The Deadly Dilemma of Lesbians in Entertainment

04.09.04

(Warning, Spoilers Ahead, Read With Caution) Getting a lesbian relationship onto non-cable TV these days may be easier than it used to be, but it can still be a hard road. Managing to get one lesbian character on a show isn’t so bad - even daytime soaps are doing it nowadays. However, actually getting two lesbians together as a couple on a series still takes a lot of dancing around censors, network big wigs and public opinion.

Back when Willow (Alyson Hannigan) on "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" was first revealed as a lesbian, queer audiences cheered. But we still wondered, would Willow ever actually find a real relationship with a woman? And if she did, would it be realistic - and actually involve some sort of physical intimacy? These things, after all, were still a bit taboo for primetime TV. Bucking TV tradition, Willow did get into an LTR with Tara (Amber Benson), her fellow witch. Happily, viewers also got a decent dose of lesbian physicality - with some nice intimate moments of girl-on-girl kissing, making out and even a musical love-making scene that left little to the imagination.

Right when Willow & Tara finally got over their issues and made up - Joss Whedon pulled a plot twist right out of cliché-land. He killed off Tara - violently. He had her murdered - and then had her lover, Willow, go quite insane over it. Willow became the evil lesbian psycho out to destroy the entire world. Sure, rumor has it that Amber Benson was having issues and would probably leave the show regardless, but another way could have been found to shuffle her off - without another "doomed to die" lesbian stereotype being used. Lesbian fans were outraged, and rightly so.

It seems that throughout the history of film and television, lesbian characters (and lesbian lovers especially) are always doomed. If you’ve ever watched The Celluloid Closet, you have an idea what I mean. Lesbians always seem to end up either as villains or violently dead (often by suicide or murder) - or insane. More than likely, all of three if possible. You can trace this disturbing plot mechanism all the way back to early films like The Children’s Hour and The Fox, onto later films like The Hunger and Heavenly Creatures, and even into modern films like Boys on the Side, High Art and Monster. Yes, some of these were based on real life stories, but why the hell are mainstream films with lesbian characters almost always based on the sinister, sad and horrible instead of the beautiful and wonderful?

Television is no better - can you name two shows that have contained featured lesbian characters in successful, happy long term relationships - where neither half of the couple ended up dead, insane or a villain? And please don’t say Ross’s old girlfriend in "Friends" - I mean characters that aren’t just sidebars. And "Xena" doesn’t count either - remember, they KILLED Xena off, right when it was becoming pretty much established that her and Gabrielle were, indeed, queer as football bats.

There seems to be some sort of conspiracy or repressed directive that says that lesbians must always be portrayed as psychologically unstable in entertainment. And if they aren’t tortured in some way, then they must be punished by being driven insane, killed off, or having some other horrible thing happen to them. Even dyke writers, directors & producers often can’t seem to keep themselves from doing this to their characters.

You’d think we’d have progressed beyond this outdated and disgusting portrayal of lesbians on film & TV as evil or doomed. In some ways, it appears so - we have "The L Word" after all, don’t we? But wait - do you really see any happy, long-term, fabulously wonderful relationships on this show? Created by lesbians and being all about lesbians, you would think there would at least be ONE happy couple on the show. Nope. We had hope at first with Bette & Tina - the lovely lesbian couple with a baby in the works. Now, however, they seem miserable, they have no sex life - and one of them is already cheating. Not one woman on the show is involved in a happy, emotionally stable, long term relationship. This is not real life people. There really are some dykes out here that DO have successful, fulfilling relationships for more than five minutes.

Now we come to why I am ranting about this subject. Last night, I settled down for my weekly does of "ER." Now, I’m happy that Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) was written into a lesbian - and she partnered up and was even gifted with a child. However, that’s not why I watch the show, I just enjoy it for itself. Kerry’s relationship with her lover Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal) has always been just a bonus. Kind of like "it’s so nice they have a realistic-type lesbian relationship on this show - now when is the next helicopter going to squish someone?" That, in my mind, is how a lesbian relationship should be portrayed on television - as something that is just part of the story. Not a big deal, so to speak. Sure, we had Kerry’s coming out drama, and the whole employment discrimination thing - but there was no death, no insanity and no evil "lesbian villain." So it was all good. Until, of course, last night.

They killed Sandy. They just up and killed Kerry’s partner, how frigging more cliché could we get people? We finally get a decently normal, relatively happy and stable lesbian couple on television - and they murdered one of them off. Have we learned nothing?

Of course, I know with the whole "gay marriage" thing right now they were looking for a suitable plot twist to feature the issue. Thus, they kill off Sandy and now Kerry will have to go through the whole "your son isn’t really yours because you aren’t the biological mother" thing. There will be custody fights with Sandy’s family, probably court battles and a whole "moral lesson" about how gay couples are being treated like shit because they don’t have equal marriage & legal rights. Okay, fine. As a dyke, however, having a lesbian couple in a successful long term relationship on television is FAR more important at this point. If they wanted to feature the whole gay marriage rights thing - they could have chosen another route. They could have written in the issue in a way that didn’t echo every damn negative portrayal of lesbian relationship on film through history. Or else they don’t have very intelligent writers & producers. Right now, I am beginning to think that is the case. How else could you explain the stupidity of this plot move?

Lesbian relationships are not being taken seriously in entertainment. They are "throwaway" relationships, doomed to be demolished any time it might make a plot more ’interesting.’ Even lesbians behind the camera seem to view them this way, as we’ve seen on "The L Word." I, for one, am tired of not having any characters on mainstream TV or film that reflect that the beauty of having a successful, long-term, happy relationship between two women. I hope The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gets pissed, and revokes the numerous awards they’ve given to “ER” for portraying gay relationships in a "positive" way. Because, in my opinion, the makers of "ER" haven’t got a clue what that actually means.