Bitch Flicks – Page 10

‘Grace and Frankie’ and the Binary of Bisexual Erasure and Representation

What makes it even more exciting to me, as a queer woman, is that not only are we being treated to these stories of our elders but that queerness is acknowledged and exists amongst older people in this television series. … My one bone to pick with ‘Grace and Frankie,’ for all of my true and deep love, is the decision to make Sol and Robert come out as being gay after 40 years of consummated, loving marriage to their wives. Surely, there was a possibility they were in fact bisexual?

This guest post written by Leena van Deventer appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Advancing women’s representation in film and television is without a doubt a noble cause, as is improving the representation of many different marginalized groups. Our media should reflect the community the story is about, and our communities are full of people of different genders, races, ages, sizes, and sexual orientations. Failure to do so can contribute to the greater erasure, dehumanization, and intentional ignorance of a marginalized group’s existence, which can have devastating effects on marginalized folks in our society.

Cheers can be heard all through the internet every time a new movie is announced with a strong female character as the lead role. But those roles have changed over the last 20 or so years, and if we’re concerned with raising a generation of girls readying themselves for the coming feminist revolution, we need to consider whether we’re doing them a disservice by holding up this combat and conflict-driven Lone Wolf Badass as Finally The Female Character That Will Deliver Us From Evil and Seize the Means of Production While Looking Fabulous.

When I look back at the movies I held dear as a teen (no judgment okay), I’m reminded of The Craft, Thelma and Louise, Sister Act (1 & 2), A League of Their Own, Now and Then, or Steel Magnolias. A common thread through all of these stories was that of women’s friendship. These women knew they would live and die for each other; they knew they were better off together than alone. This has probably subconsciously affected my feminist practice, and influenced how much Molly Lambert’s article, “Can’t Be Tamed: A Manifesto,” resonated with me on a molecular level. It’s a tool of the patriarchy to convince women that women are their own worst enemies and can’t get along; it’s a radical act to actively push against that and love harder than you ever have before.

Imagine how much more Hermione Granger could have achieved if she had a Thelma to her Louise? A smart or brave or rough best friend who would do anything for her? What about Katniss Everdeen or Bella from Twilight? Who would they spend Galentine’s Day with? Who would die to protect her? While it’s inspiring to see badass women, like Rey, Furiosa, or possibly even a new Rocketeer (which is exciting as the sequel will star a Black woman), it’s easy to see the narrative being easily hijacked from women’s collective advancement to one of insular capitalist bootstrapping, a narrative which broadly prioritizes men (and stereotypically masculine qualities) over women. We shouldn’t be leaving a trail of bodies behind us, we should be amassing an army along the way.

The modern tale of female friendship I was looking for popped up in an unexpected place, to minimal fanfare, and has now officially taken up residence in a permanently rent-controlled corner of my heart. Netflix’s Grace and Frankie is a tale of female friendship and strength, with season two recently dropping and a third season on its way. It’s a tale of two septuagenarian women being bound together by adversity to find the good in each other and potentially resign to the fact that they may be the last great loves of their lives.

The first season introduced the main characters: Robert and Grace Hanson (played by Martin Sheen and Jane Fonda), and Sol and Frankie Bergstein (played by Sam Waterson and Lily Tomlin). These couples were brought together by Sol and Robert working together as partners in their law firm, and as such, both families spent a lot of time together over their 40 years of marriage, including their now adult children, who all have cousin-esque relationships with each other for the most part. They bought a shared beach house, which after Sol and Robert come clean that they have in fact been in love with each other for the last half of their marriages, becomes the primary residence of the now-displaced wives, Grace and Frankie.

Season one had many saccharine moments that I have no doubt turned a lot of people off continuing to watch, but Season two doesn’t make that same mistake. It’s sharper, wittier, and we get to see more of what makes these women tick. They know each other’s routines and quirks now, after living together for so long, and they’ve grown more fond of each other. What was once a one-dimensional joke about a control freak, push-your-feelings-down, Type A woman living with a pot-smoking, tie-dye wearing, hippie (Ho ho! The odd couple! What hijinks will ensue?) has now become less about how different the two women are and more about how they can parlay their respective strengths and weaknesses into finding a way to be there for each other no matter what.

Grace and Frankie understand the importance of banding together, and we see this in the episode where Grace catches up with some snooty country club friends after not being in contact since the break-up. The women scoff at what it must be like to live with a strange eccentric like Frankie, and Grace reminds them that she’s the only person who understands what this situation feels like, and the only person who reached out to help her, before telling them they’re assholes and leaving to go hang out with Frankie instead. The second season is underscored by a commitment between these two women; they will be there for each other to the end.

It’s thrilling for me to experience the stories of these women. As a 31-year-old woman, I cannot possibly comprehend what it would be like to lose a friend I’d loved deeply for 40 years. I was yelping and hooting and hollering at the closing scene, as Grace and Frankie walk in slow motion out of the house, onward to their new sex-toy-making empire that markets vibrators to older women (dishwasher-safe with large font instructions and comfortable grips to compensate for arthritis). We don’t hear these stories about older people enough.

What makes it even more exciting to me, as a queer woman, is that not only are we being treated to these stories of our elders but that queerness is acknowledged and exists amongst older people in this television series. Homophobia is so often linked with being old-fashioned; more prolific in previous generations. Queer stories of our elders are crucially important to our history, a sentiment further impressed upon me at the recent screening of Winter and Westbeth, a stunning and uplifting documentary about queer older people and the rich, full lives they led as artists in public housing in New York’s West Village. We need more older characters on-screen, especially LGBTQ people and people of color.

While we may be coming in leaps and bounds in terms of LGBTQ representation, I fear we still have a long way to go for equal acceptance for the “B” (and definitely the “T”) portions of that acronym. My one bone to pick with Grace and Frankie, for all of my true and deep love, is the decision to make Sol and Robert come out as being gay after 40 years of consummated, loving marriage to their wives. Surely, there was a possibility they were in fact bisexual? Was it because gay is easier for audiences to understand than “those confusing bisexuals”? Bisexual erasure frequently occurs in media and is common even within our own activist circles. People (even prominent LGBTQ activists) make biphobic comments about how bisexual teens are just confused; or bi people are promiscuous, greedy, and can’t be monogamous; or the very tired quip, “Bisexuality is just a truck stop on the road to gay,” as if bisexuality doesn’t exist and people must choose. So I can understand how difficult it can be for us who are bisexual to have some issues with representation when we struggle with representation in our very own dedicated spaces.

With a lack of bisexual characters in film and television and damaging tropes about bi people in media, it would have been great to see two bi men in Grace and Frankie, especially two older men. Bi men characters and queer characters who are older are both rarely depicted in film and television.

Because I do love the show so much, perhaps I would like to imagine the decision to make Sol and Robert gay as opposed to bisexual is because of the history of the (undeserving, cruel) association between bisexual people and infidelity, given that the men in this show engaged in a 20-year affair with each other. Perhaps co-creators Marta Kauffman (who has absolutely managed to inject more heart into this show than previous works such as Friends) and Howard J. Morris wanted to avoid contributing to that damaging stereotype? But that’s probably being too kind.

We have a long way to go with representation of all kinds: race, gender, age, size, disability, sexuality. We can get better at advancing this cause by being critical of the things we love. We can write as many strong female characters as we like in the hopes it will advance feminism, but a lone wolf isn’t going to get much done. We also need more female characters who aren’t just young, cis, straight, white women. We need to inspire girls by showing them inclusive representation and the power of women’s friendship, and we need to show them that those women can be of any age, and that strength isn’t always about picking up a bow or aiming the crosshairs at the bad guys. Sometimes it’s about holding your best friend’s hand while you do something scary.

Leena van Deventer is a game developer, writer, and educator from Melbourne, Australia. She has taught interactive storytelling at RMIT and Swinburne Universities and is co-author of Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the Fight for the Future of Videogames with Dan Golding for Affirm Press. You can find her on Twitter @LeenaVanD.

How ‘My Own Private Idaho’ Changed My Life as a Bisexual Man

The film never demonizes either Mike or Scott for their sexuality or their profession, which is great, but it also never feels the need to explain their sexuality. Maybe these characters haven’t quite figured it out yet. Maybe Mike is gay and maybe Scott is straight, or maybe they’re both bisexual, but from the film itself, it makes more sense to me to not label them. They simply fall somewhere on the wide spectrum of sexuality. You have no idea how important it is for me to see this on-screen.

This guest post written by Logan Kenny appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

My Own Private Idaho‘s Mike (River Phoenix) is always destined to end up in the same place. No matter where he goes, he will always end up on this deserted road in Idaho where the film begins. He can go anywhere in the world and he’ll end up back where he started, dealing with his thoughts, his fading memories, and his narcolepsy. This is his existence, almost the entirety of it: go somewhere, meet people, have sex, come back here. My Own Private Idaho is an almost aimless film, there is no traditional narrative and many scenes occur with no real sense or purpose. While there is sometimes the idea of a plot or narrative goal, the film isn’t really about that; instead, it’s a film about characters and how they live their lives, their circumstances, and the things that haunt them.

Mike is a hustler living on the streets, the cities change but that stays the same. He’s a drifter and a sex worker. His narcolepsy affects every part of his existence: frequently when he engages in sexual acts, his body shakes and he falls to the ground. Mike is haunted by his past, often having flashbacks: visions of a house crashing down onto the road and smashing completely; the same woman is always there, looking at him; so close yet not there. Mike stands on a road in Idaho and collapses. The film then cuts to Seattle where Mike receives oral sex from a male client. The film doesn’t show how Mike ended up here, it doesn’t matter; he’s here now and won’t be for long. He engages with a few clients before ending up with a wealthy woman (Grace Zabriskie). His friend Scott (Keanu Reeves) and acquaintance Gary (Rodney Harvey) are there as well. Scott is Mike’s best friend, the man who carries him when he loses consciousness, holds him when he cries, and who never seems to fail to make Mike a bit happier. This journey is as much Scott’s as it is Mike’s. These two are connected under the same circumstances, yet different reasons have brought them together.

Mike has no other way to make money. He has a dysfunctional relationship with his father and is haunted by his mother leaving him. The family collapsing, the house falling down and breaking apart. Scott is here to kill time. He has sex with men for money not because he needs it but because the prospect of living like Mike thrills him. Scott lives on the streets and drifts from place to place in order to experience life. He’s a rich kid, the son of a mayor. This existence is merely temporary for Scott. He does seem to genuinely care about Mike though, their relationship is extremely strong and he’s willing to do a lot for his friend. Mike is quite awkward and reluctant to truly be himself. He doesn’t really interact well with many people apart from Scott. In certain scenes, Mike only starts speaking loudly because Scott did first. Scott is the opposite, as he’s immensely charismatic and outspoken. He can interact with seemingly anyone and his charm benefits him especially in sexual situations.

Whenever Mike has a narcoleptic attack, My Own Private Idaho either shows Scott or someone else deal with the situation, or the film cuts to a title screen, stating the name of their current location. This is a film about a journey yet we never really get to witness it. The audience experiences snippets, tiny fractions of the characters’ lives, which is perfect because this film works much better without a conventional narrative and character arcs. Some characters do achieve proper resolution by the film’s end, this chapter of their lives has concluded and the next one shall begin. Other characters will continue meandering through life, destined for nothing but to repeat the same cycle over and over. This sounds really bleak, and it certainly is, but it’s not nihilistic. It’s a remarkably human film where every character, whether likable or not, feels alive and three-dimensional. Mike and Scott are sympathetic people, you grow to care about both of them. You form a real connection with the two of them as the film progresses, which makes the overall bleakness of the film much more genuinely affecting.

The acting is incredible, especially by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves. One of the most powerful moments in My Own Private Idaho — which is amplified considering that Phoenix died not long after — is the scene where Mike and Scott ride through Portland on a motorbike. When they stop at a red light, they start talking about how long they’ve driven down the street and how long they’ve known each other. Then Scott says, “We’re still alive,” and my heart shatters every time I hear that line. Phoenix is revelatory throughout; this is a star-making performance. He captures vulnerability better than most actors ever could and conveys so much emotional range. Keanu is also brilliant, showcasing so much power as an actor at such a young age. There are frequent shots of just his face which are some of the most poignant moments of the film. He is far more subtle than Phoenix but his approach is just as wonderful.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that about a third of it is based on William Shakespeare’s Henry V, along with Shakespeare inspired dialogue. These scenes all take place in Portland, where Scott’s father is the mayor. Every scene with Bob Pigeon (William Richert), the middle-aged leader of the men on the street, is presented with long speeches, using certain phrases and language that wouldn’t commonly be used in the time period of the film. This adds to the overall strangeness of the film’s universe, that this world on the street is unlike anywhere else. This reality is different, this place changes people; even the mayor talks in this style of speech. The entire city is a surreal descent into another existence: an existence of depravity, robbery, sex, infrequent drug use, and long soliloquies. These scenes all feel disjointed, almost as if they don’t belong, but in a good way. The film’s tone is often bizarre, to say the least. There is a scene where Mike and Scott are represented as talking models in magazine covers which remarkably manages to be weirder than it sounds. A lot of the imagery in flashbacks and several supporting characters also contribute to the film’s surrealistic tone.

Nearly halfway through the film, a template of a plot is introduced. There is a narrative guide, motivations for the characters, and an actual destination. Mike wants to find his mother and Scott accompanies him in this journey. Yet, this doesn’t really feel like the focus of the film. Mike’s mother is crucial to the story because of her absence. His memories of her are hazy at best and it seems that he wants to find her in order to fix himself: not the narcolepsy, but rather his sense of aimlessness. My Own Private Idaho has no interest in making this a sentimental experience nor does it want to make it like any other cinematic journey. The addition of an admittedly bare-bones plot doesn’t really change the film thematically and is clearly designed to further develop and portray the main characters. The events that take place during Mike and Scott’s travels are without a doubt some of the best sequences in film, especially the campfire scene which I won’t spoil. It’s melancholic throughout and from this point onward, becomes increasingly pensive and poignant. The last 20 minutes are flawless and the ending is perfect. When the end credits roll, I always think that it is one of the best films ever made. I love it so much.

I’m discussing this film thematically because its themes are so central to its portrayal of sexuality, or more specifically, its lack of definition of the sexuality of its protagonists. Mike is clearly attracted to men and it’s never expressly stated that he is attracted to women. But Scott is clearly attracted to women but also has sexual interactions with men for money. My belief is that neither Mike or Scott are gay or straight but both fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t think I can specifically call either of them bisexual or pansexual, since sexuality is very hard for some to define, especially if we aren’t given explicit self-identification or clear insight into their sexual orientations. The film never demonizes either Mike or Scott for their sexuality or their profession, which is great, but it also never feels the need to explain their sexuality. Maybe these characters haven’t quite figured it out yet. Maybe Mike is gay and maybe Scott is straight, or maybe they’re both bisexual, but from the film itself, it makes more sense to me to not label them. They simply fall somewhere on the wide spectrum of sexuality. You have no idea how important it is for me to see this on-screen.

I’m a bisexual man. I realized I was bi earlier this year. I haven’t known who I really am for very long and since I’m young, I still have a lot to learn about myself. The first time I watched My Own Private Idaho was the first time I felt like I wasn’t straight. It kick-started my awakening sexuality, the first step of many in realizing who I truly am. It was the first time I felt sexual desires towards men and for a couple weeks, I thought that I could be gay since I thought like this. Then I realized that I was attracted to both women and men and I didn’t have to choose; I could be attracted to both and that would be okay. I came out to my parents, a lot of my friends, and my girlfriend. This film changed everything about my life, nothing was the same for me after watching.

Rewatching the film means even more to me as a bi man because of how it portrays sexuality, something that passed me by the first time. I started to notice so much more and I cried a lot. That’s okay though because this film means more to me than I can ever fully describe. We need more films with the sexual representation of My Own Private Idaho so that other queer kids like me can figure out who they really are. It is truly a spectacular piece of work.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

A Place to Call Home: The Search for Love and Identity in My Own Private Idaho

Logan Kenny is a bisexual man with autism. He has an obsessive love of movies and music. He frequently rambles about lots of trivial things. You can follow him on Twitter @LoganKenny1.

‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Gets Bisexual Representation Right

The musical sitcom shows the gradual development of a male bisexual character, who willfully rejects bi stereotypes to the point of addressing them in song and dance. And for anyone who cares about bisexual representation on-screen, it is magnificent. … The image of a bi character both confident in his identity and committed to addressing biphobic stereotypes — not to mention the incredible catchiness of the tune — is deeply satisfying.

This guest post written by Alex Kittle appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Rachel Bloom’s risky, groundbreaking, Emmy-winning musical sitcom Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is often (and rightfully) praised for its focus on a protagonist with mental illness, depicting the ins and outs of anxiety and depression with frankness, compassion, and humor (despite the series’ ableist title). What might be equally significant for some viewers is the gradual development of a male bisexual character, who willfully rejects bi stereotypes to the point of addressing them in song and dance. And for anyone who cares about bisexual representation on-screen, it is magnificent.

In the pilot, Darryl Whitefeather (played by Pete Gardner) is introduced as a fairly flat supporting character: our protagonist’s new boss and something of a walking punchline. Rebecca (Rachel Bloom), a well-educated but emotionally precarious lawyer, takes a job at Whitefeather & Associates as an excuse to move to West Covina, CA, where her first love Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) just happens to live. Though his name is on the letterhead, Darryl doesn’t seem to have much authority or confidence, and he is ecstatic that a well-respected New York lawyer like Rebecca would deign to join his firm. He immediately overshares about his pending divorce as well as his Native American heritage (1/8 Chippewa), while managing to embarrass himself in front of his new Jewish employee with an anti-Semitic remark. It feels like the show is setting him up as a kind of Michael Scott-esque character, a floundering, ineffectual, ignorant boss who talks too much and is overly self-involved.

As the season progresses he becomes more fleshed out, more sympathetic, and more likable. We see that the most important thing in his life is his young daughter, of whom he is considered the “primary parent,” as he argues for custody during his divorce. His first song is a country-western parody about his love for her, which jokingly reveals how easy it is for for declarations of fatherly affection to sound, well, icky. Darryl is shown as unabashedly emotional and loving, setting him apart early on from the other men in the show who exhibit more traditionally “masculine” traits.

But Darryl’s sexuality is never a question until he meets Josh “White Josh” Wilson (David Hull), a handsome, good-natured trainer and one of Josh Chan’s best friends. They meet on a party bus rented by Rebecca for a Josh Chan-related scheme, and immediately separate themselves from the drama, bonding over fitness talk. Some time later, feeling lonely and out of sorts while his daughter is away, Darryl throws a party for Josh and some of his friends. After staying to help him clean up, Josh kisses Darryl goodbye, igniting a chain reaction of self-discovery. He finds out Josh is gay and that Josh had assumed he was gay (he picked up “the gay vibe”), but Darryl reacts defensively, asserting that he is attracted to women, was married to a woman, and had a child with a woman. Josh assumes he’s in denial but doesn’t push it.

Still clearly unsure about whatever feelings Josh seems to have stirred within him, Darryl has a sudden realization during dance class, as he appreciatively eyes the backsides of both a man and woman in front of him: he is attracted to both! Thrilled that it all makes sense, he rushes to come out to Josh, but is nervous about embarking publicly in a same-sex relationship. Josh — who has been out since he was a tween — has no desire to hide any of his relationships from others. After wrestling with it, Darryl realizes he was wrong in trying to keep it secret, and that he is ready to be an out bisexual as he re-enters the dating pool. Over the rest of the season, they gradually become the most stable, uncomplicated relationship on the show, spending the finale together at the climactic wedding, proudly wearing matching tuxedos and seeming comfortable both with each other and with anyone else who might see them.

In the episode “Josh is Going to Hawaii!,” Darryl comes out to his staff through a Huey Lewis-inspired musical number, in what is to me one of the most important and enjoyable segments of the entire first season of this series. With candy-colored lighting, multiple popped collars, and a heaping dose of saxophone, he sings his way through the simple facts of bisexuality, the unfair stereotyping associated with it, and the excitement of coming out. With the through-line “I’m g-g-g-g-gettin’ bi,” lyrics include: “Now some may say / Are you just gay? / Why don’t you just go gay all the way? / But that’s not it / ‘Cause bi’s legit!”; “I tell you what / Being bi does not imply / That you’re a ‘player’ or a ‘slut’”; “It’s not a phase / I’m not confused / Not indecisive / I don’t have the gotta-choose blues”; and of course, the soon-to-be-classic, “It doesn’t take an intellectual / To get that I’m bisexual.”

Darryl dances and bounds around the meeting room as well as an imaginary stage, relieved upon having this realization about himself and gleeful about sharing it with others. The image of a bi character both confident in his identity and committed to addressing biphobic stereotypes — not to mention the incredible catchiness of the tune — is deeply satisfying. And revealing the mixture of support and disinterest from his friends and coworkers imagines a possible future where people are accepting of different sexual orientations, while not being fixated on them. As one of his staff points out, the weirdest thing about their boss coming out is that he called a meeting just to tell everyone in the office that.

Bi characters are already less common in film and television, and when they do show up, they are often predatory, overly sexualized, or “going through a phase.” In many cases, the term “bisexual” (or pansexual or any of the concept’s variants) may never even be used, erasing the identity altogether by refusing to name it. One common experience I’ve observed among many bisexual people is that the lack of media representation led to some confusion while growing up, questioning the validity of the identity, and struggling to come to terms with what it means and how it fits into the larger queer community. Can I say I’m bisexual if I’m not fully sure of my preference? If I haven’t dated anyone? If I’ve only dated one gender? If I’m in a serious male/female relationship? Could this be a phase? Do I have to pick a side?

Today, more and more visible celebrities are coming out as bi, and that’s fantastic, but it is still crucial for popular media to positively depict bi characters and give them their own stories. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend not only names it, but celebrates and nurtures it, developing Darryl’s subplot across several episodes as he moves from being in a monogamous “straight” relationship in which he was unhappy for years, to recognizing his own preferences and finding acceptance from both self and others. By the season one finale, he is even given the possibility of a happy (and adorable) ending, and I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

Alex Kittle is an artist, writer, retail buyer, and curator who lives and works in the Boston area. She is passionate about many things, including horror movies, 80s new wave, feminist art history, crossword puzzles, and science-fiction. You can find her at almost any given time of day hanging out on Twitter @alexxkittle.

‘The O.C.’s Alex Kelly Deserved Better; All Bisexual Characters Do

I’ve had countless conversations with other queer women who had similar awakenings in 2004, when Alex Kelly burst onto our TV screens and shook up the Orange County. But upon subsequent re-watches, I’ve been forced to notice that Alex’s storyline isn’t the empowering queer narrative I remembered. For one thing, all of her romantic interests take advantage of her and use her for personal gain.

This guest post written by Kate Sloan appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

The first time Olivia Wilde’s character Alex Kelly appears on-screen in The O.C., protagonist Seth (Adam Brody) creeps up behind her while she’s wearing headphones. Startled, she traps him in a headlock. “Touch me again, I’ll hurt you,” she promises. But actually, it’s Alex who ends up getting hurt, over and over again, by every character she gets close to. She enters the television show tough and fighting, and leaves it heartbroken and crying. She’s used, thrown aside, and objectified. I want better for Alex, because she deserves it, and I want better for every other bisexual character, too.

Alex is introduced in season two of The O.C. as a love interest for Seth Cohen, the show’s awkward, geeky, self-absorbed antihero. Seth needs tickets to a sold-out concert to impress his ex-girlfriend Summer (Rachel Bilson), so he shows up at music venue the Bait Shop to try to weasel his way into the show. There, he finds Alex, the Bait Shop’s bartender and de facto manager. To get the tickets, he applies to work at the club as a janitor, and she hires him. But as is always the way with drama-soaked soap operas like The O.C., their professional relationship quickly becomes more than that.

Alex is everything the show’s spoiled protagonists are not (with the exception of “beautiful,” because everyone on this show is beautiful). Her blue-streaked blonde hair, tough tattoos, and rock-’n’-roll fashion sense make her stick out like a cactus spike amongst all the wealthy girl-next-door types in the cast. By the age of 17, we learn, Alex has been expelled from three different high schools for misbehaving, and her parents kicked her out when they discovered she was dating a girl. But she petitioned the court for emancipation, successfully escaped her parents, got the Bait Shop job, and moved into her own apartment. She’s doing well; she’s happy. At least, until Seth and his friends enter her life.

I’m enormously sentimental about The O.C. It was formative viewing for me at the tender age of 12, when the openly bisexual Alex made me realize that I, too, might be queer. I devoured each new episode with rabid enthusiasm, and pored over Alex-related fanfiction, LiveJournal discussions, and screencaps. She was tenacious and bold, but also feminine and sweet. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to make out with her, be her best friend, or be her. I’ve had countless conversations with other queer women who had similar awakenings in 2004, when Alex Kelly burst onto our TV screens and shook up the Orange County.

But upon subsequent re-watches, I’ve been forced to notice that Alex’s storyline isn’t the empowering queer narrative I remembered.

For one thing, all of her romantic interests take advantage of her and use her for personal gain. Seth, the cute dweeb she starts dating shortly after she hires him to clean her club’s toilets, just wants her so he can make his ex-girlfriend jealous: he brags about her in front of Summer. He consistently fetishizes her rebelliousness and queerness, talking about her like her tattoos, underage alcohol consumption, and sexual encounters with other girls are the most interesting things about her. He eventually breaks up with her because he says her too-cool persona is an “act,” a “crutch,” when in fact it seems to be the only thing that drew him to her in the first place.

From the ashes of her romance with Seth, Alex falls into a fling with Marissa (Mischa Barton), the show’s beautiful, rich, vapid female lead. Marissa’s spent the entire series rebelling against her mom, whom she hates. Earlier in the season, Marissa dates her family’s hot gardener, intentionally inciting her mother’s classist rage by mingling with such an undesirable person. “I’m not saying you didn’t like me,” he says when he breaks up with her, “just not as much as you hate [your mom].” But just a few episodes later, Marissa’s pulling the exact same trick again, by dating someone who’s not only working-class but also (gasp!) a girl.

To the credit of actors Olivia Wilde and Mischa Barton, their courtship is portrayed with an authenticity and vulnerability that the writing lacks. There’s one memorable episode where Alex’s vindictive ex makes off with her favorite heart-shaped necklace and Marissa accompanies her on a road trip to recover it. “You can’t let her steal your heart,” Marissa says, and the look they share is meant to be smoldering but comes across as sweet. It’s an emotional closeness I recognize from my own exciting initial forays into queer romance.

It’s heartbreaking for both Alex and the viewer, then, when Marissa gets overwhelmed by the social stigma of dating a girl and runs back into the arms of her safe ex-boyfriend. “I didn’t ask you to give up your life,” Alex pleads during their break-up scene, “All I ever wanted was to be a part of it.” For the remainder of the show’s four-season run, there were no further indications that Marissa actually liked women or identified as anything other than straight. She tried on bisexuality, and Alex, like a Marc Jacobs trench coat, before deciding it was so last season and she didn’t want it after all. And Alex disappeared from the show, just a footnote in the lives of the characters who had walked all over her.

Because of the sweet and brave way Olivia Wilde played her, I love Alex. I want a different outcome for her every time I rewatch her plot arc, but she always gets pigeonholed and mistreated in the end. I want her to be more than a “sweeps-week lesbian”; I want the other characters to appreciate her for qualities other than her aesthetic and her sex life; I want the show’s creator to have thought of her as more than just a punchline for the male lead. Josh Schwartz has written other queer characters whose storylines were meaningful and defied stereotypes: Eric van der Woodsen and Jonathan Whitney in Gossip Girl, and even another character from earlier in The O.C.’s run: Carson Ward. Why can’t he seem to craft a female queer character who isn’t a mishmash of stereotypes, objectification, and sad endings?

Call me a sap if you will, but I want a better outcome for Marissa, too. Actual queer women know how life-changing it is to fall for another woman for the first time. You don’t just dust yourself off and go back to a fancy-free life of shopping, lounging by the pool, and dating exclusively boys after a breakthrough like that. I want a Marissa whose queer identity matters to her, informs her decisions, or at least brings up some big questions for her. I don’t want it swept under the rug as soon as the “lesbian storyline” is wrapped up.

Bisexual characters shouldn’t be props, caricatures, or Manic Pixie Dream Girls. They deserve better than that. Bisexual people deserve better than that.

Kate Sloan’s writing on sex, kink, and feminism has appeared in The Establishment, The Plaid Zebra, Maisonneuve, Herizons, and her blog. You can follow her on Twitter @Girly_Juice and Instagram, and subscribe to her podcast for sex nerds, The Dildorks, on iTunes. Kate lives in Toronto and spends her free time playing the ukulele, curating her impeccable sex toy collection, and swooning over Olivia Wilde.

Biphobia in ‘Basic Instinct’

The film is extremely biphobic and includes many of the most negative stereotypes about bisexuality, particularly in terms of bisexual women… ‘Basic Instinct’ manages to have not one but three queer women characters, including two canonically bisexual ones, and they all are written as stereotypes.

This guest post written by L.M. Zoller appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger warning: discussions of biphobia and mentions of sexual violence.]

Director Paul Verhoeven desperately wants Basic Instinct to be an updated Hitchcock classic (not that Hitchcock was so great on the “evil queer” angle either), taking the psychosexual element to the MPAA limit for 1991, but he clearly forgot that biphobia and “edgy” sex scenes make for a terrible thriller. The film is extremely biphobic and includes many of the most negative stereotypes about bisexuality, particularly in terms of bisexual women: that bisexuality is fake, particularly in the sense of heteronormativity and sapphophobia; conflating bisexuality with mental illness; that queer women exist for the male gaze; and the idea that queer women “recruit” straight women. All this, and the word “bisexual” is never even uttered once.

At the beginning of the film, Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) has been called in to investigate the murder of aging rock star Johnny Boz, whom we see being tied to a bed and stabbed to death with an ice pick by a blonde woman whose face we never see. The primary suspect is Boz’s eventual girlfriend Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), a novelist who writes murder mysteries; her latest novel was about an aging rock star murdered in the exact fashion Boz was. Nick falls into instant lust with Catherine but isn’t sure if she’s the killer; Catherine decides to write a book about Nick, about “a detective who falls in love with the wrong woman.”

One of the issues with queer representation in media is that tokenism creates the burden of representation: the one character must then represent all of queerdom — and none of its intersections or the diversity of LGBTQIA+ experiences. Thus, including more queer characters ought to offset the burden and allow the creators to show a diversity of personalities, gender expressions, and lived experiences, as well as intersections with socioeconomic status, race, ability, etc. Basic Instinct manages to have not one but three queer women characters, including two canonically bisexual ones, and they all are written as stereotypes.

The queer community protested the film in 1991-2 during the filming and release for exactly this reason. In the article “Homosexuals In Film: The Controversy Gay Activists Say ‘Basic Instinct,’ Opening Friday, Is A Perfect Example Of What Is Wrong With Hollywood’s Vision,” journalist and film critic Lewis Beale collected the same comments from activists that we’re still making in 2016 regarding better representation of queer characters, especially non-monosexual and trans characters:

“There has been a nonstop, decades-long portrayal of gays as psychopaths, sociopaths and screaming queens,” says Robert Bray of the Washington-based National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. “I don’t mind a gay villain or two, but I also wouldn’t mind a gay or lesbian hero. No one is calling for cultural censorship, but we are asking for diverse representations.”

….As Leonard Maltin, the film historian who appears on Entertainment Tonight, puts it: “If gays are frequently portrayed on film, then the fact that some are villains isn’t going to matter. But when you see them infrequently, then each portrayal carries a disproportionate amount of weight with the audience.”

(Please note that some of the language in this article, including quotes by activists, does not include the term bisexual.)

Catherine Trammel is a bisexual, polyamorous, possibly aromantic novelist who specializes in murder mysteries that happen to come true. Let me be clear that this film does not paint Catherine as the hero or even the anti-hero, but rather as a hypersexualized sociopath. The detectives are incredulous that she wasn’t in love with Johnny Boz but had a long-term sexual relationship with him, which she initiated to write her novel and maintained because she enjoyed sex with him. Catherine is supposed to have this cat-and-mouse sexual tension with Nick, but it rings false: she actually seems to be calling him out on his heterosexism by talking back to him. However, because the film conflates bisexuality with psychopathy, her flippant remarks to Nick Carran are supposed to be interpreted as the evil queer woman using her sexuality to goad the heroic everyman character into ruining his life for her. For example, when Nick announces that the sex they just had — exceedingly heteronormative fare other than the fact she ties him up like Boz — was the “fuck of the century,” Catherine laughs at him and says it was “a pretty good start.” He thinks he’s God’s gift to women; she’s clear with him several times that their relationship is a means for her to write her detective novel.

Catherine’s refusal to even acknowledge Nick’s puffed-up male-privilege-steeped ego enters into both of their relationships with the second queer character in the film, Roxy (Leilani Sarelle). Roxy is Catherine’s girlfriend; she is only shown as Catherine’s partner and barely has any lines at all, so it’s unclear if she is also bisexual or if she identifies as a lesbian. Roxy is portrayed as a tomboy femme and a different stereotype — the jealous lover who is ousted by a straight man. In the scene prior to the sex scene, Nick picks up Catherine in a club. Everyone looks fabulous and fierce, especially Roxy and Catherine; Nick walks in wearing a dad sweater and jeans. Catherine picks him to go home with instead of Roxy in what feels like a heavy-handed metaphor for compulsory heterosexuality. He merely has to show up and ham-fistedly grab her butt for her to be more interested in him than in Roxy.

When Roxy confronts Nick in the bathroom after Catherine and Nick have had sex, Roxy claims Catherine likes her to watch her have sex; when Catherine confirms that Roxy likes to watch, the following exchange happens:

Nick: I guess Roxy’s not taking this too well.
Catherine: She’s seen me fuck plenty of guys.
Nick: Well, maybe she saw something she’s never seen before.
Catherine: She’s seen everything before.
Nick: Honey, I thought I’d seen everything before.
Catherine: Did you really think it was so special?

Catherine rebukes him at every turn about her relationship with Roxy; Nick continues to mansplain her own relationship to her. However, Roxy really is angry with him and tries to run him over with her car as he exits a bar. He chases her in his car, eventually running her off the road, and killing her in a classic case of dead lesbian/bisexual syndrome. She never got jealous about other men, according to Catherine, but Nick is so special that apparently she has to murder him, picking up the tropes of jealous partner, murderous queer woman, and angry (soft) butch all in one go.

The final queer woman character is Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who fulfills the stereotype of a straight woman “recruited” by (murderous) queer women or the murderous closet case. Beth is a psychologist working with the San Francisco Police and acting as Nick’s psychologist after an incident where he shot several tourists by accident. She slept with Catherine in college; she had a relationship with Nick and used to be married to another man; a former acquaintance tells Nick that Beth’s marriage dissolved because she had a girlfriend. However, when Nick questions her about sleeping with Catherine, Beth claims that she isn’t queer: “Hey, guys, I’m not gay, but I did fuck your suspect? I was experimenting; it was the only time I’ve been with a woman.” Immediately after, she says, “She’s really sick you know,” and claims that Catherine was stalking her in college, which counters Catherine’s claim that Beth was obsessed with her.

Of course, Beth’s fear of being out at work or being connected to the suspect isn’t unmerited. Whereas Catherine, a mystery writer, remains unaffected in her career by her sexuality and sexual history, Beth might not be taken seriously as a psychologist or in law enforcement if she were out as bisexual, and coming out to a room full of men who can barely understand a woman having sex for pleasure seems like a nightmare. Instead of using this plot line as a vehicle to discuss bi erasure, the need for LGBTQIA-inclusive ENDA or anti-oppression training, or the concept of bisexuality as who you are, not whom you’re with, the film just conflates her sexuality with psychopathy. She and Catherine both accuse each other of stalking, and Beth is later revealed or framed (?) as the murderer. Like Roxy, Beth is also killed by Nick, who shoots her because he thinks she has a weapon.

Throughout this whole film, no one ever says the word bisexual. Catherine doesn’t discuss her sexuality at all but discusses past and present partners of same and different genders without hesitation. Roxy barely gets to speak, let alone discuss her sexual orientation. Beth claims not to be “gay” (which could be read as either a 90s umbrella term or as lesbian-identified/monosexual). The lack of inclusion of the term is just the cherry on the biphobia sundae that is Basic Instinct.

It’s also important to note that of the three women, only Catherine survives. Are both Roxy and Beth dead because they refused to do what Nick, the cishet man, wanted? Or, if the film is actually Catherine’s novel Shooter, did she or Nick tack on the “happy ending” at his request instead of having the “wrong woman” murder him?

Nick is a biphobic, mansplaining rapist (trigger warning: there is a scene in which Nick and Beth are having consensual sex where she tells him to stop and he doesn’t) with an inflated ego and anger management issues who is decidedly not redeemed in the narrative of the film. While he had tried to redeem himself after committing violence prior to the start of the film, he got sober but didn’t work on any of his numerous issues with male privilege, rape culture, or monosexism. From a bisexual lens, the element of horror in this film is not that Catherine or Beth might be a murderer, but that Nick is supposed to be the hero.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

The Trope of the Murderous Bisexual Woman

L.M. Zoller is a genderqueer bisexual writer living in Seattle. Ze write the blogs I’ll Make It Myself!, about food and gender, and The Lobster Dance, a blog about about geekery and gender, featuring the annual Feminist Halloween series and The Non-Binary Book Club. Zir work has been published in Render: Food and Culture Quarterly (forthcoming Fall 2016), Feministe, and Have You Nerd?.

If It Were, We’d be Dating: The Tale of Brittany and Bisexuality on ‘Glee’

Brittany’s sexuality, while never explicitly stated by the character as bisexual, goes unconcealed for the most part because the ‘Glee’ audience is led to believe that she doesn’t have much agency over her own personal life. … Sure, ‘Glee’ might be one of the only shows on television to use the word bisexual to describe a character, but all the biphobia it exhibits sort of nullifies that progress.

This guest post written by Shira Feder appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

“Sex is not dating,” Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera), the outspoken Latina cheerleader, announces. It is season one, episode thirteen of Glee, the newest hit teen show to grace America’s television sets, and millions of people are watching.

“If it were, Santana and I would be dating,” parries Brittany S. Pierce (Heather Morris). An unquantifiable number of interested audiences lean forward, crane their heads. Did she really just say that? Yes, Brittany did, and thus the romance between goofy, purportedly bisexual Brittany Pierce and self-proclaimed “bitch” with a heart of gold, Latina lesbian Santana Lopez would go on to catalyze some of Glee’s highest highs and lowest lows.

TV isn’t created in a vacuum. Today more than ever, fan influence has planted itself inside the writers room. Brittany’s throwaway joke inspired interested fans in what was potentially Glee’s first Sapphic coupling. Fans rallied themselves in endorsement of the couple, but had to wait until season two, episode four, to see any intimacy between the two, presented in the form of neck nuzzling because on-camera kissing may have been “too scandalous” for a family show.

“Bisexual’s a term that gay guys in high school use when they wanna hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change,” Kurt tells the undecided Blaine in season two, episode fourteen. While Kurt’s comment could have been further explored, it’s not; it’s a stance of bi erasure, and one that remains firmly in place amongst the series’ ideologies, right between “The show must go on!” and “80% of screen time is reserved for heterosexual couples.”

Brittany’s sexuality, while never explicitly stated by the character as bisexual, goes unconcealed for the most part because the Glee audience is led to believe that she doesn’t have much agency over her own personal life. The folks behind Glee, Ryan Murphy and company, have never known quite what to do with Brittany. Her character fluctuates from being an infantilized teen who believes in magic combs and allows Santana to manipulate her into sex — which reinforces rape culture and plays into the ugly underpinnings of stereotypes, all of them involving the myth of the voracious lesbian who preys on innocent straight girls — to a Mensa-accepted mathematical genius. The implication that Brittany is flighty or vapid thus “excuses” her bisexuality by the show’s terms because she is not fully aware of what she is doing, bouncing from one person to the next. Various writers and critics have even questioned her ability to even consent to sex after exhibiting such childlike tendencies. So, the only known bisexual character on Glee is not exactly drowning in self-awareness, making this already lukewarm support of bisexuality even less encouraging than it could (or should) be. Then again, this is Glee; if you’re not insulted by something the series does, you aren’t paying attention.

In season four, episode nine, Brittany tells Sam she cannot date him because she is worried the lesbians of the nation will harass him:

“It’s like, all the lesbians of the nation, and I don’t know how they found out about Santana and I dating, but once they did, they started sending me, like, tweets and Facebook messages on Lord Tubbington’s wall. I think it means a lot to them to see two super hot, popular girls in love, and I worry if they find out about you and I dating that they’ll turn on you and get really violent and hurt your beautiful face and mouth.”

In trying to prevent fan backlash by acknowledging it, the writers instead managed to alienate a diverse fanbase, by refusing to even mention bisexuality. The preemptive assumption in these lines, that Brittany and Santana’s relationship is only for the “lesbians of the nation,” thereby excluding any other sexualities, ignores the variety of different “Brittana” fans who exist that might have been proud to see a fellow bisexual person on-screen. The writers should’ve known better than to alienate their fanbase by defensively accusing them of caring too much, immediately followed by the threat of violence. Brittany’s confusing response, where she doesn’t mention her own sexual orientation and instead speaks in vague terms about lesbians, presents Glee’s lack of clarity on sexual fluidity.

The other narrow-minded conjecture here is that lesbians in the audience will be actively upset that Brittany is not dating another girl because of the television fallacy that bisexual people “become straight” when they are dating someone of the opposite gender. The so called “lesbians of the nation” were not angry about Sam; they were concerned about the possibility of Glee reinventing Brittany’s character as someone who experimented in high school, as character continuity was never Glee’s strong suit. They’re angry about being insulted in a tossed off meta-reference reducing their valid emotions and opinions about representation into a punchline. There is definitely an interesting argument to make against fan entitlement, but it doesn’t belong here.

The lesbian anger that erupted because of Brittany’s line seemed to be less about Brit moving on with Sam and more about the fact that their new relationship was given more airtime than Brittany and Santana’s relationship ever was. Brittany being with Sam doesn’t dilute her bisexuality, yet by the narrow binary Glee created, it does. “But she was bi!” protests Sam about Brittany in this same episode, as though being bisexual precludes him from ever being able to think of Brittany romantically. When Brittany finally decides Sam is too hilarious to let go, Brittany tells a worried Sam that the lesbian blogger community is “not gonna like it, but the way I figure is that, they know they’re my sisters, and love is love.”

Using the phrase “love is love” is a pretty interesting word choice here, considering that exact phrase was used as a campaign tool during the marriage equality fight to legalize same-sex marriages in the U.S. The phrase was used to appeal to the straight majority of Americans by showing them how “normal” LGBTQ people are, that queer people are capable of love and monogamy just like straight people and they wanted access to the same rights as everyone else. Using this queer-coded terminology here, after railing against the lesbian blogger community, is an odd choice to defend a relationship that passes as heterosexual.

In season five, episode two, long after the couple has broken up, Santana says about her new lesbian girlfriend:

“Isn’t it amazing how life seems so easy when you just don’t give a fart? I mean, look at this: Hummel is getting married, Berry is just full of confidence, and I finally have a girlfriend who I don’t have to worry about straying for penis.”

Now, this is Brittany who Santana is referencing. This is the girl who worshiped and protected Santana, who took awhile to even think about another person after Santana broke up with her. This biphobic line furthers the trope of the promiscuous bisexual. Santana says this in front of people who knew her and Brittany in high school and were aware of how sacred Brittany saw their relationship. Santana’s “hilarious” zinger goes unchallenged, even though it flies in the face of every minute of character development we’ve previously seen from both Brittany and Santana, painting Brittany as sexually rapacious and Santana as the self righteous, biphobic lesbian. Sure, Glee might be one of the only shows on television to use the word bisexual to describe a character, but all the biphobia it exhibits sort of nullifies that progress.

It wasn’t just the show’s writing that confused viewers; its personal politics were often drawn into question as well. The actors involved ventured into perilous territory when discussing the two girls. Chris Colfer, who played Kurt Hummel, said in an AfterEllen interview: “Maybe Brittany and Santana are just so sexual they don’t know how to have a relationship with anyone that isn’t sexual.” This is an unfortunate statement that pushes the damaging stereotype of the predatory, promiscuous bisexual.

When asked in an interview with The Advocate about the possibility of an on-screen kiss between the girls, Heather Morris said, “I don’t think so. I asked Ryan [Murphy] about that and he said there was no way. He said that since we’re a prime-time television show, he didn’t want to do that.” Brittany had already been filmed kissing a member of the opposite sex. The abundance of screen time Brittany was given when in a heterosexually passing relationship (with Sam and Artie) only complicates the fraught relationship Glee has with representation, walking a fine line between being a “family-friendly show” (as if somehow LGBTQ characters and their relationships aren’t family-friendly) and a television series that is a safe haven for the misunderstood and marginalized.

In season six of Glee, Brittany and Santana reunite. They get their own happily ever after episode, complete with two wedding dresses and talks of forever. They shared more on-screen kisses in season six than any other season, which perhaps has something to do with the fact that this is the disgraced Glee’s final swan song, in a last ditch attempt to cement its legacy as an LGBTQ-friendly prime-time television show. Brittany seems to have forgotten she ever dated Sam, which can be generously viewed as Brittany wanting to commit to her future without thinking of the past, rather than the writers again not knowing how to handle Brittany’s sexual orientation.

Amid the murky mire of Glee’s personal politics, a path to a blissful conclusion has been carved out for the fan favorites. “The world seemed so scary and confusing. It was just too fast. It made me feel dumb, just because my brain worked differently,” says Brittany in her vows. “I would’ve suffered it all just for the tiny chance to be standing up here marrying you.” Next to her, Santana beams. Bisexuality is irrelevant when there is monogamy to think about. While it’s great to see a happy ending for two queer women characters (one a woman of color), it’s frustrating it occurred amidst bi erasure and biphobia.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Queer Women as Sexual Beings: The L Word and More
Glee and Trans Men
Becky, Adelaide, and Nan: Women with Down Syndrome on Glee and American Horror Story
Glee‘s Not So Gleeful Representation of Women with Disabilities
Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Glee

Recommended Reading:

The Most Random Fandom | A well curated blog with brilliant analysis of Brittany and Santana that handles each Glee episode individually.
13 TV Shows with Lesbian and Bisexual Female Characters Who Are Getting It Right via Autostraddle

Shira Feder is a writer from New York who can be found at http://shirafeder.tumblr.com/ if she ever figures out how to use it.

‘Firefly’: Mixed Messages on Inara’s Sexuality

In ‘Firefly,’ women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men.

This guest post written by A Little Tiefling appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Previous articles have discussed the less-than-egalitarian portrayal of Inara Serra on Joss Whedon’s cult television series, Firefly, in her role as respected sex worker. But the framing of her sexuality is also far more traditionally heteronormative than it first appears.

Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) is a Companion: more than a high-class escort, she has been trained in Tantric mysticism, the arts, etiquette etc. Companions are so respected that they can select their clients and command huge sums. They can also afford to reject clients, unlike their lower class counterparts who have far less freedom to turn down income. All this suggests Companions choose clients based on personal preferences, including sexual ones.

Inara selects patrons with whom she shares chemistry. In the episode “Shindig,” she rejects a timid male suitor and selects Atherton Wing (Edward Atterton), a confident and attractive man. Thus the show establishes Inara exercising control over her partners. It should be noted that in the same episode, two women can be seen among Inara’s potential clients, but she has no further interactions with them and even rejects one before speaking to her.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKVqNcRj_sY”]

Inara’s clients are overwhelmingly male. She says it herself to her one on-screen female client. This can only partly be chalked up to the seediness of Serenity’s crew and shipping routes. Inara has a large measure of freedom, being able to pilot her shuttle to more cosmopolitan ports than what her traveling companions can access. And yet, the female client with whom Inara seems to have a strong affection is never seen again. She’s never mentioned again. Their brief sexual encounter lasts a short time, but there are many lingering moments of heterosexual sex. Inara never interacts with another woman in the same intimate and sexual manner, though in theory she has the complete freedom to. She’s even portrayed to have a close platonic friendship with engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite).

The show could have evolved their friendship into something more romantic or at least give the women time to discuss their closeness. There is some subtextual support that Kaylee has romantic feelings for Inara. They spend at least one scene grooming each other’s hair and discussing love and sex. However, Kaylee, who is just as openly sexual as Inara, pines for a man, while Inara has conflicted feelings for Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). This is where the show undercuts Inara’s sexual freedom further. Inara’s interactions with other women, whether openly sexual or hinted, are used primarily to antagonize Mal into more open declarations of his own feelings.

In the episode “War Stories,” there’s a scene of Inara engaging with a female client whom she clearly deeply likes. She spends time worrying about the state of Serenity and discusses the woman in intimate terms, as “a very private person.” The scene suggests friendship as well as desire, based on the women’s body language and interactions. They hold a lingering smile and walk side by side, rather than The Councilor (Katherine Kendall) leading Inara. This isn’t a client Inara considers a one-off, but someone she’s met before and enjoys the company of.

A later intimate scene shows Inara giving the woman a massage, helping her to relax and in turn relaxing herself. Inara’s sexuality is clear from the way she is at ease around the councilor. She sought out a female client, alone, not as part of an MFF threesome or because she needed the money. This should have demonstrated Inara acting on her sexual preferences. However, the scene is undercut by the heteronormative tone of the bulk of the show.

Upon learning that Inara has been engaged by a female client, Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Mal, and Kaylee all express some form of arousal, and in Book (Ron Glass)’s case, shock. This grossly inappropriate behavior serves to fetishize Inara’s relationship with a woman. To rub salt in the wound, rather than behave as the flashy Atherton, who flaunts his assignations with Inara, the female client is “private” and desires to meet Inara in secret; as though she is ashamed.

Inara is not a queer woman with the autonomy to choose her clients, as the show tells us. Inara’s requests for respect and privacy with the female councillor go ignored. Instead, the show fetishizes her relationship, mirroring the in-universe delight demonstrated by the observers. Inara’s behavior isn’t her private choice, but meant to be publicly consumed for the titillation of both Mal and Jayne and the audience of the show.

In the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” Mal is both fascinated and smug about Inara’s supposed kiss with Saffron (Christina Hendricks). Inara herself recognizes Saffron’s strategy of seduction and tries to turn it back on her, unsuccessfully. It’s Saffron’s open seduction that makes Inara suspect the con-artist had Companion training. This suggests less that Companions are allowed and encouraged to pursue same-sex relationships and more that they are trained for same-sex flirtation, that all Companions are “gay for pay” and not queer because they follow the human spectrum of sexualities. “War Stories” demonstrates that “gay for pay” attitude extends to the crew. The music of the scene, the over-the-top shock and delight expressed by the observers, all suggest that Inara’s taking a female client is new, faintly ridiculous, or something to be fantasized about but not pursued in depth.

This fetishization of Inara’s (and Kaylee’s, and Saffron’s) queerness further undermines the supposed egalitarian nature of Whedon’s universe. Women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men. This is not a progressive view, especially of bisexuality, which is one of the least-portrayed of human sexualities in film and television, while one of the most misrepresented and fetishized. Firefly did not have the time to develop human relationships as fully as it could have, had it not been cancelled after one season. But the relationships that are developed are overwhelmingly heterosexual or heteronormative. Inara may be bisexual, but her queerness is fleeting and fetishized. Her primary role on the show is of teasing love interest. Even her queerness is less about her own autonomy and more about her objectification and sexualized image.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work
The Strong, Intelligent and Diverse Women of Firefly and Serenity

A Little Tiefling is a mild-mannered library worker by day and tarantula-loving guinea pig herder by night. Like all tieflings, this one is interested in writing on matters of sex, desire and the odder things in life.

Bisexuality and Masculinity in ‘Y Tu Mamá También’

‘Y Tu Mamá También’ points out the elastic, freeing nature of femininity compared to the toxic, fragile nature of masculinity. Over the course of the film, Luisa only becomes a month or so older and finds truth, or at the very least solace for herself, while Julio and Tenoch go from brash young adults to estranged, closed-off adult men, refusing to come to terms with their bisexuality.

This guest post written by Andy Herrera appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

At first glance, Y Tu Mamá También looks and feels like a classic American sex comedy. You have two ostensibly straight young men desperate for sex who, when suddenly faced with the horrible predicament of not being able to have sex with their girlfriends while they are out of the country, befriend an attractive older women, lie to her about a beautiful beach destination, and both have sex with her. Even from this facile reading of the film, Y Tu Mamá También still invigorates that sometimes tired genre. Unlike American sex comedies, the sexual antics that our main characters, Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal), get into are funny by virtue of how oversexed they themselves are and not the sex acts themselves, and the sexual humor is often at the expense of the men, not the women they have sex with.

The camerawork during the sex scenes often feels as lively as the people having sex on-screen as it moves in and out, creating a kinetic feel to each scene. When the movie is not explicitly about sex and sexuality, it’s a lovely travelogue of Mexico, shot beautifully by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and interspersed with small visual reminders of political unrest juxtaposed with the natural beauty of the country. Director Alfonso Cuarón not only created a visually stunning sex comedy, however, he also created a complex character study that often points towards a bisexual subtext between our two leads.

Cuarón specifically cast Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal as the leads, as they have been friends since childhood, and this shows in their natural chemistry on-screen. It’s clear why these two characters are friends and how they compliment each other. Going along with the film’s visual political commentary, there is also classism prevalent in the relationship between Tenoch and Julio. Tenoch’s father works for the Mexican government and Julio’s family is leftist and middle class, already setting up clear political and class conflict between the two boys that they nonetheless have managed to ignore in their friendship. As with other issues laid dormant in their relationship, Tenoch’s classism only comes out during a shouting match late in the film, as he calls Julio “a hillbilly.” The woman they go on a road trip with, Luisa (Maribel Verdú), proves to be the catalyst in unearthing the many repressed issues within their relationship, whether political or sexual.

The trope of an older woman teaching young men about life and love became ridiculous pretty much after Weird Science and it’s strange here too, yet is justified in retrospect at the end of the film, when Tenoch informs Julio that Luisa died a month after the trip and that she knew she had cancer the entire time. While Julio and Tenoch go on that journey with her, just for the virtue of being around an attractive woman that may have sex with them, Luisa went on that journey to find peace and truth within her life and impart wisdom on to someone, anyone, as her entire family is deceased and her husband repeatedly cheated on her. Luisa ultimately succeeds in finding truth for herself and for Julio and Tenoch, but for them the truth permanently fractures their relationship.

At the beginning of their journey, as Julio and Tenoch get to know Luisa, Julio states that “truth is cool but unattainable… the truth is totally amazing but you can never reach it.” Their trip to the beach allows Julio and Tenoch to come close to unearthing deep sexual truths about themselves, but his words become a self-fulfilling prophecy as they never reach the truth. At the beginning of the film, Julio and Tenoch start out as brash and sexually pompous (despite both of them admitting they’ve only had sex with their current girlfriends) young men. Out of a need for sexual intimacy with men she trusts more than her cheating husband, Luisa has sex with both of them and sexual dysfunctions are revealed: Julio reaches climax too quickly; Tenoch has a habit of saying “Mama” when he reaches his own climax. These idiosyncrasies are pointed out to them by Luisa, exemplifying their sexual immaturity and inexperience. It’s soon revealed that both Julio and Tenoch have slept with each other’s girlfriends in a scenario that’s first presented as dramatic and potentially friendship ending, but then is reframed as comedic as more of their sexual dalliances are revealed in farcical fashion. Their friendship remains intact.

As Julio and Tenoch come to a head in their argument over who had sex with whose girlfriend, Luisa becomes angry and leaves, exclaiming, “What [they] really want to do is fuck each other!” This statement, while humorous within the scene, gains weight when read in context with scenes before and after this one. Earlier in the film, Julio and Tenoch play around naked while showering, masturbate together, and even note a picture of a penis together. They remark that they never see a friend anymore since he came out of the closet, but are nonetheless accepting of him, despite their heavy usage of homophobic slurs throughout the film.

After they reconcile, Julio, Tenoch, and Luisa all have sex while intoxicated, which leads to Julio and Tenoch passionately kissing. The revelatory aspect of this threesome scene is that Tenoch and Julio’s kiss isn’t played for gay panic humor as it typically would be in other sex comedies, but rather as tender, loving, and a natural growth of their sexualities. There’s never a doubt that they’re attracted to women, but this scene confirms they are also definitely attracted to each other as more than friends (even Diego Luna can’t stop thinking about it). Luisa, once again, is the catalyst that leads them to this truth, it’s up to them whether or not they accept it.

Due to society’s (and their own ingrained) heteronormativity, Julio and Tenoch do not accept this truth, however. The morning after their tryst, they choose to go home immediately, with Luisa staying behind voluntarily. The narrator states that their girlfriends later broke up with them, they found new women to date, and they eventually stopped seeing each other. Julio and Tenoch only meet once again a year later, to discuss Luisa’s fate, before never meeting again. Luisa finds peace in nature and with her true self, and while she pushed Julio and Tenoch towards some harsh truths, they ultimately rejected them.

Y Tu Mamá También points out the elastic, freeing nature of femininity compared to the toxic, fragile nature of masculinity. Over the course of the film, Luisa only becomes a month or so older and finds truth, or at the very least solace for herself, while Julio and Tenoch go from brash young adults to estranged, closed-off adult men, refusing to come to terms with their bisexuality. The children are Mexico’s (and every country’s) future but even they cannot survive in an oppressive society without obscuring some fundamental truth about who they are.

Andy Herrera was born in New York, raised in Florida, and is now back in New York again. He was raised on TV shows and movies and now all he does is write about them.

‘Lost Girl’: Breaking the Mold For Bisexual Representation on TV

Series creator and season one’s co-showrunner, Michelle Lovretta structured the idea of a bisexual female superhero around being a succubus: “a mythological being who uses sex to feed, heal, and kill” — a traditionally vilified female role that used sex as a weapon. … Awareness of the unique challenges of bisexual representation allowed Bo to be a genuinely complex heroine, instead of just a problematic stereotype. She was carefully crafted to be sex positive, while being defined by her relationships, instead of her sexuality.

This guest post written by Laura LaVertu appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

The Canadian fantasy television series, Lost Girl, had a complex and intimate relationship with bisexual representation. Like most shows, years of development had to occur before it appeared on television. During this time, there was a deliberate attempt to counter negative perceptions of bisexual characters in its writing. It also had a rather fraught path to the small screen, one that producer Jay Firestone laid squarely at the feet of its “bisexual element.” He described how he first thought of the idea, in a 2012 Comic-Con interview:

“A couple of my friends and I were talking about what sort of Buffy would be like today versus when Buffy was out. And I made a joke at one point and said Buffy would be bisexual, and everyone said what a cool idea! So we started developing it from there.”

But the production team had a hard time finding a workable script. Series creator and season one’s co-showrunner, Michelle Lovretta, eventually landed it for them, structuring the idea of a bisexual female superhero around being a succubus: “a mythological being who uses sex to feed, heal, and kill” — a traditionally vilified female role that used sex as a weapon. Both Lovretta and Firestone expressed the difficulties they had in managing a television series around Bo (Anna Silk), such a sexually powerful, bisexual lead character:

“I went and sold it, tried to sell it, to everybody… and they were all scared of it a bit… They were nervous about the bisexual element,” Firestone said. “That’s what scared everybody.”

Lovretta relates her own anxiety about the show in this Watercooler Journal interview:

“But after that initial excitement came trepidation – it is so, so incredibly easy with a template like that to create something mind-numbingly insulting, anti-female, and exploitative. I wouldn’t want my name on that. And, as someone who respects both the straight and queer communities, I was afraid of alienating either of them in the process… or, of just making neutered, boring TV by overthinking it and being too PC. Gah!! The challenge was to create a fun, sex-positive world that celebrates provocative cheesecake for everyone, without falling into base stereotypes or misogynistic (or misandristic) exploitation along the way.”

She set up a series of rules in her writers’ room to address the problems:

“Sexual orientation is not discussed, and never an issue;
“No slut shaming – Bo is allowed to have sex outside of relationships
“Bo’s male and female partners are equally viable;
“Bo is capable of monogamy, when desired;
“Both genders are to be (adoringly!) objectified — equal opportunity eye candy FTW.”

Lovretta admitted they could not always adhere to all of the rules in the “thick of production,” but they always “tried.” She was not fond of anything “too prurient;” and although she said she wrote with no specific themes in mind, she had a desire to “defend the bisexual community” against what she perceived as negative stereotypes. For this reason, the character of Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) was allowed to state she was straight in the first episode. This was to “represent female friendships that [were] not sexualized,” as well as to counter the “gay panic cliché that bisexual people sexualize everyone.”

This was rare and sympathetic handling for such a character. Awareness of the unique challenges of bisexual representation allowed Bo to be a genuinely complex heroine, instead of just a problematic stereotype. She was carefully crafted to be sex positive, while being defined by her relationships, instead of her sexuality. She was specifically designed to be a good person; such positive representation for bisexual people is important. Research has shown that biphobia, monosexism, and erasure and marginalization are major stressors for bisexual people. They “have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders, compared to heterosexuals, lesbians and gays.”

But while the lead character was undoubtedly important, Lost Girl did not rely on Bo alone for its bisexual representation. By its final season, the show had a majority queer cast, many of whom were bisexual. Possibly the best example was the flip of an iconic season one villain, Vex, into a bisexual male ally. It not only snagged actor Paul Amos a Canadian Screen Award nomination for his portrayal, but it also gave the show its first main bisexual male character. Female characters tend to have much greater bisexual representation than male characters. Lost Girl was no exception to this stereotype, so the bisexual reveal of Vex was a great improvement. Even better was that the show allowed Vex a happy ending with his love interest during the series finale.

But the show possessed other weaknesses in bisexual representation. There was a failure to cast many actors of color, as well as to avoid the death trope. Lead actor Anna Silk has Turkish-Cyprian-British heritage. But the show had a poor record maintaining its characters of color. While the series killed its straight characters at about twice the rate of its queer characters (which is especially interesting given the preponderance of LGBTQ characters killed on television), it did not spare one of its main bisexual characters from a particularly egregious ending.

With all its strengths and weaknesses, Lost Girl was a defining property for bisexual representation on television. It provided a huge boost in both the quantity and quality of bisexual characters on-screen. It expanded significantly on the ground broken by its two predecessors, Sanctuary and Torchwood, and helped pave the way for the now many more leading bisexual characters found on television series such as Black Sails, Orange Is the New Black, The 100, and more. It remains on the short list of shows that provide happy endings to its queer couples; a short list of shows that even have queer couples in its main cast. It was the first television show I knew of with a heroic lead character in a same-sex relationship, and the first show with a majority queer and majority female main cast on mainstream television. May there be many more to follow.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Friendship, Fandom, and Female Agency in Lost Girl
How Love Triangles Perpetuate Misogyny
The Problem with LGBT Representation in True Blood and Lost Girl

Laura LaVertu is a writer, caretaker, and TV trope analyzer in the southeastern United States, advocating for diversity in film and on television.

‘Game of Thrones’: Oberyn Martell, a Positive Portrayal of a Bisexual Man of Color

But even if Oberyn Martell isn’t your favorite, he is decidedly unique in one regard: a positively portrayed bisexual man of color on television. As if this weren’t enough, his character arc doesn’t center around his race or his sexual orientation. Like any other character on the show, he has his own convoluted political revenge plot.

This guest post written by Lochlan Sudarshan appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

Everyone thinks their favorite character on Game of Thrones is the most underrated. As a result, I won’t try to convince you to shift your allegiance. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the TV series, it’s that it seldom turns out well. But even if Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) isn’t your favorite, he is decidedly unique in one regard: a positively portrayed bisexual man of color on television. As if this weren’t enough, his character arc doesn’t center around his race or his sexual orientation. Like any other character on the show, he has his own convoluted political revenge plot.

Part of what makes Game of Thrones notable, namely the character deaths and the copious sex scenes, are precisely what help Oberyn blend in. By this, I mean the narrative is surprisingly egalitarian with its treatment of him. Sure, he faces a lot of horrific situations, but he’s not singled out because of his sexual identity. In Westeros, no matter who you like screwing, the universe always likes screwing you.

When we are introduced to Oberyn in the television series, it’s in Littlefinger’s brothel. On any other show, I’d see this as a harbinger of more harmful stereotypes about bisexual men to come. The thing about first impressions is, you can only make them once. On Game of Thrones specifically, however, this scene isn’t coded the same way, because the straight and queer characters are also shown having a lot of sex. This means the scene lacks the baggage it would in a series where Oberyn was the only one shown having sex with men. If he were the only character shown to indulge in explicit casual sex and having sex with sex workers, it would be difficult to separate out from his characterization as a bisexual man of color. However, since Game of Thrones shows people of multiple sexual orientations engaging in sex with sex workers, it’s robbed of its connotation as perpetuating harmful stereotypes about bisexual men.

A fan favorite, Oberyn is confident, bold, passionate, and fearless. He’s a prince, a warrior (nicknamed “The Red Viper”), a poet, and a father who loves his daughters. And he is candid about his bisexuality:

“Then everyone is missing half the world’s pleasure. The gods made that… and it delights me. The gods made this… and it delights me. When it comes to war, I fight for Dorne. When it comes to love — I don’t choose sides.”

Another unique aspect of Oberyn’s portrayal on the television series is the open nature of his relationship with his paramour, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma). Like Oberyn, Ellaria is also bisexual. While Game of Thrones is often problematic in its depiction of race, gender, and people of color, it is great to see not one but two bi characters of color.

Unlike the plotline of Loras (Finn Jones) and Renly (Gethin Anthony), who are both gay characters, no drama ensues from Oberyn being queer. While Margaery (Natalie Dormer) was supportive of her brother Renly and Loras’ relationship, she had a vested interest in keeping quiet about their relationship: her silence enabled her to be the queen. There isn’t any hint of Ellaria being in a similar position with Oberyn. In fact, she says that people of both genders will “line up” to have sex with him. As Oberyn says later, this is the way things are done in Dorne.

Oberyn is very close with his large family. Unlike other characters, his sexuality isn’t something that comes between him and his family, causing rifts due to their disapproval. More importantly, his bisexuality also isn’t treated as a vice where he’s prevented from spending time with his children because he’s too busy being promiscuous. While he has lots of sex with both men and women, he’s not vilified for it either in or out of universe.

Oberyn’s treatment isn’t restricted to metatextual concerns from the narrative, it’s also shown in the in-universe attitudes of the characters themselves. Again, in contrast to Loras and Renly, no one ever makes homophobic jokes about Oberyn having sex with men behind his back or to his face. Even when Oberyn himself comments on it at the small council meeting, saying the Unsullied were “very impressive on the battlefield. Less so in the bedroom,” this is left untouched by the other sitting members. People don’t treat him with extra respect because they need him as a political ally. Game of Thrones is all about letting personal slights overcome what you and your country need, and the small council is the staging ground for all manner of petty fights, but not this time.

In the episode “The Lion and the Rose,” King Joffrey commissions a minstrel show of the various warring kings depicting the events of the last few seasons; Renly and Loras make an appearance. Renly was (nominally) Joffrey’s uncle, and a sizable contingent of Westeros regarded him as the rightful king. Loras, in addition to still being alive, is one of the scions to the powerful House Tyrell. At this stage in the television series, a lot of time has been spent talking about how important it is for House Lannister to secure House Tyrell as political allies. In spite of both of these factors in play, the open secret of the relationship between Renly and Loras means this kind of mockery can go on without any immediate complaint. But no one makes any jokes about who Oberyn’s been sleeping with, or for how many years.

Ultimately, Oberyn’s arc itself shows his egalitarian treatment as a bisexual man on the show. He transcends many tropes. He wants to get his Inigo Montoya on and avenge the rape and murder of his sister and the murder of her children. While he is grotesquely unsuccessful, and his death is extremely brutal — even by Game of Thrones standards — we should reconsider the knee jerk reaction to dismiss all his favorable (and even friendly) treatment by the narrative up until now since he’s killed off — sadly, a common fate for far too many LGBTQ characters on television, both queer men and queer women (especially queer women).

While this ending for his character is unfortunate and would definitely come with some reservations in a different show — much like his introduction in a brothel — its context is different on Game of Thrones. Despite his brief time on the show, he’s a character with surprising depth. What happens to secondary characters here, whether they’re straight, gay, or bi? In the end, they die horribly.

Overall, Game of Thrones treats Oberyn with equality, nuance, and complexity. And that’s pretty great.

Lochlan Sudarshan is a writer, teacher, and tabletop roleplaying enthusiast who excels at knowing the name of that one actor and talks about books, movies, and TV on Twitter. You can follow him on Twitter @Lochlan_S and on his blog.

Is ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Willow Rosenberg a Lesbian or Bisexual?

So is Willow bi, or is she a lesbian? Well, I guess it’s your choice. I personally believe she’s bisexual; it makes more sense to me, a bisexual woman, that Willow is also a bisexual woman, just with a preference for women. But I have read that many lesbians connected with Willow’s story on such a fundamental way, and I can’t wholeheartedly take it away from them; they have just as much of a right to her as I do.

This guest post written by Gail Wald appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

For many people, labels matter. Humans put labels on everything, from gender to interest groups to clothing styles to sexuality. These labels define not just each individual person, but also our culture as a whole. We are the culmination of all of these groups: the groups we accept, the groups we detest.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was, at its center, supposed to be about the groups we don’t accept. It centered on three unpopular geeks who hung out with a librarian. And sure, they were all very pretty – but everybody’s pretty on TV; at the end of the day, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wasn’t winning any popularity contests, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) was a computer nerd, and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) seemed to spend all of his days watching every single movie in the history of Hollywood. This group – the Scoobies – were mocked by Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and the rest of the popular crowd; they were losers.

And so they were outsiders. Willow, especially, seemed to never really get over that outsider feeling, always eager to prove herself, to be better – her greatest fear: failure; her deepest secret: self-loathing. In this light, it makes so much sense that Willow was Gay All Along. After all – it fits with her character so well. Trying to hide herself away only to realize she never could.

Of course, the fact that Willow is attracted to women is hardly debatable – in fact, it’s hard canon. The relationship between Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow is nothing if not as genuine – definitely sweeter – than every other romantic relationship on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even though it took the series more than a season to have them share a kiss (one of the first lesbian kisses in prime-time television), the show was hardly ever hiding the relationship. While Kennedy (Iyari Limon) is controversial at best and openly despised at worst, Willow is definitely attracted to her – in a major way. Willow likes girls. End of story.

The problem with this, of course, is that Willow spent more than three seasons forming romantic and sexual attachments to, well, men. First, Xander; then, Oz (Seth Green). And then she cheats on Oz with Xander, seemingly motivated for no reason other than lust. And she has sex with Oz, not divulging to us, the viewers, that she felt any discomfort with the act. These are definite signs of attraction to the male gender, after all.

So wait, what is going on here?

Well, as I said, labels are important. Willow calls herself a lesbian. And if a woman who had been with men stood in front of me in real life and called herself a lesbian, I would believe her. After all, there are several reasons why this could happen. She could be, in fact, a lesbian who experienced compulsory heterosexuality; she could have decided to try sex with guys but realized she didn’t want to do it again; she could be a woman who decided that she was only interested in relationships with women, and therefore identified with the label more than with any other label. And since she is a real human being with her own unique experiences, it isn’t my place to tell her she isn’t a lesbian because she had sex with a man, or a relationship with a man, or any other experiences with a man. She is a lesbian. End of story.

But Willow Rosenberg isn’t a real person. She’s a character, open for interpretation. And them’s the facts: Willow Rosenberg liked having sex with men and women.

But! Somebody screams. Willow seems to never experience attraction towards men after she starts dating Tara!

Not true. Even if we ignored the whole episode in which she shows she’s still attracted to Oz after his return, despite being with Tara at the time, there is still this scene in season 4, in which Giles sings “Behind Blue Eyes” and the gang are left in shock, each with their own unique reaction. “Now I remember why I used to have such a crush on him” seems to me at least to not be the most homosexual line ever.

So is Willow bisexual then?

Well, the truth is, Willow does call herself a lesbian, and like I said twice already, labels matter, especially self-identified labels. But the thing is, she never dismisses the label of bisexual, either; she simply assumes she is a lesbian since she is interested in relationships with women. And as I said, Willow isn’t a real person – she was written by other people, imperfect people, people like Joss Whedon who might do good, positive work, and still be biphobic, whether intentionally or not.

Willow never brings up the possibility of being bi. Had she brought it up and dismissed it – well, firstly, the word “bisexual” would have been uttered on television, which seems to be a difficult feat to accomplish, and secondly, it would be a lot easier to accept that she was a lesbian for us bi folk. Because there are real bisexual people out there who experience bi erasure, who are told they’re gay or lesbian when they’re with a person of the same gender and heterosexual when they’re with a person of the opposite gender, who are told they’re confused, who are told they must choose. And it would be so easy to bring it up on the show, as well. It could go something like this:

Buffy: So, you’re gay now?
Willow: Yeah. I thought I might be bisexual, but I’m a lesbian.

See? So easy. These two lines turn Willow from bi erasure to pure lesbian representation.

So is Willow bi, or is she a lesbian?

Well, I guess it’s your choice. I personally believe she’s bisexual; it makes more sense to me, a bisexual woman, that Willow is also a bisexual woman, just with a preference for women. But I have read that many lesbians connected with Willow’s story on such a fundamental way, and I can’t wholeheartedly take it away from them; they have just as much of a right to her as I do.

She’s anything you want her to be, at least until we invent a machine that allows us to travel into fictional universes.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Exploring Bisexual Tension in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Joss Whedon’s Binary Excludes Bisexuality
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow Rosenberg: Geek, Interrupted

Gail Wald is a recent high school graduate who has wished to become an author since the age of seven. In her spare time she writes books and essays about Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which she has been a fan of since seventh grade), complains about the patriarchy (in the newly opened Facebook page Gail Complains About the Patriarchy), and plays with her cat.

The Trope of the Murderous Bisexual Woman

There are a number of films — frequently defined as “erotic thrillers” — which feature bisexual women who are violent, manipulative, and even murderous. … The trope of the promiscuous, aggressive, violent, and unstable bisexual woman is one that truly needs to disappear. Even if directors do not intend any harm to queer people or communities, these inaccurate portrayals lead movie-goers to believe that bisexuality is something dangerous, to be feared.

This guest post written by Angela Morrison appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

Bisexual characters are rarely represented in cinema, but among the scarce examples, one trope stands out as particularly insidious. There are a number of films — frequently defined as “erotic thrillers” — which feature bisexual women who are violent, manipulative, and even murderous. Femme fatales such as Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) in Basic Instinct are aggressive and sexually confident, and thus are considered to be dangerous. This trope assumes that if a woman’s sexuality is fluid, then she must be unstable; there must be something wrong with a woman whose sexuality does not fit into a neat little box.

Two of the most prominent examples of this trope come from the aforementioned Basic Instinct, as well as Brian De Palma’s 2012 film, Passion. Both films are directed by straight white men who filter the female experience through their own male perspective, and then through their camera lenses. Their female characters are shown to have some charming qualities, but in the end they are promiscuous and manipulative, never to be trusted.

In Passion, Rachel McAdams plays Christine, an extremely successful advertising executive, who works closely with Noomi Rapace’s character, Isabelle. The women at first appear to have a close friendship and solid work relationship, but this is not a movie about working women supporting one another. It soon becomes evident that Christine does not see Isabelle as her equal, but rather, as someone she has complete control over – in work and in personal life. Christine takes credit for Isabelle’s work to ensure she can move up within the advertising company. Shortly after, she tells Isabelle a sad tale of her twin sister being killed by a car, ending the speech by saying, “I love you,” to Isabelle. This is clearly manipulative behavior.

At various points in the film, Christine kisses and makes mild sexual advances towards Isabelle. Christine is also involved with a man named Dirk (Paul Anderson), whom she has theatrical sexual encounters with, frequently involving power play. The film casually enforces the idea that bisexual women do not abide by the codes of monogamy, but rather, have sexual/romantic relations with anyone they want at any time. Of course, Dirk also sleeps with Isabelle, so I guess straight men are not presented as being much more faithful. This is not to say that monogamy is “normal” or “right” — not at all. But De Palma has not made a film about the joy and beauty of polyamory. Christine goes behind Dirk’s back and makes sexual advances towards Isabelle, because according to De Palma, that is how bisexual women operate.

Isabelle returns Christine’s attraction, and also has sex with Dirk. She is another bisexual character portrayed as promiscuous. At various points in the film, Christine and Isabelle also exhibit dangerous, and even violent, tendencies. [SPOILER] Christine is murdered, and it is revealed that Isabelle killed her, and manipulated everyone around her in order to cover it up. In the world of Passion, bisexual women are criminal masterminds with lots of secrets. Even Isabelle’s assistant Dani (Karoline Herfurth) joins in the fun, professing her love for Isabelle and then blackmailing her into having a sexual relationship with her. All three of these queer women fit into the trope of the femme fatale), which is not necessarily a bad thing. Christine, Isabelle, and Dani are all successful career women who are confident and highly intelligent. However, their fluid sexualities pose a threat in the mind of De Palma, so they are also portrayed as unstable and prone to violence.

Passion is not meant to be taken as a realistic film – De Palma clearly indicates that this slightly humorous and highly stylized film is meant to be over-the-top. The set and costume design are sleek and shiny. Christine wears big, ornate earrings and perfectly-fitting business suits. Everyone’s office is made completely of glass and polished metal. The score uses “stingers” to heighten moments of shock and fear. Characters often bolt upright in the middle of the night, revealing that the previous scenes were just a dream. The film is clearly flamboyant, which is one of its charms. The same can be said about Basic Instinct – the film is full of neon lights, noir-ish twists and turns in the narrative, and equally athletic dance and sex scenes. And of course, Paul Verhoeven is a master of satire – he is rarely serious. Verhoeven is always smirking at the audience through his movies. However, representation is important. These two films are fun and exciting (as B. Ruby Rich notes of Basic Instinct in her essay, “New Queer Cinema“), but for all their satirizing and stylizing, the insidious ideas about queer women are hurtful. Biphobia literally means “fear of bisexuality,” and that fear is amplified by movies such as these.

Neither Passion nor Basic Instinct ever utters the word “bisexual.” However, in Basic Instinct, Catherine clearly has an intimate romantic and sexual relationship with Roxy (Laelani Sarelle). Catherine is presented as a threat because she is a confident queer woman, who knows what she wants in all aspects of her life: professionally, personally, sexually. Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) remains suspicious of her for the entire film. A confident, sexual woman must secretly be a murderer. Yes, there are many other clues that point to Catherine being the murderer, but the one thing that is constantly foregrounded is her sexuality – especially in that famous scene. She uses her out-of-control sexuality to manipulate the men around her, because according to Verhoeven, that is what queer women do.

Carrie Nelson at Bitch Media outlines the many biphobic elements of Basic Instinct in her article, “A Look at Basic Instinct.” She notes that Catherine and Roxy’s relationship is framed so that it’s titillating for male viewers. When Catherine and Roxy kiss each other, Catherine has one eye on Nick, gauging his reaction, hoping he’s aroused. Bisexual encounters in cinema are often filtered through the “male gaze”: rather than representing two women enjoying each other for their own pleasure, sexual relations between women are objectified, with the purpose of arousing male viewers. With the release of films such as Basic Instinct and Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film Black Swan, comes the question from young male viewers — “Did you see that lesbian scene?” Whether or not the male directors of these films intend to objectify queer women, it inevitably ends up happening. The queer women in these films are often not given a voice to express their emotional and romantic attachment to their partners. Their experiences are seen as purely sexual, and more often than not, calculating and cold. Catherine, Christine, and Isabelle have sexual encounters in order to manipulate others.

The trope of the promiscuous, aggressive, violent, and unstable bisexual woman is one that truly needs to disappear. Even if directors do not intend any harm to queer people or communities, these inaccurate portrayals lead movie-goers to believe that bisexuality is something dangerous, to be feared. As is widely known, LGBTQ+ activists protested Basic Instinct during filming and then once it had been released. This trope has been criticized since at least the 1990s (and even before, with women’s groups protesting Brian De Palma’s earlier film, Dressed to Kill, for equating female sexuality with violence). But films such as Passion demonstrate that the trope is alive and well. Much work needs to be done to give bisexual characters a voice – bisexual characters should be portrayed as the complex, beautiful, and complicated human beings that they are. Not all of us are secretly hiding ice picks under our beds.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Passion and Crime d’Amour: Women and Corporate Power Plays

Angela Morrison is a feminist cinephile, and she has written for Bitch Flicks before. She lives in Canada and is a recent Cinema Studies graduate. She writes about cinema for fun on her blog.