Go to: Film and television portrayals of homosexuality have coincided with turning points in gay advocacy and societal perceptions, according to Larry Gross, a University of Southern California professor. Gross, author of “Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America,” spoke with CNN about American views of gay characters in the last century. In the early 1900s, audiences saw gay characters in two ways, Gross said. "One was as a joke and the other would be as a threat. And if they were a threat they'd get killed." Gross cites as an example 1933's "Queen Christina," a film in which Greta Garbo (seen here) plays the doomed and historically rumored bisexual.