jazzeven makes a good point - how can you have drama or an interesting story if there are no problems or obstacles to overcome? Happy people doing happy things gets boring fast. (Unless it is porn.
)
For me, I see the positive vs. negative portrayals as it relates to film history.
In Hollywood before 1966 you could not have gay characters in a movie unless they were punished in some way for their "condition". They were deranged, or predators, or suicidal. (Think of Sal Mineo's character in
Rebel Without a Cause, or Shirley MacLaine in
The Children's Hour.) Even after that strict code was abandoned you still see the repercussions of that mindset in films like
The Boys in the Band.
That gives me something to use as a yardstick for comparison purposes.
Maurice, for example, came 20 years after
Boys in the Band. In that movie the pressure of James Willby being in love with Hugh Grant but not being able to really talk about it or acknowledge it is enormous, and he even at one point goes to a doctor to get "fixed". But ultimately he finds both love and himself, and the movie is structured as a romance - the equal of Merchant Ivory's previous period romances like
Room With a View.
Films like
Maurice and
Beautiful Thing definitely show the problems of being gay in a hetero world. But they honor the love and dignity of their central characters, and allow them see the future as a place where they can belong and be powerful. That in itself is a huge change from the bad old days when being gay had to be shown as a curse, if not an outright moral failure.
Of course, even today lazy writers still use the old stereotypes of the gay predator, serial killer, or unhappy bitchy old queen. Those are now often called out, and there are organizations like GLAAD that highlight those abuses.
And sometimes there are genuine tragedies that deserve to be told that might involve abusive relationships, persecution, or mental illness. Nothing wrong with telling those stories as long as they are just one item on the menu.
From the original post, I am assuming that
Habukaz is wanting to avoid these last two categories - the negative stereotypes and tragedies - and wanting suggestions for gay stories where problems are at least somewhat overcome and the protagonists are given respect and a hope for love.
