The Lesbian Cliche FAQ

[Ben Varkentine]

Wait a minute. Mariel Hemmingway kissing Roseanne was a ratings gimmick and Roseanne's mother coming out was just ridiculous--because in the last couple of seasons that character became became the vehicle for every "issue" they wanted to trot out. She developed a drinking problem, she became gay...



And Tim Curry does *not* come back from the dead for "the big musical finale" of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I know--I saw that movie every saturday for like, a year.



Are gay and lesbian movies really making it into that many multiplexes? "Art house" theaters, sure. But the same theaters that are showing The Recruit and Final Destination 2?

Ben Varkentine



Read my film, music and book reviews at



http://www.ink19.com (new) & http://www.popmatters.com (archival)

[xita]

Obviously not enough research into this, it's lik look we have made such progress, send the write to write about it, he can't find anything so he starts making up stuff.



The lesbian movies:



Films like Go Fish, The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, and It's in the Water



All of those were Art House movies that didn't play any longer than a month in one theater in a big city like Los Angeles. I'ts in the water didn't even make it to theater, that was straight to video, only a small percentage of lesbians have even seen it. So you leave so you ask yourself mainstream society still has no idea what a happy lesbian couple looks like. You'd probably have to go to Bound for the closest, and god knows those girls weren't saints. I love that movie though. Still not a wide release movie.

-----------------
Baby you make my love come down

Oh you make my love come down

Make it come all the way down -
Evelyn Champagne King

[Sister Bertrille]

Yup, typical shoddy Advocate “reporting,” especially when it comes to lesbians. At least this time, someone mentioned Deserts Hearts (the Advocate left that “landmark” film off its last Gay and Lesbian film poll!) And he misses Debbie and Joan on MAY, to this date the only happy lesbian couple to make it all the way to the end of a TV series (Susan and Carol, please come back, all is forgiven!), in favor of Northern Exposure. Huh?



Where is lesbian playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel? And even though it was written by a man (I hate the way he segregates everything here), Vampire Lesbians of Sodom by Charles Busch was a hoot!



ITA about Roseanne. Funny he doesn’t mention the gay male couple (Leon and Scott?), who seemed much happier than the women. But that would make too much sense.



Gotta love Bound, which periodically plays on my local UPN affiliate. Finally, something good to watch on TV!



SB

[emma peel]

What morons!

Janice

[kyraroc]

Well, it is true, as far as I can recall, at least, that no specifically lesbian-themed play has taken the theater world by storm the way some gay-themed plays like Angels In America have. (Although I'm workin' on it . . .) Unless you count The Children's Hour, I guess. But there are huge hits like Rent which prominently feature lesbian relationships, and also somewhat quieter, wholly lesbian-themed hits like Stop Kiss which are getting plenty of play across the country. Odd omissions.



--- KR

[Ben Varkentine]

Just a side note about the "Mariel Hemmingway kisses Roseanne" episode--I always thought, for all the the "controversy" generated about that, the best part of the episode was totally overlooked.



It involved Dan, the father, explaining to his son DJ that Roseanne was out at a lesbian bar. They never played Dan as the "sensitive new age guy," but as a guy who'd been raised a certain way, knew some of the things he'd been taught weren't true, and made a concerted effort not to pass those things onto his son.



And it seems to me if anything is going to change people's minds on television, it's subtle stuff like that rather than ratings-grabbings stunts.

Ben Varkentine



Read my film, music and book reviews at



http://ink19.com/(new) & http://popmatters.com/(archival)

[dekalog]

"Harvey Fierstein's landmark Broadway smash Torch Song Trilogy showed drag queen Arnold Beckoff searching for true love, surviving the sudden loss of a lover, and creating his own alternative family. Sure, it was a mainstream hit, but this was a queer show speaking to a queer audience. If straight people wanted to attend, they could—but they'd better sit in the back and keep quiet."



Sorry about the quotage - it's just I LOVE him. He has always been out, proud, and wonderfully gay. If only I could make something like this for girls - sigh.



If you haven't seen the film version run out - it will make you laugh and cry - sometimes at the same time.

[BBOvenGuy]

The Zap2It description for Monday's episode of Boston Public is as follows:

Quote:

---

The teachers contend with Valentine's Day; Kimberly is stalked by a student.

---

I just saw a promo for it during the Bud Shootout race tonight, and there's something about this episode that Zap2It hasn't mentioned.



The student stalking Kimberly is a girl.



Yes, it's yet another insane evil lesbian coming to your TV screens...

"If you are going to give a new message to the world, you will do so without being conscious of it yourself. If you set out to do it consciously, you will fail because you will be trying to pose; and the man who poses is insincere." - Charles V. Stanford

Edited by: BBOvenGuy  at: 2/8/03 6:48:26 pm

[Big Dummy]

I made it a point to watch that Boston Public, even though I've never really watched the show in the past, cause I'd seen the previews for it. Crazy stalker lesbian teen. It was totally ridiculous, heavy-handed, and just made no sense.



The student gets a crush on her teacher, and it gets very Basic Instinct. At one point the student even breaks into the teacher's apartment, after some perceived slight or betrayal, and trashes the place.



The great resolution of this problem?



Stalker-girl gets shipped off for some psychological evaluation, and we never see her again. End story. It was so brief, it's almost hard to be upset with it. The merest of storylines this one was. I think it was simply a means to an end, to get the actress who okays the teacher off the show or something, since she now has to leave Boston for her safety.

[AlteaThree]

Boston Public could have been a really good show: teachers are just as interesting and often just as smart as doctors and lawyers, and BP looked like it would be the ER for teachers. But no. Sometimes it is good, other times it does stunts to grab viewers by being "bold" (also known as offensive and damaging to many)

For example: "fat students". There are lots of girls and guys who are "overwieght" who exercise and have fun in life, and are not lazy nor stupid nor ugly. The problem is when an obese kid sees a good-looking, succesful overwieght kid on TV(they're on tv, getting a good sum of money, at least) and o.w. kid is all depressed and leading a meaningless life. Many obese kids realize they will never be thin or even a size 16(womens) or have 42 inch-waist (males). They see Miss Size 16 or Mr. 42inches on TV having a hard time. So why should the obese kid even try to lose wieght, or be active, or make friends? That is the logic kids have. I am not comparing size to sexuality, but within the BP-specific context, the occurances has similair tones.

SO, if a young girl, who already has many negative images of what a lesbian is, sees something like: lesbian turns evil and kills man, lesbian stalkers, it makes an impact. Even if the girl is smart, talented, whatever...there will probably be some small impact. And there are already many sects of world society see being a lesbian as a negative...or as something to be exploited for male tittilation. It all adds up, and it all really is agaist the "freedom and independence" that society these days claims to be for. Bisexual teens are also impacted by this, and I have seen some who lose parts of themselves.

A side note, at a film school I know of in BC there was a high number of alternative-culture and homosexual instructors and students. However, recently, and esspecially after the 2001/02 season of TV(shows like Buffy) music(like eminem) and movies (like Not Another Teen Movie) the films made at this film school are often less open-minded. There were never any content restrictions, and this used to mean there where many films that showed positive images of minorities, alternative cultures and sexuality. But, in mid 2002, there was an abuse of tolerance, with films such as When Lesbo's Go Bad. The Evil/Dead Cliche is now even infiltrating alternative and independant forms of media, which used to be the friends of those marginalized. Speak out. Speak out now.

"Hey, did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical college too?"

[xita]

As a teacher, I can tell you that show is not about any teachers I know. It doesn't even remind me of work in any way. This was ridiculous, specially when taken in context. Anyone watch this show regularly? Have they ever dealt with sexuality in a positive way?

-----------------
Baby you make my love come down

Oh you make my love come down

Make it come all the way down -
Evelyn Champagne King

[Titan the Green]

Soul Survivor 2001



Eliza Duska, who has a supporting role in this movie, is bisexual. She takes up with another character, Raven, who appears to be a lesbian. Both are portrayed as "evil" and, by the end of the movie, are dead.





Urban Legends: Final Cut 2000



Serial killer movie. One lesbian. Dead. Although not as gruesomely as some of the others females.



Titan the Green

[Kieli]

I watch Boston Public pretty regularly and I've never seen them deal with sexuality on the show in a remotely even manner. The one chemistry teacher who was very gay-acting was fired for supposedly engaging a minor in a chat room for sex. There have been lots of gay innuendo comments that were made in a smarmy or disgusted tone, even Guber went off about having two girls kiss in a play said chemistry teacher was putting on about tolerance. Both the assistant principal and the principal made it very clear that they were homophobic and only the law prevented them from banning certain "behaviours". There are times when the show turns my stomach.

Love is tricky. It is never mundane or daily. You can never get used to it. You have to walk with it, then let it walk with you. You can never balk. It moves you like the tide. It takes you out to sea then lays you on the beach again. Today's struggling pain is the foundation for a certain stride through the heavens. You can run from it but you can never say no. It includes everyone."--Amy Tan "The Hundred Secret Secret Senses"

[AlteaThree]

This may just be cough-syrup-induced rantings, but:

I was just watching ER eps on tape...Kerry had a miscarriage. And she didnt take time off work to rest or anything, and ( several flu-filled several hours later in tonight's ep) she and her partner were all full of pain.

But why did Kerry have to have a miscarriage? Her baby was wanted.

The writers, are they trying to say something? Or was it just a genuine plot twist? Is this part of the problem or is it a sign that Kerry and her partner are just normal character on the show who have to go through thier share of disasters?

{In other words, is it like Romona getting his arm cut off, which I doubt was a strike agaist annoying sexist men(I think everything else about him is a strike agaist sexism), or did the writers want it to MEAN something?}

[feena191]

Has anyone seen The Hours? I'm watching The Baftas Award Ceremony & the presenter Steven Fry, in that dry ironic tone he has, described it as a multi-layered film - on one layer it's about lesbianism and suicide, and on another layer it's about suicide and lesbianism.



Feena

-x-

--------------------------------

Who cares what happens next? Where’s your pride, your dignity? Look at yourselves. Look at what you’ve become. You’re wasting away. It’s not too late. Save yourselves, save each other. Save me.


– a Sour Skittle

[Shadow ALH]

The Hours was a very depressing movie. When I saw it I felt that it was about depression and suicide, but not really about lesbianism. If anything the lesbian kisses in the movie was a strange technique to help tie the three women together.



Jullianne Moore's character's depression was perhaps in part due her repressed lesbianism, but Virginia Woolf's (Nicole Kidman's) depression is an illness that has nothing to do with sexual orientation or anything else really. Then Meryl Streep's character, who is actually a lesbian, doesn't seem to be a lesbian at all. Instead she seems to be in love with Ed Harris who is dying from AIDS.



Nobody in this movie is happy, but it doesn't really have anything to do with their personal lives, but rather some sort of mental illness. In my opinion this movie doesn't fit into the lesbian cliche. There is suicide, but lesbianism isn't linked to being evil and I don't feel that the movie implied that the women were unhappy because they were gay or whatever. Of course I could probably be convinced otherwise and I would be interessted to see what other people thought about it. I would also like to see the movie again in order to understand it better.



~Andrea

[BBOvenGuy]

In tonight's episode of The Dead Zone, the hero Johnny Smith is kidnapped by three women who take him to an abandoned farmhouse and demand that he use his powers to figure out who killed three out of four family members in the house twenty years ago. Two of the women are filmmakers from California hoping to produce the next Blair Witch Project. Early in the episode, the producer-type flirts with the camera operator, and the camera operator complains that all the producer-type ever does is tease.



As the episode unfolds, we learn that the producer-type woman is really a man - specifically, the one surviving family member. He's the one who killed his family when he was a boy, and now he's posing as a woman to hide from himself and what he did. When the camera operator realizes what's going on, she says "Oh! So that's why she never wanted to do anything but fool around!"



So, for those of you keeping score at home, we have one psycho killer transvestite and one lesbian who isn't all that evil, but also isn't all that bright.

"If you are going to give a new message to the world, you will do so without being conscious of it yourself. If you set out to do it consciously, you will fail because you will be trying to pose; and the man who poses is insincere." - Charles V. Stanford

[urnofosiris]

Shadow ALH, I think that it is a safe to assume that in many cases of a lesbian cliche the lesbian character isn't evil or miserable or gets killed because she is a lesbian, but it happens anyway, like with Tara. That miracle bullet didn't hit her because she is a lesbian, but the result is another dead lesbian.



I haven't seen the movie (which isn't stopping me from replying, heh) but from your brief description I'd say it does fit into the cliche. Yet more lesbians who can't live happy lives. As long as the majority of stories about lesbians that get told have them end up miserable, evil or dead they are part of the cliche. As soon as there is a fair amount of stories, like Tipping the Velvet that have lesbians have a happy ending, like it is for straight characters, then the cliche will cease to be.



There are precious few movies that have happy stories with happy endings for lesbians, and you have to know where to look, it is most unfortunate that a high profile movie like this should just be another in a long line of misery for lesbian characters. It may be a good movie, but it would be ever so nice if we could line it up with ten movies as well known, with a stellar cast like The Hours, that have a positive ending for LGBT characters.



Edited to add: Of course the Hours is based on historical people, I don't think movies based on actual events can be considered part of a cliche, but I don't know how much dramatization has been going on, and it would be nice if they would make movies based in fact in which L(GBT) characters do make to the end of the movie without it ending in an ongoing depression, kind of like real life where lesbians can be happy, or so I am told. .

-------------------------


Coffee, Food, Kisses and Gay Love........Get it while you are hot

Edited by: DrG at: 3/29/03 3:39:28 pm

[Shadow ALH]

DrG thanks for your comments and I totally agree with you. Perhaps The Hours does fit into the cliche, but I was just trying to remain positive. As a lesbian The Hours did not insult me like other recent shows/movies have.

For instance, Smallville really pissed me off. I didn't see the episode, but I was at my mom's house when it aired and my 15 year old sister watched it. The next day she couldn't stop talking about what a great episode it was. She gave me a whole play by play of it and it made me sick. What's worse is that I could not convince as to why it disgusted me so much and she laughed at me. My sister knows that I am a lesbian and she loves my girlfriend, but she couldn't understand why a depiction like that was prejudiced and horrible.



I guess the Hours didn't seem like hatred or a stupid ratings stunt to me, so it didn't offend me, but I can see how it fits into the cliche. I would love to see hundreds of moives where lesbians were happy. I would probably buy every single one on dvd too.



I do have a question though. Has anyone seen the German movie Aimee and Jaguar? Excuse me if this has already been discussed here, but does it fit into the cliche? It may not end happily, but it is based on a true story and from what I've seen German movies (and novels or short stories) do not end happily very often. (I'm not trying to be offensive...ich liebe Deutschkultur.) I am just curious to see if something has to end happily for it not to fit into the cliche.

[Ben Varkentine]

I haven't seen either The Hours or Aimee and Jaguar (though my mom, a lesbian, likes them both). But when it comes to the cliche, it seems to me it's important not to get bogged down in specifics of intention (and blame-casting) for every single example.



Don't just blame you-know-who because his storyline fit right into the cliche. Blame him (and Marti, etc) because they set it up and executed it in such a ham-fisted fashion. And then spent the next three months putting their feet deeper and deeper into their mouths, insulting their characters and their audience. When they could have avoided so much with an apology (do you suppose Steve DeKnight has suggested that?).



Someone quoted from the Celluloid Closet book a while back. Making the point that the people who make movies where the gay person does not end up happily almost always have some alibi or rationalization. Their film isn't about homosexuality, they say, it's just that the homosexual happens to...



And if we take them at their word, which I think we can in most cases, we can believe that, in the context of their stories, things that happen to the gay characters aren't meant to be happening *because* they're gay. That wasn't the intention for their specific storyline.



This is what I think stops people from seeing the cliche--they get bogged down in defending some favorite show or movie and dismiss the larger idea. The problem is that none of them, up to and including you know who, seem to have been able to take one step back and see anything in a wider context than the perimeters of their storyline.



Also, The Hours and Aimee & Jaguar may very well be good movies while also technically examples of the cliche, while the Tara's death storyline was bad TV while being so. Babylon 5 was good TV while being an example. But they're not good or bad *because* of it.

Ben Varkentine



Read my film, music and book reviews at



http://ink19.com/(new) & http://popmatters.com/(archival)

[daddykat]

You brought in _Soul Survivor_

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by Garner



Hey, I am not sure if this should be here or the Lesbian FAQ thread, but...I relatively recently listened to Sue Grafton's Q is for (Quarry I think. I listen to her books on tape while on long trips because they are normally very good and the reader is great.) and was very disapointed with the ending. Basically the reason the wife murders the husband (seperated or divorced, forget which) is because she's in a lesbian relationship. That's it. She's a lesbian and that's her motive.

I also just read the Max Alan Collins CSI novel Sin City, which is pretty good if you like the show. And once again there is a murderer who is a lesbian who killed her girlfriend and set up the GF's new boyfriend as the GF was basically leaving her for him.

Ok, now the second seems plausible and they have had straights do similar stuff on the show. But, this is the first lesbian I think I have seen refered to on CSI (I could be wrong as I don't usually committ the show to memory or anything.)

My question to all of the kittens is: Is this part of the lesbian cliche? Is this something that bothers you or is it acceptable. I mean Grafton has books A-P with no lesbians and the first one (again I think) that we see is the murderer.



Slightly tangential. I watched Mad About You and still do watch Friends. Both had lesbian couples. MAY had Paul's sister paired with a woman and Friends has Ross's ex Carol paired with Susan. They even got married which was both made fun of (Phoebe's possessed by someone who leaves becasue now she's seen everything) and also supported as Ross does a creditable job of convincing the pair having pre-wedding jitters that they should go through with it because it is really for them and not their parents. Although these aren't major characters or anything, these two at least seem to defy the lesbian cliche. They do end up happy and together with no-one dieing or going evil. Is my take on this correct?



Just wondering what others thought of all this.



Garner

[Repost Moderator]

Originally posted by bronwyn



I don't really watch Friends but I caught an ep when a friend of mine was over for dinner. She's a diehard fan so asked if we could watch it. Anyway, in the ep Pheobe goes to Ben's school and reference is made to Ben having to mums. I thought it was kind of cool. It wasn't central to the episode but was just mentioned on the side. But in a positive way - the teacher knew the kid had two women responsible for his care and respected the non-biological mum's role as a parent. Even if it was Pheobe pretending to be Ben's mum's partner to get Sting tickets.



I wish they did more with that relationship on the show. It doesn't seem to be brought up very often.

xxx,

Bronwyn

[kyraroc]

In general, I think Friends has done a decent job with the lesbian relationship on their show. They're extremely minor characters, but whenever they have been on they've been portrayed in a non-cliche manner. While there've been a couple of annoying incidents on Friends (such as main character having what I thought was a totally ratings-oriented lesbian kiss with one-shot character we never see again), in general I think they've done quite a good job of having lesbians as Just More People.



Of course, this is in part because of the type of show Friends is - a character-oriented comedy. Something I consider one of the more subtle and insidious aspects of the cliche is that lesbians appear on such shows so seldom. We've all, of course, by now heard the excuse that lesbians on crime shows are being treated like "every other character" on that show. Which is probably true, but begs the more important question, which is why do lesbians usually only appear on shows where they're likely to be criminals, victims, or generally f*cked up? That's why I consider negative portrayals of lesbians on such shows ass CSI - or Buffy - to still be part of the cliche, even if all the straight characters are messed up on those shows, too. Straights get other shows where they can be normal and sane.



Incidentally, anyone here heard anything about the movie "Monster", which is coming out next year? Rumor has it that it stars Charlize Theron as a serial killer and Christina Ricci as her lesbian lover. Hate to judge a movie before it comes out, but man does that have a bad sound to it . . . and its also apparently based on a true story, which means will get the "how can it be a dramatic cliche? It was true!" defense that we heard about "Heavenly Creatures", as if people who make films based on true stories have no control over which true stories they elect to tell, or what aspects of it they choose to emphasize. Sigh.



--- KR

Lost in Ecstacy

Edited by: kyraroc at: 3/5/03 6:06:17 pm

[mscheckmate]

Garner, the Sue Grafton book you mentioned was "P is for Peril." I'm a long-time Grafton fan, and I expected better from her.



I wish there were more writers who were interested in portraying the reality of our lives, instead of cranking out more unhappy/lonely/insane/murderous lesbian characters. It's not just socially responsible to get it right; it could also end up being a heck of a lot more artistic and creative. You'd think writers would want to avoid falling back on a decades-old cliche, instead of ignorantly or lazily perpetuating it.

"I really, really love giving you a hard time. I'm starting to think of it as foreplay." Mrs. Mscheckmate

Edited by: mscheckmate at: 3/5/03 11:01:16 pm

[Garner]

Mscheckmate, now that you mention it, I do recall it being P not Q. Q isn't available at the library on tape yet. I actually listened to this while going down to Dallas in October I think so it has been longer than I thought. It bothered me at the time as the conclusion was very sudden and anti-climatic. All of a sudden the wife's relationship is made clearer (mostly) and that's it. That was the whole motivation, that she's a lesbian and wanted to remove the husband for some reason that wasn't all that clear. I wasn't sure whether being here made me more sensitive to the issue or if it was just poorly done. I think both to be true.

The CSI book Sin City brought all that back to my mind as I did just read that this weekend. Again I definitely agree that there needs to be more treatment of lesbians and gays where the characters are just there as background. Present but not the villian or maybe even not the focus. Part of everyday life like they should be.

I think Friends does this, and Mad About You did too, with the couples that are shown. The kiss with Rachel and (was it Winnona Ryder?) the other girl was just for ratings and a shock ploy. Carol and Suzanne have been treated much better and it is nice to see that. They aren't used often, but do come up several times.

The treatment in the crime novels bothered me a lot more. Can't they just be witnesses or something like that? Possible suspects but not the ones who actually did it? There are other alternatives there.



Garner

[Pipsqueak]

Garner, I agree with your statement that gays should just be "part of everyday life" on television, not always the villains or the victims. However, I disagree that they should be relegated to "background" roles.



Part of the reason why fictional gays and lesbians almost always come to an unhappy end is precisely because we are only allowed to see them as one-shot characters. It's easy (and almost expected) to kill someone who is just there to be the Victim Of The Week on crime shows or whatnot. And kyraroc was right as well; it's also due to gays' more frequent appearances on crime/police/murder dramas rather than lighthearted comedies. But if gays were occasionally allowed to land supporting roles (such as Willow in Buffy) or, God forbid, the *lead role* in a show, I believe this would go a long way towards destroying the cliché.



I am very grateful to NBC and Friends for giving us Carol and Susan, who provide a wonderful model of a happy, well-adjusted, loving lesbian couple (not to mention their parenting skills, which proves that gays are just as good as heterosexuals when it comes to raising children). But at the same time, I'm not going to sit back and say "okay, there's a happy lesbian couple on TV, I'm satisfied now." It's still not enough. They're only onscreen several times a year, at most. If the television execs want to show that gays are truly a "part of everyday life", then they need to be brought out of the background and into the spotlight - a place that is almost exclusively reserved for straights.



How cool would it be if there was a show modeled after Alias, where we had a heroine who was strong, smart, and in charge of her own life. She could be a spy like Sydney, or maybe a scientist or political official. We would get to see her exciting career, her relationships with her friends and family, and of course her lovelife as well. It would be a fun, fast-paced show with lots of twists and turns. And oh yeah, the heroine is a lesbian. Her sexual orientation wouldn't be the main focus of the show (in other words, it wouldn't be a "gay show" like Will & Grace or Queer As Folk), and yet it wouldn't be hidden either. It's just there. A part of her life. And while we're discussing whether she's going to hook up with the cute blonde who works for the CIA, we're also biting our nails over whether she'll escape the trap set by the KGB and whether her mother is an ally or an enemy.



When we have a show like that on television, THAT'S when I'll sit back and say "Well done."



The problem nowadays with creating a gay character as the lead in a show is the same problem faced by African-American lead characters; the studio then feels the need to turn it into a "gay show" (or a "black show"), where every joke and storyline revolves around this one issue. And there's nothing wrong with having shows that cater to the gay audience, or the black audience, or the Hispanic audience. But there's segregated diversity ("the gays have their gay shows, and the straights have their straight shows), and then there's integrated diversity, where a show with a gay lead character isn't by default a "gay show", it's just a SHOW.



We've come a long way, but it's still not enough.



I hope that very long rant made some kind of sense.

Live each day as if it were your last; and one day, you'll be right.
| Pipsqueak's Music Videos |

Edited by: Pipsqueak at: 3/6/03 6:08:13 pm

[kyraroc]

Pipsqueak - that made all kinds of sense. And I would so love to see a show like that.



Maybe it's getting closer . . . Xena, Witchblade . . . maybe one of these days they won't get all coy and shy away from it.



--- KR

[Garner]

Pipsqueak, you are entirely right that we have not come very far in the way of truly integrating either gay characters or black ones. And I agree that there is a great tendency to turn any show with minorities in them prominently into a "minority" show. That is a shame. I also think it is even harder for the Hollywood to show gay men as opposed to women.



What I meant by having more gay characters in the background was that if we saw them there, as part of the normal, everyday background of life, just going about their business and such, and NOT a special occurence, that we might actually get a better sense that gays are part of the world we live in. They are there and there will be some we like and others we don't. Yes, a main character that just happens to be gay doing some other activity, be it Alias like, Cop like, Lawyer like or whatever, would be nice. Though gay issues would come up, they'd have to. Still, that IS something that is needed. On the other hand a lot of straight middle of the road people wouldn't watch it and in terms of increasing awareness that wouldn't necessarily help.



In the case of W/T they were more background than front and center and that certainly helped show that they were just like any other people. The great jobs by Aly and Amber didn't hurt, and even the writing was good in season 4-5. If we had more instances like this, like Susan and Carol on Friends or the couple on Mad About You, I think that would help quite a bit. If the only time you see lesbians and such is on their own show or when they are the "special" villains/criminals than that certainly won't help things.



In truth I think we need both. Gay main characters and others in the background. Like I said, something that simulates a more real life situation. Gays are everywhere. They SHOULD be like any other characters and not special guest stars all the time. And until this time comes, and more tolerance is achieved, I would never say job well done.



Garner

[justastraightdog]

I have problems to see Willow as a positive gay character in any way. For me, she's the perfect example of the evil lesbian cliché, and nothing else. No, she's not evil because she's a lesbian - that's the older shaping of the cliché, which has already done its job and established the connotation - she's a lesbian because she's evil. Think about the character of a successful business man who uses cocaine at a party. We don't need further information to know his decadence, his lack of morals, his capability to do evil. Because cocaine is a symbol for all this. And if it's a woman? Show her kissing another woman, that's all it needs. That's how the cliché has been used in "Basic Instinct" or for the alternate universe version of Kira in ST:DS9. But nowhere better than in "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer".



Willow always was meant to become evil. Her journey to the dark side was foreshadowed early on. We see the mechanism, when she uses powerful and dark magics in the season two finale. We see that it will change her core personality, when she loses her loyality and cheats on her boyfriend in the beginning of season three. And we see what will become of her, when she meets her "evil twin", her vampiric self in an episode entitled "Doppelgängland". And with vampWillow, we see the cliché in full blow. Now you may ask why the show used the cliché here as a symbol for evilness, when it should be sufficient to show Willow as a vampire. But all vampires are evil, they needed something to underline and intensify vampWillow's evilness, something to make her special. The famous Willow quote from this episode "I'm so evil and skanky and I think I'm kinda gay" isn't an enumeration, it's a comparative - the last thing is the worst Willow (and the author of the episode, who just happens to be the series' creator) can think of. And then we get the foreshadowing that not only vampWillow, but Willow herself is gay, and therewith, by the implied symbolism, evil.



About a season later, Willow's journey is finally set in motion, when her storyline starts to focus on developing and amplifying the mechanism of her downfall - her magic abilities. It's no coincidence that this is the very moment Willow actually becomes gay on the show. As it's no coincidence that the "I'm kinda gay" line is repeated right before the mechanism is finally established, by the re-interpretation of her use of magic as drug abuse (sic!). And it's no coincidence at all that Willow's lesbianism is reafirmed and - for the first time - depicted openly, without any metaphorical softening, right before we finally get to see evil Willow in full blow.



But Willow wasn't meant to stay evil, her redemption was also always a part of her storyline. And therefore it makes sense that Dark Magic Willow, the powerful and evil witch that has become of Willow, is defeated by some "I love you"s from a straight man. And not only that, it's most likely that she was meant to return to boystown in the seventh season. But the producers chickened out, which explains Willow's essential uselessness in season seven, the lack of meaning, the uneven, incomprehensible characterization and the storylines, which so obviously have been written on the fly. It will be interesting (but by no means entertaining) to see where the journey will end. Evil and therefore gay? Good, gay and therefore dead? Good, straight and therefore alive? Good, gay, alive but totally out of character? Who knows. Who cares? It's much too late for the show to twist any clichés.



Finally, let's have a look at Mutant Enemies relation to lesbian fans in connection with this storyline. It's very telling, to say the least. The company became gay-friendly the very moment they realized that they'd collected a big lesbian following, especially by providing a new home for the X:WP fans. They stayed gay-friendly because they needed this fanbase for their ratings, for the survival of the show and the company itself. They even postponed the end of the Willow/Tara storyline for a year because they loved and needed the ratings so much. The very moment when their survival didn't depend on BtVS anymore, but on the new multi-million dollar franchise "Firefly", they abruptly stopped being even anything near gay-friendly. And it's embarrassing and pitiful how they bone-throwingly tried to come back after Firefly went lost in space.

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Though here at journey's end I lie in darkness buried deep, beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.