ing individuals with food, water, and toys. H&N conservatives may be
hostile to the idea of immigration, but they have an innate ability to
connect on an empathic basis to actual immigrants. This ability—one
might even call it an unconscious impulse—has been used by Holly-
wood writers to increase acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) people. They do it through the power of story.
We develop emotional relationships with characters in stories. If
it’s a well-written story, the feelings we have for the characters may be
very similar to the feelings we have for real people. The Gay & Les-
bian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) notes, “TV hasn’t merely
reflected the changes in social attitudes; it has also had an important
role in bringing them about. Time and again, it’s been shown that per-
sonally knowing an LGBT person is one of the most influential factors
in shifting one’s views on LGBT issues, but in the absence of that, many
viewers have first gotten to know us as television characters.”
According to GLAAD’s annual report on the diversity of prime-
time TV, the number of regular characters identified as gay, lesbian, or
bisexual has been steadily growing. In the most recent poll, conducted
in 2015, it was 4 percent. That’s about the same as the 3.8 percent of
Americans who identified as LGBT in a recent Gallup poll. The net-
work with the highest percentage was Fox Network, where 6.5 percent
of regular primetime characters were LGBT.
These fictional characters have a real influence on viewer attitudes.
A poll conducted by The Hollywood Reporter found that 27 percent of
respondents said LGBT-inclusive TV made them stronger advocates
for same-sex marriage. When the results were analyzed based on how
viewers voted in the 2012 presidential election, 13 percent of Romney
voters said that watching the shows made them more supportive of
same-sex marriage. Transforming abstract groups into concrete indi-
viduals is a good way to activate H&N empathy circuits.