Interview with Wonderfalls Co-Creator Bryan Fuller

Sarah Warn, March 2004

Bryan Fuller is the co-creator of the new series Wonderfalls, premiering tonight at 9pm on Fox.

A dramedy which has been hailed by critics as one of the best new TV shows this year, Wonderfalls tells the story of a recent college graduate named Jaye working in a souvenir stand in Niagra Falls who is struggling with the fact that inanimate objects have suddenly started talking to her, while also dealing with her dysfunctional family, including lesbian older sister Sharon.

Fuller, formerly a writer for Dead Like Me and Star Trek: Voyager, talks candidly here about Wonderfalls and its lesbian character, as well as the networks’ discomfort with lesbian content on TV.

How would you describe Wonderfalls?

It’s a really quirky, smart, feel-good show about a pathological narcissist who wakes up one day to discover the universe has sort-of forced her to become fate’s bitch.

Sounds a bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the vampires...

Buffy really opened up the door for new types of female characters on TV, and for melding genres; it gave you a little more freedom in the types of stories you can tell.

What was your inspiration for Wonderfalls?

Todd (Holland) had read Dead Like Me and was very interested in working with me. I of course was a fan of his from Twin Peaks, Larry Sanders, and Malcolm in the Middle; the guy’s done a slew of great television. He called me when I was working on the remake of Carrie for NBC and said “We’re in the thick of development season, I want to commit to you to develop a project, do you want to commit to me?” I was like “Hell yeah!”

He had a thing for the Joan of Arc legend, and we started talking about what it would mean to have someone called who really didn’t want to be called, and who might be the last person you would want to be called, and who was calling them, and all of the elements of that legend and how they might be reinvented today. We were in his kitchen talking about this, and he had a couple of salt and pepper shakers with a cow head and a bull head, and we thought “wouldn’t it be interesting if the higher power was speaking through these?”

How do you respond to the inevitable comparisons to Joan of Arcadia, besides the fact that in Wonderfalls Jaye it isn’t explicitly talking to God?

I think we have a considerably different tone to our show-we skew much more comedic. The three of us are very well versed in genre storytelling, and there’s a different quality to the way we tell stories on Wonderfalls than the way they tell stories on Joan of Arcadia. One’s not better or worse, they’re just really different in spirit.

How would you describe Jaye’s lesbian sister Sharon?

She’s a very conflicted character, one of those Log Cabin Republicans. We have a line in one of the episodes where she’s a part of the Conservative Ladies of America and her sister accuses her of using the Republican Party as a lesbian dating service. It’s a different angle that will give us a richer context and help you understand why someone who is so politically conservative might still be in the closet.

Why did you cast Katie Finneran as Sharon?

She just sings on screen. She has impeccable comic timing, and is just a brilliant actress across the board. Also, she had a part in Night of the Living Dead as part of the zombie barbeque. If you get eaten by a zombie in a horror movie, I’m in love with you.

While the pilot deals somewhat with Sharon’s sexuality, the rest of the season seems to be more about Sharon’s relationship to her sister. Yes, during the first season I would say she’s first and foremost Jaye’s sister, and secondarily a lesbian. But we do show Sharon’s girlfriend coming back, we see that that relationship is being maintained and that Sharon’s in the closet. She is definitely a big part of the show, though.

A lot of shows make a big deal about their lesbian characters initially, and then reduce their storylines to nothing pretty quickly afterwards (like ER or Two and a Half Men). Is Wonderfalls going to fall into that trap, as well?

Like any human being, Sharon’s sexuality is only small facet of who she is, although it does inform her being in the closet, not wanting to tell her parents, and all these related issues. But it’s not something we’re constantly hitting really hard in the first season.

In the second season, however, we’ll be able to explore those ideas more freely. There are things that happen in the first season, for example, that are setting up huge character arcs for Sharon in the second season. Huge! We have so many big things coming for Sharon—we’re going to be seeing a lot of the lesbian lawyer in the second season.

What inspired you to make Sharon a lesbian in the first place?

Todd and I are both openly gay, and I think we feel a responsibility to having gay characters on shows we create. I had a gay character (George’s father) on Dead Like Me, and unfortunately after I left that show they made the character straight, which I did not appreciate and frankly, thought was really shitty. But that was just one of many things about that situation that was uncool.

It’s also a point of view that Todd and I share: we can write about Sharon’s perspective of being gay because I know what that feels like. It’s not a point of view that you see often on TV, so it’s a little more fresh, a little less trodden, and just opens the door on storytelling.

It’s nice to see gay men supporting lesbians like this, since I don’t think that always happens. I think it’s also easier to have a lesbian character on TV than a gay man, because of the social stereotypes of men and women, and things you are comfortable seeing women do that you wouldn’t be comfortable with it they were men. You’re more comfortable seeing two women kiss than two men, because when two men kiss you’re thinking about penetration.

This extends beyond sexuality: one of the reasons the character of Jaye is a woman is because we have a broader storytelling canvas with women than we do with men. We’re allowed to go places emotionally with her that we couldn’t with a male character because people aren’t always comfortable seeing men in emotionally taxing positions.

Are you going to show Sharon kissing her girlfriend, or is that something the network doesn’t want you to do?

The network’s standards and practices have told us that we cannot have them kiss on-screen; we get letters from the network’s standards and practices saying “Under no circumstances are their lips ever to touch.” But that’s not unusual: when I was doing Carrie for NBC, one of our character’s was doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on another character who had drowned, and we got a note on how to film the lesbian kiss. I was like “it’s mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, you dumbass!”

But if you look closely, you see Sharon and her girlfriend’s lips actually connect right before they fall out of the shot in one of the Wonderfalls episodes. It’s very quick, but we managed to get that in.

Hasn’t Fox shown lesbian kisses before?

Yeah, on Firefly and Boston Public. But there’s a lot of conservatism at the networks, because the networks are invariably run by conservative umbrella corporations that are not as liberal as the television employees. If it were up to [producers] Gail Berman and Craig Erwich, I’m sure they would have no problem with the two women kissing, but they’re answering to a higher power than themselves.

I do get that, I understand those concerns but I hope that as we get further along with the show and develop a fan base we’ll be allowed to more fully explore that aspect of her character.

So they’re holding your show to a different standard because it’s new. Yes, that grip will be loosened a bit once we find an audience. There’s always a nervousness at the networks with new shows with hot-button issues and not wanting to give anyone any reasons not to like the show, especially at higher levels in the network.

But I think also when you see two women kissing on shows like Fastlane, it’s fun, it’s exploitive, and it’s like “ooh, hot chick-on-chick action” and it’s to get the straight guys to watch. When you’re talking about two adult women in a serious relationship that is genuine and tender, I think it scares them because you’re trying to say that gay people are normal. When it’s played as a joke it’s easier for them to digest than when it’s actually real. We’ve definitely been advised not to say the word “lesbian” quite so much, and to not make that such a focal point with Sharon’s character.

Do you think the networks are getting more progressive on this topic, or less?

I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a yes or no answer to that question. Once Wonderfalls has an audience, we will be able to "earn" those moments instead of fighting for them—right now we usually lose those battles, but we may be able to win them if the show becomes a hit.

You’d think with all the attention around gays in the media lately that these standards would have relaxed a little more than it sounds like they have. I think there are instances where it’s become more relaxed, but then you have backlash-like the overreaction to the Janet Jackson incident. That had a global effect on all sorts of television.

Are you at all concerned about the Friday night timeslot?

One of the great things about airing on Friday nights is that expectations are very low. Even we even make a blip in the ratings on Friday night at 9pm, our chances of being picked up for a second season are much stronger. And frankly, if it was good enough for The X-Files, it’s good enough for us.

What else are you working on?

I’m writing an animated pilot for the sci-fi channel based on a Mike Mignola comic called The Amazing Screw-On Head. I’m really enjoying working with the Sci Fi channel—but I’m also really looking forward to coming back for a second season of Wonderfalls.