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Televising Queer Women

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Televising Queer Women:

A Reader

Edited by

Rebecca Beirne

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TELEVISING QUEER WOMEN

Copyright © Rebecca Beirne, 2008.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published in 2008 by

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ISBN-13: 978–0–230–60080–5

ISBN-10: 0–230–60080–8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: January 2008

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To all the activists, cultural producers, and queer women throughout the ages who have made this work possible, and in memory of Tamsin Wilton (1952–2006) for her

important contributions to the field of lesbian studies.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Notes on Contributors

xi

Introduction: A Critical Introduction to Queer

Women on Television

1

Rebecca Beirne

1

Resisting, Reiterating, and Dancing Through:

The Swinging Closet Doors of Ellen DeGeneres’s

Televised Personalities

17

Candace Moore

2

Mommy’s Got a Gal-Pal: The Victimized Lesbian

Mother in the Made-for-TV Movie

33

Kelly Kessler

3

Complicating the Open Closet: The Visual Rhetoric

of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sapphic Lovers

49

Tanya R. Cochran

4 “Can You Just Be Kissing Me Now?”: The Question(s)

of Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

65

Cynthea Masson

5 States of Emergency: The Labors of Lesbian Desire in ER

83

Dana Heller

6

Mapping Lesbian Sexuality on Queer as Folk

99

Rebecca Beirne

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Contents

7 A Label Like Gucci, Versace, or Birkenstock:

Sex and the City and Queer Identity

109

Tabetha Adkins

8 “Going Native on Wonder Woman’s Island”: The

Exoticization of Lesbian Sexuality in Sex and the City 121

Melissa M. M. Hidalgo

9 “This Is the Way We Live . . . and Love!”: Feeding on and Still Hungering for Lesbian Representation in The L Word

135

Marnie Pratt

10 “Everything Else Is the Same”: Configurations

of The L Word

149

M. Catherine Jonet and Laura Anh Williams

11 “Shades of Grey”: Articulations of Bisexuality

in The L Word

163

Jennifer Moorman

12 Paradigmatically Oppositional Representations: Gender and Sexual Identity in The L Word

179

Faye Davies

13 Pink Heels, Dildos, and Erotic Play: The (Re)Making of Fem(me)ininity in Showtime’s The L Word

195

Erin Douglas

14 There’s Something Queer Going On in Orange County:

The Representation of Queer Women’s Sexuality

in The O.C.

211

Allison Burgess

Bibliography

229

Index

249

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Acknowledgments

Firstly, I would like to thank the contributors for their ideas, dedication, enthusiasm, and hard work: Tabetha Adkins, Allison Burgess, Tanya Cochran, Faye Davies, Erin Douglas, Dana Heller, Melissa Hidalgo, M. Catherine Jonet, Kelly Kessler, Cynthea Masson, Candace Moore, Jennifer Moorman, Marnie Pratt, and Laura Anh Williams. I thank Samar Habib for her encouragement, enthusiasm, and support of this project from the moment of its inception. I thank our editor at Palgrave MacMillan, Amanda Moon, and editorial assistants, Aashti Bhartia, Brigitte Shull, and Katie Fahey for seeing the potential in this work, and for their willingness to answer many questions. I also thank Sarah Warn, Malinda Lo, and everyone else at Afterellen.com as well as Deb and all the other volunteers at the Lesbian Herstory Archives for providing these invaluable resources. To my colleagues Jes Battis, James Keller, Leslie Stratyner, Janet McCabe, Kim Akass, Brigitte Rollet, Didi Herman, Jamie Skerski, Becky Walker, Susan Driver, and Angela Werndly: thank you for your inspiration, encouragement, and various other contributions. I extend my gratitude to Rhonda Wilcox, David Lavery, and Ann Kibbey for permission to reprint shortened versions of Cynthea Masson’s and Dana Heller’s work, previously published in Slayage and Genders Online, respectively.

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Notes on Contributors

Tabetha Adkins is a doctoral student studying rhetoric and composition at the University of Louisville. Her primary research focuses are community literacy and women’s and gender studies. She wishes to thank her mentor, Karen Kopelson, for her guidance during the beginning stages of this chapter.

Rebecca Beirne has published essays in Refractory, The New Queer Aesthetic on Television: Essays on Recent Programming, Nebula, Critical Studies in Television, and Scope. Her monograph Lesbians in Television and Text after the Millennium is forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan, and she also has work due to appear in The Journal of Lesbian Studies, The Lesbian Image in International Popular Culture, LGBT America Today, and Hard to Swallow: Reading Pornography on Screen. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Sydney and teaches at the University of Western Sydney.

Allison Burgess is a Ph.D. student in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education and the Graduate Collaborative Program in Women’s Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

Tanya R. Cochran is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Georgia State University and an English professor at Union College in Nebraska.

Her interests include fandom, gender, and faith and learning. Currently, she chairs the Science Fiction and Fantasy Area of the Popular Culture Association and is coeditor with Rhonda V. Wilcox of Investigating Firefly and Serenity (I.B. Tauris 2008). She wishes to especially thank Mary Hocks, Beth Godbee, and Scott Cushman for inspiration and judicious feedback.

Faye Davies is Lecturer in Media Theory at the University of Central England, United Kingdom. Her main research interests focus on the representation of gender and sexuality. She is currently undertaking doctoral research exploring the representation of sexuality in U.S. film and television from 1990 to the present day.

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Notes on Contributors

Erin Douglas’s research areas are twentieth-century British literature, popular culture, and queer theory with specific focuses on queer femininity in literature and popular culture. She has presented conference papers on the performance and performativity of queer femininity in The L Word, Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, and Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and on the liminal space of sexuality in Venus in Furs. Douglas is a Ph.D. student in English Literature and the convenor of the LGBTQ graduate student group at Miami University.

Dana Heller is Director of the Humanities Institute and Professor of English at Old Dominion University. Her publications include the monographs The Feminization of Quest-Romance: Radical Departures (1991) and Family Plots: The De-Oedipalization of Popular Culture (1995). She has edited the volumes Cross-Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists and the Limits of Alliance (1997), The Selling of 9/11: How a National Tragedy Became a Commodity (2005), The Great American Makeover: Television, History, Nation (2006), and Makeover Television: Realities Remodeled (2007).

Melissa M. M. Hidalgo is currently a Ph.D. student in the Literature Department at the University of California, San Diego. Her academic and research interests include U.S. cultural studies; nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature; postcolonial literature and theory; sexuality and pedagogy; and histories of education in the United States.

M. Catherine Jonet received her Ph.D. in English with a graduate minor in Women’s Studies at Purdue University where she is a teaching fellow.

Kelly Kessler has taught media and gender at Rutgers, NYU, and Queens College and holds a Ph.D. in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work can be found in Film Quarterly, The New Queer Aesthetic on Television, The Encyclopedia of Television, and American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia.

Cynthea Masson has published essays on Chaucer, Julian of Norwich, medieval alchemical poetry, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the theorization of lesbian love letters. After completing her Ph.D. at McMaster University, Masson conducted research on the rhetoric of Middle English alchemical literature under a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship. She is now teaching in the Department of English at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Candace Moore is a Ph.D. candidate in Film, TV, and Digital Media at UCLA. Moore won the 2006 SCMS Student Essay Award, has work forthcoming in Cinema Journal, and has coauthored an article in Reading 9780230600805ts01.qxd 10-10-07 09:47 PM Page xiii

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The L Word (I.B. Tauris, 2006) with Kristen Schilt. She has published extensively as a journalist.

Jennifer Moorman is a graduate student in the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her research interests include representations of queer and bisexual women in narrative cinema and serial television programming, women’s access as producers and consumers of pornography in various media cultures, and the politics of racial and sexual representation in American adult video.

Marnie Pratt is completing her Ph.D. in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University. Her dissertation focuses on intersections between queer politics and popular culture through an ethnographic study of the culture surrounding The L Word. Other research interests include celebrity studies, museums in popular culture, music, and film.

Laura Anh Williams is a Ph.D. candidate in Theory and Cultural Studies in the English Department at Purdue University. Their work appears in MELUS (forthcoming), Gender and Sexuality in African Literature and Film, and Comparative Criticism.

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INTRODUCTION

A Critical Introduction to Queer

Women on Television

Rebecca Beirne

On February 11, 1975, the media committee of an organization known as Lesbian Feminist Liberation, Inc. wrote an open letter to television stations protesting the screening of programs that “are detrimental to our fight for our civil rights and dignity, because they foster and promote those negative and damaging stereotypes that have been the basis of bigotry and hatred,” and enclosing guidelines for better representation of lesbians on television (Cotter). Among the demands were consulta-tion with lesbian groups regarding lesbian storylines, and the demand of “no negative portrayal of lesbians on television until 12% of all the women represented on television are portrayed as lesbians.” While such a target still seems a long way away, over the years the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities (LGBT) have continued to demand, including through media watchdogs such as GLAAD in the United States and Stonewall in the United Kingdom, fairer and more accurate representation of LGBT people on television.

This is not only a political gesture, though many do persuasively argue that positive representation can diminish homophobia, but also a question of entertainment. In the twenty-first century, television pervades the lives of human beings. In these times, television is also increasingly diversified—

people can watch it on the internet, through digital technologies, and on a dizzying array of satellite and cable channels. When we sit down to watch what is, arguably, the most dominant form of world entertainment, we hope 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 2

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to see some element of our lives reflected, responded to, turned into news or comedy or melodrama for our collective consumption and catharsis.

The relative absence of queer characters on television has made queer representations, when they do occur, all the more significant, sparking a profound investment in these images that have a considerable potential to infulence the wider population, who may never have been exposed to an actual lesbian.

Television can also produce intense affective relationships. Diane Anderson-Minshall has commented on psychological studies “proving that people develop such intense relationships with people on TV that those characters act as our de facto friends, providing ancillary relationships that are so deeply ingrained in our psyches that when those people go away we actually grieve and when they reappear we feel intense joy” (11). What impact then do those few lesbian characters we see on our television screens have? In chapter 9 Marnie Pratt considers this issue, reading the “importance of media representations for lesbian communities” as both “moving” and “profoundly troubl[ing]” observing that this high level of investment in media representations is “tied to queer culture’s long struggle with ‘the closet’ and visibility” (145).

As Pratt observes, this investment in queer characters is compounded by the historical specificities of television’s treatment of such characters. As Steven Capsuto, Stephen Tropiano, and Larry Gross discuss in their excellent histories of queer representation on television, during the early years of television, and indeed, continuing on into the 1970s and 1980s, queer television viewers rarely saw themselves on the small screen, and when they did, it was usually as monsters or victims, objects of revulsion or pity. Or perhaps as a one-off “lesson” in tolerance, never to be heard from again. In Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television, Capsuto writes of early appearances of members of the lesbian political group the Daughters of Bilitis on American television, commenting that although

“America was just starting to re-examine its myths about gay people,”

“[b]roadcasters . . . still had wildly inaccurate ideas about lesbians” (43). A decade later, in 1974, “every sexual minority in a network drama that fall was a violent criminal” (Capsuto 107), and not least of these were those, now notorious, flowers of lesbian evil in NBC’s Police Woman (1974–1978). As Capsuto documents, although the network decided to re-edit the episode to

“remove all explicit references to lesbianism, hoping that this would assuage gay activists” in light of gay protests of Marcus Welby, it was “The fallout from

[this episode that] would lead to the networks’ and producers’ increased cooperation with gay consultants” (110). With this increased cooperation, lesbians on American network television became somewhat more sympathetic, and an impulse to “educate viewers about homosexuality” emerged (Tropiano 109). Despite this “slight increase in gay (and less often lesbian) 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 3

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visibility in the mid-seventies,” however, “gay people were mostly portrayed and used in news and dramatic media in ways that reinforced rather than challenged the prevailing images” (Gross 82).

Some notable examples of bisexual and lesbian representation from the 1970s occurred on Australian television, well known for being more significantly risqué than its American counterparts during this period. The first lesbian couple to appear on Australian television were activists from gay and lesbian political group CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) in 1972, while bisexual character Vicki Stafford (Judy Nunn) on Australian series The Box (1974–1976), kissed another woman onscreen in 1974.1 The Australian women-in-prison series Prisoner (1979–1986) portrayed a number of lesbian characters during its run. These ranged from such characters as Franky Doyle (Carol Burns), a butch lesbian prisoner, to Joan “The Freak”

Ferguson (Maggie Kirkpatrick), a lesbian prison guard who was “a ratbag sadist, corrupt and potentially murderous” but nonetheless “exercised an eerie fascination. For all her misdeeds she was recognisably human” (Howes, “Gays of Our Lives” 42). Despite the presence of these, and a few other characters, it was not, as Moritz asserts, until “the mid-1980s, [that] lesbian characters and storylines began their fictional coming-out, the result at least in part of a changing institutional context in which what was once taboo had become potentially viable and sellable” (126).

Queer representation on television has progressed substantially since these times, but this has not constituted a steady narrative of progress, but rather has been marked by advances and retreats, breakthroughs and hiccups, sometimes even all within the same program. In 1994, Darlene M. Hantzis and Valerie Lehr wrote,

Lesbian and gay characters appear typically, when they appear at all, as

“featured” characters in television programs, generally written as unbalanced individuals—often good suspects in some crime. . . . A movement towards more positive depictions of women and minorities on television has led to a few differences in the portrayal of lesbian and gay characters.

Although still functioning primarily as featured characters, more positive depictions of lesbian and gay characters are appearing; a few gay characters have appeared in continuing or repeated, though not central, roles. (108) The late 1990s saw a slight rise in such representation, with some gay characters appearing in central roles. It must be noted, however, that any progress is rarely even-handed in representing all LGBT people. While Will & Grace (1998–2006) and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003–) became hit series, Ellen (1994–1998) sank, and transgendered televisual representation is still in 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 4

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its infancy. One must remember that, while their interests and goals often coincide, each of these groups has their own representational specificities, and this is particularly marked in the medium of television.

Lesbian and bisexual women have a unique position in popular cultural representation. Simultaneously fetishized and ignored, desired and dispar-aged, they have frequently been represented in popular culture as either oversexed sirens or sexless creatures whose lesbian life warrants nary a moment of screentime. As the move into “positive” representations increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so did the problematic tendency to desexualize lesbian characters, coyly ignoring their relationships and intimate lives. Sasha Torres reads such characters as Nurse Marilyn McGrath (Gail Strickland) on ABC’s Heartbeat (1988–1989), the first regular recurring lesbian character on U.S. television, and other more minor lesbian characters, as “eas[ing] the ideological threat of such ‘feminist’ programs by localizing the homosexuality which might otherwise pervade these homosocial spaces” (179). Torres further argues that Heartbeat fluctuated between universalizing and minoritizing discourses in their depiction of lesbianism—which resulted in a displacing of lesbian sex onto other discourses. “Marilyn allows Heartbeat to claim the innovative presence of a lesbian character without confronting any of the challenges faced or issued by lesbians” (Hantzis and Lehr 115).

Discussing the first woman-to-woman kiss on U.S. television, between bisexual lawyer C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) and her heterosexual colleague Abby (Michele Greene) on L.A. Law (1986–1994) in 1991, Roseanne Kennedy observes that “In comparison with the erotic scenes between the straight characters, the kiss between C.J. and Abby is restrained to the point of being asexual. . . . in the heterosexual world of L.A. Law a potentially sexual relationship between C.J. and Abby can only be represented as an issue, at the cost of eliminating the sex” (Kennedy 133). This tendency to displace or underplay lesbian sexual expression in television has continued, and stands in marked contrast to hyper-marketed-and-sexualized ratings-stunt kisses between bi-curious/heterosexual women characters on such programs as Ally McBeal (1997–2002).

Roseanne (1988–1997) was a significant series in terms of queer female representation on television, including a bisexual female character Nancy Bartlett (Sandra Bernhard) as well as having Roseanne’s mother Bev (Estelle Harris) come out later in the series. Roseanne brought to public attention the intense pressure on television producers not to include lesbian sexuality when ABC

requested that an episode that involved a female-female kiss be edited or not shown. Suzanna Danuta Walters in All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America argues that this “Roseanne episode truly represented a radical departure in its cogent and sustained attack on homophobia and exploration of the 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 5

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shifting parameters of sexual desire” (69). Also in the 1990s, enormously popular sitcom Friends (1994–2004) included lesbian characters—Carol (Jane Sibbett), ex-wife of primary character Ross, and her partner Susan (Jessica Hecht). These characters, in keeping with the representation of many queer characters on television, were not central to the narrative. As Kelly Kessler points out in “Politics of the Sitcom Formula: Friends, Mad About You, and the Sapphic Second Banana,” Carol and Susan were “For the most part . . .

utilized solely as a vehicle for Ross’ fatherhood, paranoia, and wisecracks”

(134). Kessler further purports that both this depiction and that of the lesbian secondary characters on Mad About You (1992–1999), promoted “the targeted heterosexual audience’s identification with the characters” through “heterosexual standards of beauty, the invisibility of the lesbian community, the desexualization of the couples’ relationship, and the erasure of political struggle”

(143), thereby representing an assimilationist political strategy.

Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), in contrast, did not explicitly represent lesbian characters, yet became a lesbian cult classic. The campy, pseudo-mythological series featuring a strong ex-warlord heroine, Xena (Lucy Lawless), and her supportive storyteller sidekick and honorary Amazon princess Gabrielle (Renée O’Connor), was sure to be popular among lesbian viewers as, although never unambiguously presented, the show coyly lent itself to subtextual readings of the Xena/Gabrielle relationship. This subtext also offered a space for queer viewers to actively participate in rewriting the narrative via lesbian fan fiction, which in turn influenced the show towards stronger lesbian entendre. As Jeanne E. Hamming argues, “the cache of Xena/Gabrielle slash fiction which has grown out of the show’s reliance on open secrecy has led to a circuit of productive desire between the creative forces behind Xena: Warrior Princess and the writers of Xena slash” (para. 1).

Such open secrecy, however, once again codes lesbianism as something televisually undepictable, and keeping its female homosexuality as “subtext means the series never has to ‘out’ its characters and the producers never have to risk the censure and eventual cancellation that might happen with an overtly lesbian program” (Helford 141).

The coming out of comedian and actress Ellen DeGeneres and her character Ellen Morgan on Ellen (1994–1998) was roundly celebrated as the most important event in lesbian television history, even prompting a key website focusing on queer women in popular culture to be named Afterellen.com. Not all, however, are comfortable with the embrace of Ellen’s media ritual as a defining moment of change, or the unambiguous narrative of progress suggested by such views. Anna McCarthy notes the contradictory nature of such celebrations of Ellen as a “first”: “Writers in the gay press and entertainment news would affirm the status of the show as a first, then 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 6

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generate long lists of queer people of all sorts who had appeared on television in decades past” (“Ellen” 593). Susan J. Hubert sees the much vaunted coming out as “largely a media created event” wherein “Ellen’s supposedly controversial attempt to push the limits of acceptability actually reinscribe[ed]

conventional sexual politics” (31). Becca Cragin contends that “mainstream images of lesbianism are often divided into binary opposites: angry politico vs. apolitical (sexualized) femme,” seeing Ellen Morgan as “not able to fulfil the sexualized function of most chic images, yet she was initially not on the side of the angry, political lesbian either. What allowed her to function as a nonsexualised, non-political (semiotically closeted) lesbian was another binary underlying the first: adult/child” (200).

These critics do not, however, read Ellen as negative, but simply as more complex than some celebratory narratives would suggest. To McCarthy “the show succeeded not so much at its stated goal of broadening the representational horizons of the sitcom as at exploring the terms of queer representation in prime-time serial television” (“Ellen” 615), while Jennifer Reed sees DeGeneres in her incarnation as a daytime talk show host as continuing “to perform a specifically lesbian identity, that speaks to gay and lesbian, or queer literate viewers as well, and thus must challenge heteronormativity at some level” (34). Response to DeGeneres as a talk show host has certainly not been uniformly positive, and she has been “criticized by the gay press for softpedaling her lesbianism” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (Lo, “The Incredible Story” para. 8). In chapter 1, “Resisting, Reiterating, and Dancing Through,”

Candace Moore discusses Ellen’s varying performances of lesbianism throughout her television career, reading Ellen DeGeneres’s dance in her daytime talk show as a performance of queerness, even as she “avoids the topic of her own homosexuality and actively closes down conversations in which the very word or concept comes up” (17).

In chapter 5, Dana Heller looks at another coming-out narrative, that of Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) in ER (1994–). This coming-out is placed in the context of the American workplace, “one of the primary locations for the construction of public-personal crisis” in television drama (84). Later in the series, Weaver and partner Sandy Lopez (Lisa Vidal) attempt to have a child together, experiencing first a miscarriage, and then, shortly after the birth of their child, the death of birth-mother Lopez, which results in a custody battle between Weaver and Lopez’s parents. While ER presented “the traumatic and prolonged birth pangs of discursive elements new to the portrayal of lesbians on television” Heller notes that these “elements must still be assimilated into the familiar televisual frames that advertisers and viewers are assumed to be comfortable with, and increasingly these frames correspond to American

‘family values’” (95–96).

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One of the most popular television series in contemporary academic discourse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also depicted queer women in the form of primary character Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and her lovers, witch Tara (Amber Benson) and potential slayer Kennedy (Iyari Limon). As Edwina Bartlem observes, the series did “present some empowered images of lesbians in the process of coming out, in long-term romantic relationships and as part of an alternative family unit,” but it did not do so entirely unproblematically.

Jes Battis notes that the “most prevalent critical reading of the Willow-Tara relationship is one wherein magic and lesbian sexuality are conflated” (36),2

and, as Edwina Bartlem points out, while “the spectacle of lesbian sex as a form of magic is romantic, it is also problematic as it perpetuates the normative, homophobic notion that lesbian sex is not real, physical or visually presentable.” This depiction shifts somewhat as the series progresses, when Willow enters into a relationship with Kennedy after Tara’s death (see Beirne

“Queering”). In chapter 3, “Complicating the Open Closet: The Visual Rhetoric of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sapphic Lovers,” Tanya Cochran interrogates the signification of cross-media influences, reading Buffy’s depiction of Willow and Tara in the context of men’s magazine appearances by actresses Hannigan and Benson. Cynthea Masson takes a different approach in chapter 4, examining Willow’s linguistic particularities, and particularly focusing on the rhetoric of questioning.

Much writing on queer representation on television tends toward being Americo-centric, including this anthology. Other nations have, however, certainly been significant in representing queer women on television. British television, for example, has a history of screening queer characters. As Thynne noted in 2000, “No self-respecting British soap is now without a lesbian character” (202), and Britain’s BBC and Channel 4 have been particularly groundbreaking in terms of queer programming. The BBC’s Tenko (1981–1984), had “British drama’s first regular lesbian character” (“Get this filth off our screens!” 2), while sympathetic lesbian character Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) engaged in the first lesbian kiss on British television in Channel 4’s Brookside in 1993. One must be careful, however, not to view such developments in lesbian visibility as inherently progressive and unproblematic.

Nicki Hastie, discussing lesbians on British television in the mid-1990s, comments on the disconnect between Brookside and the channel’s treatment of a lesbian talk show host, reminding us that “As lesbian characters explode onto the TV screen and ‘lesbian’ stories hit the headlines, it is imperative to question the gaps between visibility and empowerment” (38).

The BBC has also made various mini-series that depict lesbian relationships, including the 1990 Portrait of a Marriage, which was a dramatization of the relationship between Vita Sackville-West (Janet McTeer) and Violet 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 8

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Keppel (Cathryn Harrison). Analyzing Portrait in the 1994 anthology The Good, the Bad and the Gorgeous: Popular Culture’s Romance with Lesbianism, Jenny Harding observed that in the program “the versions of lesbian sex presented on screen were not wild cards or disparate moments of sexual diversity, but steady and negative counterparts to revered elements of marriage” (121).

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1990), an adaptation of novelist Jeanette Winterson’s first novel, was screened by the BBC to an audience of circa six million (Marshment and Hallam 143) and received “acclaim from the popular press, lesbian audiences and serious critics alike” (Hinds 52). Prize-winning novelist Sarah Waters has also recently had two of her lesbian novels set in the Victorian era adapted into mini-series by the BBC. Both Tipping the Velvet (2002) and Fingersmith (2005), like Oranges, rated exceptionally highly on the BBC. Tipping the Velvet “featured, besides some routine naked lesbian romping and a lot of décolleté corsetry, butch-femme sex with a leather dildo and FTM cross-dressing, along with a thoroughly explicit smorgasbord of nineteenth-century sexual decadence” (Graham 22). It is a notable indication of the differences in cross-cultural attitudes that when Tipping was screened on BBC America, significant portions thereof were cut (Lo, “Review”).

In contrast to Tipping, Fingersmith painted a darker portrait of Victorian England, Dickensian not only in its vistas, but in the plot’s frequent twists and turns. Despite several double crosses, the love between the female protagonists is presented both tenderly and erotically and they end the tale with protestations of their love for one another.

Lesbian representation on British television has also, however, been the subject of critique. Analyzing the BBC series Playing the Field (1998–2002), Close Relations (1998) Real Women (1998), and Channel 4’s original Queer as Folk (1999–2000) in “Being seen: ‘the lesbian’ in British television drama,”

Lizzie Thynne concludes as follows:

While for mainstream television, both male and female homosexualities present novel additions to the potentially hackneyed tale of boy meets girl, the terms in which our otherness is defined are still bound by gender . . . “The lesbian” in this genre has not been a sign that significantly destabilises the meaning of heterosexuality since she is either negatively framed as the bearer of unfashionable politics, caught in a struggle for social acceptance or represents the perpetual thrill of initiation. (211–212) Critics have been more acclamatory of other British series, most notably ITV’s Bad Girls (1999–). The women-in-prison film genre has frequently been associated with lesbian themes, and in this respect, television is no different. Bad Girls is remarkable not only for the diversity of lesbian characters 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 9

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it presents, but for the manner in which they are presented. Indeed, the central romance of the early seasons is that of Nikki Wade (Mandana Jones), a sympathetic lesbian prisoner, and Helen Stewart (Simone Lahbib), the feminist wing governor. Scholars Didi Herman and Jenni Millbank have both persuasively argued for the significance of Bad Girls representation of queer women. For Jenni Millbank “the transgressive impact of lesbianism is deliberately centred as a positive force at the heart of the narrative . . . suggest[ing]

lesbianism as a rupture which crosses, and thereby dissolves, the hierarchical lines of gaoler and prisoner—both literally and figuratively freeing the women imprisoned” (159).

Didi Herman also sees Bad Girls’ lesbian representation in a positive light, asserting that the series stands in contrast to other television shows which depict lesbian or gay characters while remaining within a heteronormative framework ( Ellen, Will & Grace, Buffy). Herman contends that Bad Girls signifies “a homonormative perspective, such as that found within gay and lesbian literature and independent cinema, [which] represents gay and lesbian identity as normal, natural, good and unremarkable in and of itself ”

(144). As Herman outlines, part of this homonormativity is achieved through its estrangement of other sexualities, “I would argue that a large proportion of [ Bad Girls’] representations of heterosexuality and bisexuality could be said to inhabit the violent, spectral place that Hart (1994) suggests is usually the province of lesbianism in popular culture” (153).

This creation of a positive lesbian or image via the abnegation of bisexuality is not an uncommon feature of queer representation on television. In chapter 12, Faye Davies addresses this issue in The L Word, arguing that the series creates a hierarchy wherein heterosexual and homosexual relationships outrank bisexuality, which is presented as unstable. Jennifer Moorman argues in chapter 11 that bisexuality has been neglected in the study of queer images on television, and this is an oversight this anthology hopes to help rectify, at least in relation to female images. Moorman places The L Word’s presentation of bisexuality in the context of past representations and study of bisexuality, arguing that The L Word “comprises the most complex treatment of female bisexuality to date, but there is still much to be accomplished in the ongoing struggle for representations of sexual diversity” (177). Other programs that present bisexual storylines are more problematic, hesitating at utilizing the term bisexual even as they present seemingly bisexual characters, remaining stuck in binary linguistic models where their characters must be either lesbian or heterosexual. Queer as Folk engages in this dance around bisexuality with its characters Lindsay and Drew, as I discuss in chapter 6, and the fixity of identity categories that Tabetha J. Adkins identifies in Sex and the City (1998–2004) renders the series unable to conceptualize its character 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 10

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Samantha as bisexual, rather portraying her as rampantly heterosexual, then suddenly identifying as a lesbian, before going back to heterosexuality.

In “Sexuality in the City” Mandy Merck writes of the HBO series Sex and the City that “If a TV series could be said to have sex, in the sense to practice, identity or desire” Sex and the City’s sex is firmly “[h]eterosexual”

(48). It did, however, as Merck points out, present various other forms of sexuality, including lesbianism, albeit in a limited fashion. Chapters 7 and 8

of this volume build on this discussion in terms of both identity constructions and race. Tabetha Adkins discusses how (primary character) Samantha’s (Kim Cattrall) sexual identity is labeled in the series, contending that “rather than constructing characters who are sexually independent, [ Sex and the City] only affirms lesbian stereotypes and heteronormative ideas about female sexuality” (109). Melissa M. M. Hidalgo writes of the commodification of both race and sexuality in Sex and the City, and the linkage between these. Examining minor character Maria (Sonia Braga), the lesbian lover of Samantha, Hidalgo writes that “Maria is exoticized not only as a racialized other but as a sexual other; her race is necessary to mark her as

‘other’ apart from the white hetero-woman framework. Marked as such, Maria becomes something—a body—to be exchanged, owned, conquered, and disposed of when her use value is spent” (129).

Another type of lesbian image is identified by Kelly Kessler in “Mommy’s Got a Gal-Pal: The Victimized Lesbian Mother in the Made-for-TV

movie”—that of lesbian televisual images created for a specifically educational purpose. The made-for-TV movies Kessler discusses create viewer identification with the lesbian mother protagonists through hailing the viewer emotionally. Kessler identifies strategies used by these films in order to make their characters sympathetic, such as the casting of actresses associated with sympathetic or victimized roles and focusing on the mother-child bond, a bond at the emotional center of our society’s discourses. By victimizing these women, and rendering homophobic characters as villains, a strategy also frequently used in such series as Queer as Folk and South of Nowhere (2005–), these films thus hail the viewer to identify with the lesbian character and disassociate from the homophobic characters. Despite seeing these films as “a more progressive approach,” Kessler argues that they also “compromise their messages through the false construction of an essentialized lesbian; they cast recognizable heterosexual actresses and legitimize the image of ‘ the lesbian’ by means of physical and class construction” (57).

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television. The New Queer Aesthetic contained several essays that specifically addressed queer women on television, including work by Danielle Mitchell, Margaret McFadden, Kelly Kessler, and Becca Cragin. Discussing the character of Karen Walker (Megan Mullaly) in Will & Grace, Mitchell argues that Karen “challenges images of the wife and performs sexuality outside the parameters of the binary system in which a subject is either hetero or homo” (90).

McFadden discusses the political rhetoric adopted by The L Word (2004–) in its first season exploration of the religious right, arguing that the series

“encourages progressives to take on the religious right . . . explor[ing] the moral and political question of whether or not the left wing should adopt the right’s tactics within the struggle and argu[ing] for the careful maintenance of the moral norms of the show’s lesbian world” (114).

The advent of Showtime’s The L Word has been perhaps the most productive force in fostering academic response to queer women on television. The series, shown on Showtime, a premium cable channel, revolves around a group of largely lesbian and bisexual women living in Los Angeles. Now in its fourth season, the series has been hailed as groundbreaking in its representation of queer women on television. The publication in 2006 of Reading The L Word, an anthology edited by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, brought together responses to The L Word by both academics and journalists. Essays in this volume address the series in relation to visibility, new queer cinema, monogamy and cheating, lesbian sex, female masculinity, biracial visibility, and a variety of other issues.3

Despite a significant number of essays that celebrate the series as a breakthrough, the critical response to the series has been by no means uniformly positive, as the series raises many problematic elements. As Samuel A.

Chambers observes “The L Word produces a paradox . . . it takes a cast of mostly lesbian characters yet still manages to mimic, support and even reify the norm of heterosexuality” (89). Faye Davies argues that with gender too, The L Word takes on hierarchical constructions, preferencing emotions and relationships, coded as feminine, over casual sexual encounters, which are represented as butch sexual practice (chapter 12, this volume). Many have commented upon the femininity of lesbian and bisexual women on television. These analyses generally take the form of critique, reading femininity in television’s queer women as a gesture of assimilation or pandering to the male gaze. Erin Douglas’s discussion of queer femininity throughout chapter 13

complicates this discourse. Douglas argues that the femininity of the characters Jenny, Bette, and Alice in The L Word are not a negative element of the series, but indeed acts to undermine and renegotiate dominant perceptions of femininity and female sexual receptivity. M. Catherine Jonet and Laura Williams in chapter 10 contend that The L Word is “a restive text that recasts 9780230600805ts02.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 12

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not only the history of lesbian representation, but also attempts to disrupt identitarian notions of queer women” (161), which both destabilizes heteronormativity and critiques male privilege. Marnie Pratt takes up the issue of representation itself, asking us to question precisely what it is we mean when we talk about “representation (chapter 9).”

As can been seen in this diversity of response, The L Word is not, as some would have it, the celebratory endpoint of the journey of queer women’s representation on television. Much as Ellen did not unequivocally and unproblematically change the face of the representation of queer women on television, neither has The L Word. The series is, however, a step forward, a tiny step closer to the goal of representational abundance demanded by Lesbian Feminist Inc. back in 1975.

While The L Word is still placed firmly in the “adult” category, inroads are slowly being made into representing queer characters on television for young people. While young queer characters appearing on teen-orientated programs in the 1990s sparked demands from the religious right to grant a special

“homosexual content” label (Epstein 60), the representation of such characters has continued and, indeed, flourished. In chapter 14, Allison Burgess discusses the lesbian relationship that appeared on prime-time teen soap The O.C. in 2005. Burgess argues that “this lesbian relationship began as something new and exciting, representing a nuanced and fluid understanding of women’s sexuality on prime-time television” (211). Shortly afterward, however, a series of episodes “negated the earlier promising portrayals, and . . . reified the dominance of homophobic and heteronormative discourses in popular culture” (212). Queer teen characters have also made their presence known on daytime soaps, with Bianca (Eden Riegel) on All My Children (1970–) being a prominent example. C. Lee Harrington argues that the narrative surrounding Bianca represents an advance in the representation of lesbians on daytime television, demonstrating a gradual mainstreaming of homosexuality. Other series directed at teens and children have also increasingly represented queer teens in recent years. The Canadian teen series Degrassi (1987–1991), long recognized for its willingness to tackle issues considered taboo in children’s programming, in its new manifestation as Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–), engaged with issues of queer youth, both male and female.

Channel 4 of the United Kingdom, known for their queer content with Dyke TV (1995–1996) and Queer as Folk, broke new ground with Sugar Rush (2005–), based on Julie Burchill’s eponymous young adult novel. The tele-narrative centers around Kim (Olivia Hallinan), a self-described “fifteen-year-old queer virgin obsessed with my best friend and her magnificent tits”

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(Lenora Crichlow), and the second season in a lesbian relationship with Saint (Sarah-Jane Potts). Sugar Rush is daring in the rampant desires ascribed to its young female heroines, for both queer television and television directed at a teen market. Although its “young adult” status could be said to be somewhat compromised by its late timeslot, it was awarded the 2006 International Emmy Award in the “Children and Young People” category.

While the question of desire, rather than identity, is foregrounded in Sugar Rush, U.S. series South of Nowhere explicitly highlights the question of identity, albeit a more fluid conception of identity than is usual for television.

Central to the series narrative is the blossoming relationship between central characters Spencer (Gabrielle Christian) and Ashley (Mandy Musgrave), and Spencer’s Catholic mother’s homophobic reaction to their relationship, which, by the end of the second season has turned to a certain degree of acceptance.

Again, the problematic of being unable to name bisexuality occurs in this series. Despite Ashley’s early assertion that she is “not into labels” (1.1), the series shifts to both of the girls generally describing themselves as “gay,” despite Ashley’s complicated relationship with her ex-boyfriend Aiden (Matt Cohen).

The second season shifts from depicting a relatively happy relationship between the two girls to a love triangle where Aiden asks Ashley to “choose”

between himself and Spencer, in a cliff-hanger that also involves a shootout. It remains to be seen whether the series will use this as an effective “out” to their depiction of a gay relationship, which has already been portrayed in a less sexual manner than heterosexual teen relationships on the program.

Academic publishing is yet to catch up with these new and innovative programs, while much work is still to be done on interrogating the representation of lesbian and bisexual women in older series that failed to catch critical attention in the way The L Word has. Academic critique of The L Word’s Showtime stablemate Queer as Folk (2000–2005), for example, is limited though growing.4 The ongoing work done by community-channel programs such as the U.S. Dyke TV (1993–2007) and queer magazine series such as In the Life (1992–) and New Zealand’s Queer Nation (1993–2004), has largely not been documented or analyzed with the exception of Diane Hamer and Penny Ashbrook’s essay on Channel 4’s OUT (1989–1994) and Samantha Seale’s discussion of audience in SBS’s OUT (1992–1995). The impact of queer television networks has also yet to be addressed. Is programming on networks such as Canada’s Out TV, Italy’s Gay TV, France’s Pink TV, and Logo and Here! of the United States breaking new ground in programming for lesbian and bisexual women, or have they remained, like many other queer products, primarily directed toward gay men?

Scholarship in the field has also largely focused on American and U.K.

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television in the rest of the world. There are of course exceptions to this, such as Antonio La Pastina’s “The Sexual Other in Brazilian Television: Public and Institutional Reception of Sexual Difference,” which offers a thorough history of LGBT representation on Brazilian television, identifying the “few”

lesbian characters in these programs as being “either censored or killed early in the narrative” (91), and Brigitte Rollet’s “Le PaCs est-il soluble dans le PAF? Les personnages homosexuals dans les fictions télévisées françaises (1995–2005),” which provides discussion of lesbian representation on French television through an examination of the impact of France’s domestic partnership laws on gay and lesbian representations, but there is still a wealth of material that has yet to undergo critical analysis. More work needs to be done, for example, in examining the representation of queer women in German series such as Lindenstraße (1985–), Verbotene Liebe (1995–), and Berlin, Berlin (2002–2005), Spain’s Hospital Central (2000–), Brazilian telen-ovelas such as Mulheres Apaixonadas (2003), Argentina’s 099 Central (2002), Australian series such as Pacific Drive (1996–1997), Raw FM (1997), The Secret Life of Us (2001–2005), Last Man Standing (2005), Neighbours (1985–), Home & Away (1988–), and Kick (2007–), and many more international examples of queer women on television.

R. Jeffrey Ringer, in his introduction to Queer Words, Queer Images: Communication and the Construction of Homosexuality, one of the first anthologies to include several essays devoted to the representation of queer characters on television, wrote that one of the goals of that volume was to

“provide a research agenda for the future” (3). When I conceived of Televising Queer Women I hoped to acknowledge and gather together discussion of existing work to provide future scholars with a starting point for their research, spur further research in the field, and, like Ringer, signal areas in need of research and publication in order to create an agenda for the future. I hope you will enjoy this work, and participate in your own unique way in the discourse surrounding the representation of queer women on television.

Notes

1. The first gay male kiss on Australian television occurred in 1972 (Howes “Gays of Our Lives” 41). For further discussion of early queer televisual representation on Australian television please see Howes.

2. Battis’s monograph Investigating Farscape also contains discussion of queer female sexuality.

3. Other papers on The L Word include discussions of art, sex, and politics (Nyong’o), representation, space, and race (Rooney), gender expression and desire (Beirne “Fashioning”), art and pornography (Beirne “Dirty Lesbian Pictures”), and McFadden’s discussion of fighting the religious right mentioned earlier.

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4. Academic discussion of Queer as Folk has largely addressed the original U.K. version. Such discourse has included Thynne’s discussion of lesbian representation on Queer as Folk in “Being Seen: ‘the Lesbian’ in British Television Drama,” Sally Munt’s “Shame/Pride Dichotomies in Queer as Folk,” David Alderson’s “Queer Cosmopolitanism: Place, Politics, Citizenship and Queer as Folk” and Margaret E.

Johnson’s “Boldly Queer: Gender Hybridity in Queer as Folk.” Critique that addresses the Showtime series includes Esther Peeren’s “Queering the Straight World: The Politics of Resignification in Queer as Folk,” which addresses both the British and American versions, and my own “Embattled Sex: Rise of the Right and Victory of the Queer in Queer as Folk.” Glyn Davis’ forthcoming Queer as Folk is the first book-leangth study of the series.

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CHAPTER 1

Resisting, Reiterating, and

Dancing Through: The Swinging

Closet Doors of Ellen DeGeneres’s

Televised Personalities

Candace Moore

Gushing to The Advocate about her new girlfriend, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, Arrested Development star Portia De Rossi says: “She was so courageous and loud in ’97, and now she is doing something that is more subliminal. She’s changing the world, she really is” (Kort, “Portia”

40). De Rossi subtly articulates a difference between Ellen’s 1997 “coming out”1 and Ellen’s current daily dance into America’s living rooms as a beloved daytime talk show host who “happens to be” gay. LGBT activists and media critics slightly disagree, asserting that Ellen may be “softpedaling her lesbianism” on Ellen: The Ellen De Generes Show to find widespread acceptance (Lo,

“The Incredible Story”; Heffernan “The Perils” E5). As New York Times critic Virginia Heffernan puts it: “Ms. DeGeneres no longer wants to talk about being gay, so she discusses pleasant: décor, holidays and the fridge” (E5). Host of a mainstream variety show that has wowed NBC network executives by pulling in impressive numbers of its targeted demographic—women ages 25–54 (Deeken 30; Schnuer S1)—and hyped as having an “everywoman approach” (“The Ellen DeGeneres Show”), DeGeneres avoids the topic of her own homosexuality and actively closes down conversations in which the very word or concept comes up.

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By queer theorist David M. Halperin’s standards, these on-air avoidance strategies symbolically place Ellen firmly back into the closet. As Halperin interprets it, “To ‘closet’ one’s homosexuality is also to submit oneself to the social imperative imposed on gay people by non-gay-identified people, the imperative to shield the latter not from the knowledge of one’s homosexuality so much as from the necessity of acknowledging the knowledge of one’s homosexuality” (29). In a press conference prior to her talk show’s launch, Ellen DeGeneres was explicit about the fact that discussion about her sexual orientation would not likely get much airtime: “People know I’m gay. There’s nothing to talk about. It’s part of who I am, and [the audience]

knows that . . . I don’t know how that would ever come up in a conversation [with a guest]” (Champagne, “Ellen’s New”). Since DeGeneres’s Johnny Carson-styled show is organized around interviews of A-list celebrities promoting their own films, albums, and television shows, it is logical that the talk show would not revolve around the fact that she is gay.

Criticism has instead been directed at how Ellen demonstratively deflects mention of queerness, since, contrary to her predictions, it does “come up.”

These punctuated “returns of the repressed,” followed by quick deflections, serve Ellen’s act and have productive outcomes.2 By resisting talk about it, Ellen actually successfully frames queerness in her long pauses and her obvious redirects.

Seeking to interrogate Ellen’s implicit social contract with America on her current daytime talk show not to “bring up” her lesbianism, this essay traces multiple queer appearances and disappearances of Ellen DeGeneres on television over the past decade. I look back at early (pre- coming-out) episodes of ABC sitcom Ellen (1994–1998) and at the opening of an HBO stand-up comedy special, Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning (2000), for clues as to what has been enunciated or purposely left unsaid about character Ellen Morgan’s sexuality and Ellen DeGeneres’s real-life lesbian sexuality as well as what has been, through dance or physical humor, performed about both.

Not verbally addressing queer identity on her talk show is understandable from DeGeneres’s personal perspective. Her career all but collapsed not long after the glow of her public coming-out party died down.

“To come out,” according to Halperin,

is precisely to expose oneself to a different set of dangers and constraints, to make oneself into a convenient screen onto which straight people can project all of the fantasies they routinely entertain about gay people, and to suffer one’s every gesture, statement, expression, and opinion to be totally and irrevocably marked by the overwhelming social significance of one’s openly acknowledged homosexual identity. (30)

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Following Ellen DeGeneres’s self-outing, her private life (with ex-girlfriend Anne Heche) became unbearably public—their love affairs’ ups and downs became unending fodder for gossip columnists and paparazzi, who stalked the new couple. Ellen’s groundbreaking sitcom was also summarily canceled the next year, due to advertiser pullouts, public attacks from the religious right, and, arguably, sabotage by the ABC network itself in imposing parental advisories because of the show’s portrayals of same-sex romance (Such advisories were not, of course, placed on programs that tackled more explicitly sexual subjects with heterosexual leads) (Gross 162). Throughout these trials, DeGeneres became an important icon of political courage for the LGBT

community, even though she candidly expressed that she had neither intended her coming out as a political statement nor wished to become a poster-woman for the queer cause. To an interviewer at Time, she admitted in 1997: “I never wanted to be the spokesperson for the gay community. Ever I did it [came out] for my own truth . . . I didn’t do it to make a political statement . . . I did it selfishly for myself and because I thought it was a great thing for the show, which desperately needed a point of view” (Handy, “He Called Me Ellen Degenerate?” 86).

Since its launch in 2003, Ellen has crafted herself a talk-show persona on Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show, who linguistically sidesteps the word or concept of homosexuality. However, she performs queerness through what implicitly “exceeds” her stand-up jokes and sit-down talk, and, physically, through the ritual action of her daily dance sequence. Through these methods, perhaps DeGeneres escapes being such a “convenient screen” for hate-mongers or bearing the responsibility of being a spokesperson for all of gay America, while she still maintains a televisibility3 of queer identity. Demonstrating how Ellen’s coming out and her return to the closet become enacted again and again, ad infinitum, on television, my textual analysis involves queer ruptures on the primarily heterosexual text of Ellen’s current Emmy-winning daytime talk show. Seeing “being in the closet” and “being out” as performances that are constantly negotiated socially—either actively resisted or reinscribed—rather than one-time denials or declarations of sexuality that hold, this essay highlights ambiguous moments in DeGeneres’s daily show. In specific instances that I explore, De Generes gestures rhetorically or symbolically to her sexual preference, absurdly omits or redirects possible discussions of homosexuality, or is subtly or not-so-subtly “called out” as gay by her celebrity guests.

In a recent essay in Feminist Media Studies, Jennifer Reed examines Ellen DeGeneres’s different “lesbian personas” on network television, including her character on the short-lived CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show (2001). Reed argues that “in all of these incarnations, DeGeneres has performed a lesbian persona corresponding to a distinct set of terms and strategies in the socio-performative 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 20

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politics of same-sex desire. That is, each season of these shows has corresponded to separate, identifiable moments in the politics of the representation of same-sex desire” (25). I agree generally with Reed’s assertions, but seek here to examine televised manifestations of Ellen less in terms of the particular representational moment or historical context during which each is broadcast, and more in terms of the varied performative rhetorics she uses given different televisual genres (sitcom, variety show, comedy special), modes of address (“in character,” “performing/dancing oneself,” stand up), and formal contexts (prime-time network television, daytime network television, pay cable television). While Ellen certainly speaks and acts differently in different formal contexts, I demonstrate how two reoccurring elements—discursive skirting and physical outing—act in dialogue throughout her various televised performances.

Repetition and reiteration is a central theme in Ellen’s show, with her daily dances, recurring verbal noises and catch phrases. I ultimately argue that Ellen’s many repetitious behaviors also serve as multiple self-outings. Anna McCarthy suggests that perhaps queer visibility on television is only permissible as spectacle; such televisibility becomes dangerous to heteronormativity when it presents queer lives and loves as “quotidian” (“Ellen: Making Queer Television History” 597). By repeatedly dancing to the same songs and expressing the same verbal ticks over and over again, Ellen seeks in the opening sequences of her talk show to present the out-of-the-ordinary repeatedly until its very performance, occurring daily, becomes un-alarming and even infectiously celebratory.

During her ritual opening dance, Ellen looks into the camera, directly addressing the audience, and then follows by breaking the proscenium arch, dancing out into the pulsating, cheering, similarly dancing live studio audience. Her daily dances, set to a handful of uplifting disco, hip hop, and R&B

songs, with their awkward, non-choreographed moves together with her wide, toothy grin, seem to proclaim a message of self-acceptance: This is me!

I’m great just the way I am, and you can be great just the way you are too! Her dance moves themselves evoke nostalgia for the gay-steeped, 1970s-era culture of disco. While Ellen does not remind her audience of her queerness over and over again verbally, Ellen does repeat acts that are both absurd and permissible, causing the most bizarre squawks and awkward dance moves to become a commonplace sight, and a site for pleasure.

Subliminal Rituals

While De Rossi’s claim that Ellen is “changing the world” might represent the overstated rhetorical flourish of the lovestruck, De Rossi’s use of the 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 21

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word “subliminal,” meaning “below the threshold of conscious perception”

( Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 1994: 1154), to describe what Ellen is “doing,” does astutely point out the very liminality of Ellen’s ritualistic daily performances.4 To put it in other terms, De Rossi is here distinguishing between a media event and a repeated media ritual. A media event is a one-time, idiosyncratic phenomenon that acts as an exception to the usual rules of both television flow and content, and, if planned, is often surrounded by quite a bit of promotional hype (Hubert 31; McCarthy,

“Ellen: Making Queer Television History” 593). A repeated media ritual also temporarily upends or stretches convention (only to reinstate it); however, it is less outwardly eventful; in fact, it gradually becomes perceived as a part of the normal flow, and signifies through repetition, over time, or through multiple broadcasts (Couldry 24). One punctuates the Nielsen’s ratings, the other has the potential to slowly, rather than rapidly, shift consciousnesses through a process of slow audience acclimation to, and reinforcement of, difference.

Susan J. Hubert called the “controversy over Ellen’s coming out episode”

“largely a media-created event,” noting that “advertising spots went for premium rates, some for as much as 20% more than Ellen’s usual $170,000 fee”

(31). In “Ellen: Making Queer Television History,” McCarthy lists the following three reasons why Ellen’s coming-out episode constituted a media event: (1) it was “hailed as a ‘first,’” (2) it altered “the flow of the network schedule,” and (3) it was “described as television history” (593). McCarthy argues that while this episode was an initial ratings draw to the network because of the publicity surrounding its bold “step ahead” in a liberal-progressive timeline of television history, the show itself became branded a failure the next season, when it followed television’s changing trend in the 1990s from the episodic to what Horace Newcomb called the “cumulative”

form (13). The result of Ellen’s 1998 practice of mixing in one-off episodes with those that advanced overarching plots about Ellen’s lesbian love life in a serial fashion was troubling to Disney-owned ABC:

[ABC’s president, Robert A.] Iger explained that Ellen “became a program about a character who was gay every single week, and . . . that was too much for people.” This statement is noteworthy for the way it opposes queer identity and televisual seriality. . . . Its fear of a quotidian, ongoing lesbian life on television suggests that although the network could support queer television as a spectacular media event, it could not sanction a lesbian invasion of serial television’s more modest form of history making, the regularly scheduled weeks of televisual flow.

(McCarthy 596)

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Ellen DeGeneres now broadcasts an “ongoing lesbian life” that fits into the regular flow, by appearing as a known gay woman on the air at 4:00 p.m. each day, every week. She is arguably the woman whose performance of gayness has most saturated the public sphere, given the maelstrom of media coverage on her sexual preference. Indeed, as host of the talk show, DeGeneres is in a relatively prominent position of power, and one in which, rather than being caught up in the “incitement to discourse,” prodded to “confess,” with her otherness continually under inspection, she controls the discourse (Foucault, The History of Sexuality 3–13). On screen, Ellen interrupts, pauses, shifts the subject, she shuts down conversations, she starts them and stops them, she formulates the questions. This is not to say that DeGeneres does not perform under the behind-the-scenes control, guidelines, and even potential censorship of the production company and network for which she works, but that her onscreen position of authority and the public’s acceptance of her as fig-urehead are nevertheless meaningful symbolically. Therefore, when examining the meaning of Ellen DeGeneres’s performance as host, rather than jumping to label her as back in the closet, we should consider that her performance may mean something entirely different symbolically, subliminally if you will, than it does on the level of literal, the explicitly said or not said.

To better grasp Ellen’s performance on a symbolic as well as a linguistic level, we must consider her formal ritual actions in dialogue with her scripted and improvisational speech. In Media Rituals: A Critical Approach, Nick Couldry explains that rituals

by their repetitive form reproduce categories and patterns of thought in a way that bypasses explicit belief. On the contrary, if made explicit, many of the ideas apparently expressed by these rituals might be rejected or at least called into question; it is their ritualized form that enables them to be successfully reproduced without being exposed to questions about their content. (24) In order for ritual actions to effectively cloak, but still deliver, content, they must be repeated; this repetition allows ritual actions to take on an ambiguity that serves to protect symbolic meaning from becoming surface meaning.

Ellen’s coming-out dance is similarly repeated in the first fifteen minutes of every show, unanchoring its meaning, while effectively performing the extraordinary in the everyday, the queer outside the closet. Literally dancing out into the audience, she provides an effective performative pun.

Encoding/Decoding the Dance

When asked why Ellen DeGeneres does not address her homosexuality on her talk show, lesbian actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner ( Go Fish, 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 23

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The L Word) declared emphatically “How could you dance like that and not be gay? That’s a way of saying with every opening representation, I’m gay!”

(“Personal Interview” 2005). Marusya Bociurkiw, in a recent critical essay published in Canadian Woman Studies, concurred with Turner’s view that Ellen’s lesbianism is palpable in her dancing: “As the music, usually hip hop, is played, Ellen’s body is on display in a manner that is decidedly not heteronormative. Here DeGeneres displays the grace and confidence that her accessible, self-deprecating ‘kook’ act disavows. DeGeneres looks like a butch lesbian dancing alone, in a club” (176).

However, these interpretations are just that, individualized readings of a polysemic text, and sometimes we see what we want to see. Furthermore,

“what a dyke dancing looks like” is a nearly impossible thing to put one’s finger on. Just as lesbians are a diverse, rather than homogeneous group, comprising women of varying ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, styles, classes, gender presentations, and so on, their dance moves likely vary enormously.

So while a general consensus remains among these readings, that “something’s queer” here, I try to show, through examining prior precedents of Ellen expressing herself physically—whether through physical humor or through dance—that not only does her opening “dance with herself ” (and thus the viewer) represent a daily declaration of queer identity, but that she has previously coded it to mean exactly that.

Rather than revisit the coming-out media event of Ellen’s “Puppy Episode” (4.22 and 4.23, April 30, 1997), which has been explored in depth by Anna McCarthy, Susan J. Hubert, and Steven Capsuto, among others, I concentrate instead on two pre-coming-out episodes from the second season of Ellen—texts, which, like her talk show, operate “doubly.” In “The Fix Up”

(2.5, October 19, 1994) Ellen’s dance moves are first foregrounded, and in

“Thirty Kilo Man” part 1 and 2 (2.23, May 10, 1995; 2.24, May 17, 1995), her character has a heterosexual love affair that reads as unmistakably queer.

Elevator Music on Early Ellen

Early Ellen is best described as ABC’s version of Seinfeld’s sitcom about nothing, since both half-hour shows center around known stand-up comedians and their witty banter about insignificant, repetitious, or everyday matters with friends. During the three seasons prior to Ellen DeGeneres’s/Ellen Morgan’s doubly momentous 1997 coming out, Ellen’s character on the middling-rated sitcom was consistently stuck in a weekly cycle of dates-gone-wrong with guys, that, for an array of incidental and sometimes extravagantly bizarre reasons, just do not fit. In “The Gladiators” (2.19, March 1, 1995) for instance, Ellen’s new beau, Nitro, a gladiator from the then-popular television 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 24

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show, American Gladiators,5 is snapped away from her by an ultra-buff woman (Ice), leading the bookstore owner to jealously beat the pumped-up woman to a pulp with a padded lance.

The sitcom’s season with the most overtly heterosexual storylines, the second, is also the season with the most queer subtext. Disney would not okay the idea of Ellen Morgan’s coming out until more than a year later, when blatant hints began to be worked into the weekly scripts (Gross 157). Ellen’s obsessive man-shopping in season two is painted by the writers and producers as downright absurd, but what will serve as the alternative (asexuality, in most of season three, before facing her queer identity), is not quite clear yet either. Journalist for The San Francisco Examiner, Joyce Millman, caught on early. In the spring of 1995, in a column entitled “The Sitcom that Dare Not Speak Its Name,” the television critic prematurely outed Ellen Morgan: “As a single gal sitcom, Ellen doesn’t make any sense at all, until you view it through the looking glass where the unspoken subtext becomes the main point. Then Ellen is transformed into one of TV’s savviest, funniest, slyist shows. Ellen Morgan is a closet lesbian” (B1).

In “The Fix Up” (2.5, October 19, 1994) of season two, the episode opens with Ellen inside an elevator—the enclosed space that arguably acts as the show’s metaphorical stand-in for a closet. Ellen’s adventures in (or waiting for) an elevator are a reoccurring trope on the show. Given the sitcom’s frequent meta-references to sitcom history (see McCarthy, “Ellen: Making Queer Television History” 607–614), perhaps this trope, seen throughout the second season, is also a tip of the hat to the historically common “meat locker” sitcom scenario, wherein people with differences get stuck in a small space, often a meat locker or an elevator, and overcome their differences (Sconce 104–105). In this case, the elevator’s only other passenger exits, and finding herself alone, Ellen openly acknowledges the song playing over the loud speakers, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” by first tapping her feet, then swinging from side to side and lip-synching. As the song builds to crescendo, Ellen is observed flailing, rocking her head along to the words, and jumping into the air, landing with thumps. As audience members, we are in anticipation for the elevator doors to suddenly open and for Ellen to be “found out.” Instead, Franklin’s rousing tune halts abruptly and a male authoritarian voice comes over the loud speakers:

“Excuse me ma’am, this is security” the voice interrupts “Please refrain from jumping in the elevator.” The camera offers a shot from above, looking down at Ellen as she immediately looks up to the speaker, with a petrified deer-in-the-headlights acknowledgment that she is being surveyed. She then cradles her head down in her hand, in embarrassment, before the camera cuts away.

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This scene might be read divorced from any queer subtext, as mere silli-ness in an elevator, with Ellen as the 1990s Lucy Ricardo, always getting herself into a new kind of trouble. However, the larger text of the sitcom suggests the elevator as a contained closet, within which Ellen Morgan can finally release herself, be happy with who she is, until she is again reminded, reprimanded by a voice from outside, that others do not approve of her lifestyle.

This is particularly suggested by the content of the dialogue between Ellen and her mother that immediately follows, and furthermore by the theme (failed heterosexual dating, what else?) of “The Fix Up.”

In the scene that follows, Ellen’s mother asks her a question over coffee that reoccurs, rephrased, throughout the series: “So, are you seeing anyone these days?” When Ellen’s answer implies no, her mom continues in full fuss mode: “I just worry about you. You’re not immortal . . . I just want you to be happy.” Ellen retorts, “You know it’s possible to be happy without a man.”

“Must you joke about everything,” her mom returns, and then promptly tries to fix Ellen up with someone she grew up with. Described by Ellen as the

“weird” kid in the neighborhood who ate bugs, he has matured into an adult man who is not peculiar at all; in fact, Ellen seems to find him quite charm-ing. In a plot reversal, he ends up finding Ellen entirely “weird,” through the usual comedy of errors. “The Fix Up” is a stereotypical example of the pre-coming-out plotline, wherein events beyond Ellen’s control, but generally propelled at least partially by her neurotic behavior, spiral, causing Ellen ultimately to be rejected by her possible heterosexual love interest, rather than force the thirty-something to own up to the fact that she is not truly interested in the first place. There are also instances where Ellen rejects men; these generally involve Ellen’s discovery that the man she thought was a dreamboat has an impossible-to-stand trait.

The “date that always goes wrong” plot is finally frustrated and complicated in the two-part season two finale “Thirty Kilo Man” (2.23 and 2.24, May 10, 1995 and May 17, 1995). The first part of the finale opens in Ellen’s apartment, with Ellen’s mother asking her about her plans for the weekend.

When Ellen makes a joke about getting a “Chia Date,” so that she can sprin-kle it and “watch it grow,” Ellen’s mom pulls out the claws: “You know what the problem with you is, Ellen? You’re too picky. You always look for a man’s faults. Greg was too nice, Roger watched too much TV, Carl was a drag.”

“Drag king, mother,” Ellen corrects, “I know I nitpick . . .” As the episode continues, a man she was interested in during an earlier episode, but rejected after discovering that he delivered pizza for a living, Dan, returns from Italy with a new, more prestigious job. The first ever return “beard” is also the one that actually ends up in bed with Ellen. A “next day” scenario finds Ellen strutting out from her bedroom in a robe, hair mussed, puffing on an imaginary 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 26

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cigarette. Dan emerges fully dressed and primped, and she kisses him, mum-bling “no fair, you brushed your teeth.” “Sorry,” he practically sings. They touch their way into the living-room and in full soap-opera pitch Dan gushes: “I never want this feeling to end. Ellen Morgan, I think I’m falling in love with you.” In this scene, Ellen is scripted and choreographed into the position of the stereotypical man in a classic romance, who swaggers out of the bedroom, Dan, the stereotypical woman who rushes to say effusive things, to say “I love you” right away.

Later, when Dan comes back from work, Ellen backs him into the couch and gets on top, kissing him. His beeper starts to vibrate in his pants, she pauses to say “what’s that?” and then keeps kissing him, pressing into him, moaning “you are such a considerate man!” She grabs the cordless phone from the coffee table. “Okay, it stopped. What’s your number?” This joke on his beeper as vibrator, a device implied as more pleasurable than perhaps his penis, again with the classic roles switched (her as the “horny” one), plays on the notion that, although he is a man, they are in a “lesbian” affair. This joke is toyed with even further in part two of the finale when he figuratively

‘brings a U-Haul,’ moving in with her right away, and they spend all waking moments together. In their every dialogue and physical interaction, Ellen plays butch to Dan’s femme, and the season uses the potential of their hetero-homo romance continuing as a cliff-hanger to the next season. Here the sitcom Ellen playfully queers heterosexual scenarios since it cannot yet show a queer one. Ellen’s otherness is continually the underlying gag. In “Three Strikes” (2.21, March 29, 1995), Ellen, forced under court order to live with her parents, is made, by her mother, to wear a dress. As she walks through work, the laugh track goes wild; Ellen in a flowery dress in which she looks awkward is a joke in and of itself. Ellen Morgan’s (and, really, Ellen DeGeneres’s) queerness is what always exceeds the text, both with her dates that do not work, and with the one, Dan, that does.

Heterosexual Talk

Ellen’s closeted verbal discourse around the topic of her sexuality on Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show functions similarly to the coded scripting of her pre-out counterpart Ellen Morgan, on Ellen. More so, in fact, than what she voices (as “herself ”) resembles that of post-out, more politically positive Ellen Morgan, which is why I have focused so heavily, as a comparative tool, on the most heterosexual-themed (i.e., closeted) run of her earlier fictional show.

Generally, when the topic of her own sexuality is broached, live, Ellen DeGeneres defers the question within a heterosexual paradigm in which straight desire is always the point-of-reference, the norm. Like a pre-“Puppy 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 27

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Episode” Ellen Morgan who cannot seem to find the right man, Ellen DeGeneres never enunciates the nature of her desire on air, but always enunciates, rather, what her desire is not.

Two recent live tapings of Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show demonstrate this point. In a November 10, 2005 interview with Jake Gyllenhaal, the young actor comes out on stage with 400 white roses for Ellen to congratulate her on her 400th live talk show (3.49, November 10, 2005). When they sit down together, Ellen immediately declares Jake “cute” and gives him a publicity suggestion: “more shots with your shirt off,” showing a clip of him naked from the waist up in Jarhead. Her studio audience, mostly women, cheer at the top of their lungs. “You should take it off right now,” Ellen urges

“You don’t have to . . . It’s only going to help you.” Gyllenhaal unbuttons his top button then closes it again. “It’s my 400th show,” begs Ellen “Roses are sweet and everything . . . I’ll give ‘em back if you’ll take your shirt off.”

Gyllenhaal becomes bright red and laughs, clearly bashful.

Ellen here mimics Rosie O’Donnell’s “passing” as straight. Rosie O’Donnell, who came out as a lesbian after her popular television talk show wrapped, perfected “passing” by regularly harping on her ambiguously sexualized obsession with Top Gun star Tom Cruise. Gyllenhaal is verbally wor-shiped like Cruise, however, Ellen camps the faked crush even further, demonstrating her “passing” clearly as shtick. Acting similarly as a facilitator for straight women in their fantasies, DeGeneres’s play act has a distinct difference from O’Donnell’s: DeGeneres’s homosexuality is a known secret—a secret the audience knows in an iconic way—and she trades on this knowledge to make her interaction funny.

“It’s not for me,” Ellen asserts, looking Gyllenhaal in the eye, smiling. He can barely talk; he refuses to budge, but good naturedly. “It’s not for me!”

she insists again, making it clear, as if he did not get it the first time, that she is not trying to sexually harass him; besides, she’s gay. They share an understanding glance. “Are you single right now? I should ask that. Not for me, again, I don’t care, but the women in the audience want to know.” After the commercial break, Gyllenhaal loosens the collar of his shirt and exposes the top of his chest.

The sustained tease of Gyllenhaal’s potential strip that never happens, acts as a promotional para-text for the film Jarhead. Ellen even spells this out: “If you want to see what the rest of that looks like you have to go see the movie Jarhead.” Ellen focuses entirely on Jarhead and on her flirtation with Gyllenhaal about taking off his shirt. She gives his other about-to-release-film, Brokeback Mountain, an ever-so-quick mention at the end, but does not ask Gyllenhaal one question about this “film with Heath Ledger” (as she summarizes it), nor does she mention that the film deals with a homosexual 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 28

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romance between Gyllenhaal’s and Ledger’s characters. While implying that her own homosexuality gives her the social mobility to be so openly cheeky with him, without it constituting any kind of gender upheaval or sexual come-on, Ellen has, in this exchange, played butch to Gyllenhaal’s femme, much like Ellen Morgan did with Dan, placing him in the position of the looked at, the desirable. She pimps Gyllenhaal, inverting gender roles, using sexuality and gender against access of sexuality. She insists, however, on her non-desire, and does not name why it is that she is not attracted to him—that is supposedly “understood,” it goes without saying. Gyllenhaal gets visibly uncomfortable with his position as object, but becomes visibly more comfortable when Ellen finally asks whether he is single, since “the women in the audience want to know,” because she is offering him the space of normal heterosexual identity by default. Therefore, she intelligently also skirts the question of his sexuality. Ellen comes out through negation, although a denial of a heterosexual desire for one person does not necessarily imply homosexuality. The way she addresses the subject matter is very crafty—to those that do not want to be reminded of the nature of her desires, she does not dare speak its name, to those that do, she is, at least, honest.

In a special event edition of Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show that aired on November 30, 2005, celebrating Ellen’s twenty-fifth anniversary as a stand-up comedian, a similar incident takes place (3.63). Ellen’s “anniversary”

special revolves around clips shown from Ellen’s career as a stand-up comedian, allowing her to poke fun at her many bad haircuts. Guest celebrities visit to reminisce about Ellen’s start in “show biz.” Jay Leno, for instance, discusses getting Ellen her first gig on the Johnny Carson Show, a show that obviously inspired her own. Her first Carson appearance was featured most prominently during the hour and the fact that she was the first female comedian ever invited to be interviewed by Carson after her act was underscored. Ellen has played assorted on-screen and onstage roles during the course of her career—as an actress and television personality as well as a stand-up comedian.

In fact, she is perhaps most famous for her role as Ellen Morgan on Ellen.

Strangely, however, her sitcom was conspicuously missing from this retrospective. (Consider, for example, a retrospective on Jerry Seinfeld that fails to mention Seinfeld . . .) By focusing only on Ellen’s stand-up career, not only was her sitcom and her “coming out” conveniently occluded from the history of Ellen that the talk show offers, but no clips with any gay content were shown. Ellen rehistoricizes herself as a stand-up comedian first and foremost, and an asexual one at that.

David Spade joins Ellen on this episode, and we learn through their conversation that they met twenty years ago when the two traveled comedy circuits together, Spade opening for Ellen’s headlining act. Spade admits a 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 29

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secret: “We used to do some of these gigs together . . . I had a big crush on her . . . then I got the news.” Ellen becomes visibly embarrassed and just laughs for a long while, while Spade turns it into a joke “what it was, was the fact that you had a Walkman . . . and a sweet mullet.” “I thought you were adorable,” Ellen finally responds “No interest other than the fact that you were adorable. Although I did . . . I had a crush on you and you know it.”

She goes right from this statement into a clip of David Spade’s vintage comedy. Those of us that are “in” on the joke, read David’s crush on Ellen as real, and Ellen’s crush on David as purely platonic. Again here Ellen discursively frames her queerness through expressing what she does not desire, and even that in a very mixed-up way, as is evident in the statement “No interest other than the fact that you were adorable.” What does that mean? Ellen does not outright deny her homosexuality; when it comes up, she deflects mention of

“gayness” with the double-speak and coded strategies of her pre-coming-out sitcom character. DeGeneres is comfortable expressing her nonheterosexual-ity (in a specific instance—so that it could be read as follows: she just does not like him) on air, but not her homosexuality directly.

John Limon points out that DeGeneres’s strategy of “skirting” is not only admitted, but defined, in her book My Point . . . and I Do Have One: Someone recently wrote a letter . . . asking “Why does Ellen DeGeneres always wear pants and never skirts?” I’m guessing that the person who wrote that letter meant skirt, a noun signifying an article of clothing, and not skirt, a verb defined as, “to evade or elude (as a topic of conversation) by circumlocution.” Because, if they mean the verb skirt, well, they’re dead wrong. I’m always skirting. (DeGeneres 93; quoted in Limon 115) Limon identifies DeGeneres’s “skirting” as a form of “escapist art” that refuses

“to put all kidding aside,” and where “what is made visible . . . is evasion”

(116–117). Her verbal skirts act as denials of reality that constantly rely on reality as their vanishing point. Rather than expressing information that can be pinned down or literally understood, she replaces objective “truths” with tangential flights of fancy, distractions, wordplay, while presenting the journey of the skirt itself as having subjective and transient values—of imagination, pleasure, possibility.

Limon lyrically asks of DeGeneres’s skirting: “Is knowledge of the body repressed or unlearned? Is the body itself decoded or disclaimed?” (121). He dubs DeGeneres “an inverse Lenny Bruce, whose shame existed to be displayed as pride” (121). The notion that DeGeneres’s pride (with all of the meanings attached to that word) exists to be displayed as shame, as the case may be, is a savvy way to view beneath her linguistic skirts. If skirting is 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 30

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DeGeneres’s verbal strategy for, at least on the surface, distancing her comedy from the bodily, from her body and the material consequences of the world, while leaking other meanings, DeGeneres’s physical displays, especially her dances, convey and rely on utter embodiment: the body engaged in ritual.

Interpretive Dance

Speaking about her gay identity, the particulars of her personal love life, her iconicity for the gay cause, and her coming-out sitcom and its cancellation, have been tasks constantly required of Ellen DeGeneres by the press years after Ellen was off the air. Both outing oneself or constantly being asked to speak about it, to re-out oneself, again and again, are patterned on the act of the confession. The confession, as described by Michel Foucault, is part of the “transformation of sex into discourse” and “the dissemination and reinforcement of heterogeneous sexualities”; both are “linked together with the help of the central element of a confession that compels individuals to articulate their sexual peculiarity” ( The History of Sexuality 61). At some point then, Ellen’s constant off-screen “incitement to discourse” serves only to show Ellen’s sexual peculiarity, to highlight her otherness (Foucault 3–13).

Ellen’s choice to deflect or redirect the question of her homosexuality in potentially heterosexual discursive terms on her talk show is one strategy to remove herself from the confessional paradigm, wherein an implied authority outside of herself (like the voice in Ellen Morgan’s elevator), “the one who listens” (in the case of her show, the audience) is the implied judge or cheerleader of her private life. Instead, Ellen performs her queerness through her daily dances—illustrating both her control over what is expressed and her pleasure in expressing it. Here Ellen presents her queerness, individuality, difference, otherness, in an expressive act that broadcasts her self-love, and as part of a daily ritual that is ultimately not all about her. Her daily dance also becomes a boundary-crossing ritual shared with all, where she encourages others (her studio audience and viewers at home) to join her—to get up and dance themselves. For Ellen, dancing with oneself becomes dancing with the watching world, fulfilling the wish of the final refrain of the 1980s Billy Idol tune, “Dancing With Myself ”: “If I had a chance, I’d ask the world to dance.”

Dancing with oneself on television presents a dance of oneself to be received, shared, and potentially reciprocated.

Opening the stand-up special Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning, which first aired on cable channel HBO on July 23, 2000, Ellen briefly addresses her coming-out saga before performing a dance about the very subject (set to disco music that devolves into chants of “nah nah, nah nah, nah”). A comedy special such as this one on a pay cable network such as HBO offers 9780230600805ts03.qxd 12-10-07 09:06 PM Page 31

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DeGeneres a markedly less censored venue in which to express herself than on network television, daytime or prime time. In her introduction, Ellen offers an extremely telling speech that I end this chapter with, because I believe it not only introduces Ellen’s specific dance performance that night, but frames both her discursive closet and her soon-to-be-daily dance as “out.”

Speaking her mind about what should now be said, or not said, about her sexuality, Ellen successfully encodes the media ritual of dancing later to appear on Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show as a performance of queerness that expresses meaning where words have been found to fail:

Since I made the decision to come out three years ago, my life has been very interesting . . . I knew that people would want me to talk about it.

Some people may not want me to talk about it. So I went back and forth, trying to decide should I talk about it, should I not talk about it, and ultimately I decided: No, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s been talked about enough, what can I say? I feel it would be best expressed through interpretive dance.

Notes

1. Ellen came out as gay in real life on the cover of Time (April 14, 1997) and in character on the sitcom Ellen’s “Puppy Episode” (April 30, 1997).

2. In The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Michel Foucault posits censorship as a discursively productive act: 12–13; 84.

3. I use the word televisibility to refer to instances of visibility on television by queer subjects.

4. Victor Turner asserts that the use of the word “liminal,” “of processes, phenomena and persons in large-scale complex societies . . . must in the main be metaphorical” (Turner 29). Couldry recommends adopting Turner’s term “liminoid,” meaning “liminal-like” (Couldry 33). As “liminoidity” seems particularly awkward, I retain the word “liminality” here, intending it to be understood metaphorically.

5. American Gladiators (1989–1997, CBS) featured body builders competing against contestants on an obstacle course. Nitro was a regular gladiator and sometime cohost on the sensationalistic game show. Featuring American Gladiators on Ellen obviously served as an ABC-CBS cross-promotion.

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CHAPTER 2

Mommy’s Got a Gal-Pal:

The Victimized Lesbian Mother

in the Made-for-TV Movie

Kelly Kessler

Introduction

The 1990s ushered in a proliferation of televised representations of gays and lesbians on American television. We all jumped up and down when Entertainment Weekly ( Will & ) Grace-d its cover with “A Special Report: Gay Hollywood 2000,” depicting a happy cast of Will & Grace, a pleased (though then unemployed) Ellen, Survivor’s naked Richard Hatch, and a decontextualized Allison Hannigan/Willow of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Along with this increasing collection of recurring gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters in weekly series, the often-ghettoized genre of the made-for-TV

movie followed suit in depicting sexual minorities. Both broadcast and cable television answered the call for lesbian stories, airing films such as Serving in Silence (NBC, 1995), Two Mothers for Zachary (ABC, 1996), Gia (Showtime, 1998), If These Walls Could Talk 2 (HBO, 2000), The Truth About Jane (Lifetime, 2000), C ommon Ground (Showtime, 2000), and What Makes a Family? (Lifetime, 2001). A noticeable trend in these films was their adherence to what some have critiqued in the television movie: the personalization of the political. Most specifically, network and nonpay cable channels tended to focus their lesbian narratives on issues of family, specifically motherhood. Even Serving in Silence often decenters the narrative of Grethe 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 34

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Cammermeyer’s battle with institutionalized military homophobia to place focus solidly on her interactions with and the strength of her four sons.

Indisputably, occurrences of gay and lesbian characters in all facets of television have gone up in the past ten years; however, just what is at stake in such mainstream representations of the dramatized lesbian as matriarch?

This chapter examines mainstream representations of the lesbian as victimized mother in the American television docudrama, specifically Two Mothers for Zachary and What Makes a Family? The made-for-TV movie (hereafter MFTVM), has suffered much criticism from those who question the political efficacy of the personalization of the political. Notwithstanding, after examining the critique (and praise) of this genre, I show how these stories exceed the expectations of docudrama by troubling the issues of homophobic politics while addressing an audience through an overt personalization of and manipulation by the films’ narratives. However, these films still fall within a contested space; although their politics may skate past the criticism often leveled at their like, the heterocentric politics and economic imperatives of the post-network era still taint what could be seen as progressive or inclusive representations. These films simultaneously render explicit the pervasive homophobia and hypocritical notions of family that guide our justice system and construct a limited and legitimized notion of “the lesbian.”

By exploring the narratives, true stories, and popular reviews of these two films I examine the possible ramifications of the clustered presentations of the victimized lesbian mother. By investigating the messiness of issues such as fact/fiction blurring, star persona, and class, I hope to add to the existing critique and commentary on the television docudrama. Furthermore, I examine

“the lesbian” who through repeated representation becomes legitimized and the alternatives who remain invisible and/or inferior.

The Films

The two films examined here base their narratives on the true-life stories of women who lost their children at the hands of a homophobic judicial system.

Two Mothers for Zachary stars Valerie Bertinelli as a lower working-class Virginia woman who loses custody of her son to her mother (Vanessa Redgrave), who disapproves of her daughter’s lesbian relationship and partner (Colleen Flynn). Starting with Zachary’s birth and daughter Jody’s rejection of the biological father, the film follows Jody’s hetero-party girl shortcomings, burgeoning lesbianism as she meets Maggie (Flynn), abuse at the hands of the local townspeople and religious right, and courtroom ordeal as she repeatedly fights for and loses her son. Screenwriter Linda Vorhees based the film on the story of Sharon and Kay Bottoms. Sharon lost custody of her son Tyler in 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 35

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March of 1993 after moving in with her lover, April Wade. Over the next five years, Bottoms repeatedly appealed for custody and more flexible visitation.

As it stands, Tyler lives with Grandmother Kay and Sharon may visit him every other weekend from six p.m. Friday to five p.m. Sunday ( ACLU Fact Sheet). All visitations must occur at Sharon’s home, and under no circumstances may Tyler have contact, physical or telephone, with Wade.1

What Makes a Family? tells the story of Janine Nielssen (Brooke Shields) and Sandra Cataldi (Cherry Jones). Janine and Sandra, after committing to each other in a public ceremony, decide to start a family. Shortly thereafter, a doctor diagnoses Sandra (the biological mother) with systemic lupus. The film recounts the courtship, birth, and battle with lupus through flashbacks as Janine relates the story to her lawyer (Whoopi Goldberg) and fights to regain custody of her daughter. After Sandy’s death, her parents, who by Florida law are entitled legally to the child, petition for and receive custody of five-year-old Heather. The film examines Janine’s battle for and eventual winning of Heather’s guardianship. This narrative is based on the story of Janine Ratcliffe and Joan Pearlman. After eight years of commitment, Joan gave birth to their baby in 1979, just prior to being diagnosed with lupus. In 1984

Joan succumbed. Initially, the Pearlman grandparents signed over temporary guardianship to Janine, but then covertly filed for adoption and attempted to prevent Janine from gaining any contact with her daughter. Over the next five years, Janine lost custody and eventually regained guardianship of the child, a groundbreaking occurrence in the infamously homophobic Florida (remember the 1970s and Anita Bryant!) (Price 17; Benkov 214–227).

Genre and the Docudrama

The Made-for-TV Movie (MFTVM) and docudrama remain contentious spaces on the television landscape. Coming to prominence in the 1970s as networks realized commissioning their own films was cheaper than purchasing rights to theatrical releases, the first MFTVM aired on NBC in 1966. By the early 1970s, movies made expressly for television outnumbered those crossing from the big to small screen (Gomery, “Television” 125–126).

Although the network MFTVM has waned in prominence, the genre finds a voice through endless Lifetime movies and broadcast and cable special event films that retain the same controversial blending of fact and fiction as their 1970s counterparts. Scholars and producers alike criticize and laud the genre for its possible effects on the viewing public. Criticisms range from the genre’s lack of efficacy as a political agent to its complicity with the overwhelmingly consumer-driven nature of American television. Todd Gitlin argues that the MFTVM focuses on the personal effects of social issues, stating “The 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 36

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triumphs of American TV naturalism, in fiction as in the news, is [ sic] the revelation of familiar figures visibly coping with public troubles, right here in the living room. . . . But the price of familiarity is diminishment of the scale of things” (192). Douglas Gomery describes the genre as “[fulfilling] a particular need: topical entertainment reaffirming basic values and beliefs.”

The MFTVM negotiates the attraction of large audiences via topical narratives, the reification of societal norms, and the avoidance of overt political statement by “telling small stories” and focusing on tight character-driven narratives (“Brian’s Song” 87–91).

To the contrary, proponents of the genre hail the narrative form as the people’s product, providing a town-meeting-like space in which the greater public can engage with the topics of the day. Laurence Jarvik argues, “By involving the audience directly in the social dramas on screen, the television movie serves to claim by its very fact of existence that ordinary folk must participate equally in the deliberation of the issues of our time” (80). The same

“small stories” seen by some as manipulating audiences into uncritically accepting hegemonic social mores are seen here as Everyman’s access to the social system. Highlighting the docudrama as a valuable educational tool, David Wolper—producer of the highly successful Roots—replied to scholars who criticized the genre by suggesting, “. . . while you professors may feel that the audience doesn’t learn everything from what they see, I feel we are generating at least the possibility that people will further look into the subject matter” (Jarvik 88).

The two sides of this debate meet head-to-head in this case study of the victimized lesbian mother. Although they utilize a character-focused and

-driven narrative and slightly watered down politics, these films simultaneously place a very controversial and uncomfortable topic in the public eye.

Personalization and Politicization

of the Lesbian Mother

As critics of the genre have noted, the television docudrama often reconfigures stories of social unrest in such ways that they can be understood as personal journeys or triumphs. Focusing on the trials and triumphs of the individual, however, render pervasive social inequities invisible or depri-oritized in light of the more compelling story of personal experience. Two Mothers for Zachary and What Makes a Family? move forward in the cross-pollination of the personal and the political. Although they admittedly project topical narratives of oppressed minority and family tragedies, they simultaneously embark on an investigation of the underlying and explicit politics that drive the stories. By evoking tropes of the mother-child bond, 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 37

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the primacy of the nuclear family, and the American judicial system, this combination of familial and political investigation sets the scene for a more complete presentation of social injustice. Furthermore, the films’ acknowledgment of their factual roots attempts a prohibition of emotional distanciation or dismissal of the problematization of current unjust politics.

Star Persona

One way MFTVMs create an emotional link to their protagonists is through casting popular actresses established in the cultural consciousness as either similarly victimized or sympathetic characters. In Stars, Richard Dyer states,

“Despite the extravagant lifestyle of stars, elements such as the rags-to-riches motif as an enactment of the problems of heterosexual monogamy suggest that what is important about the stars, especially in their particularity, is their typicality or representativeness” (Dyer 47). Dyer states that the popular construction of these stars leads audiences to identify with them in terms of desirable social types. Additionally, he explains how these constructed images work to create fictional characters imbued with the performer’s star image, stating, “. . . the star’s name and her/his appearance (including the sound of her/his voice and dress style associated with him/her) all already signify that condensation of attitudes and values which is the star’s image” (126). The star personae of Brooke Shields and Valerie Bertinelli would thereby inject the films’ narratives with all of their associated extratextual baggage.

Audiences know Shields from roles such as the innocent young castaway who discovers her “natural” sexuality in Blue Lagoon (1980), the sexy, young Calvin Klein model (1980), and the goofy, yet sexy Susan in Suddenly Susan (1996–2000). Surrounding her Blue Lagoon and modeling success, Shields made several appearances on overly wholesome Bob Hope specials and Circus of the Stars. In addition, Shields graced covers of magazines such as People, US, Vogue, Sassy, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan, establishing a wholesome, straight, sexy star image.2 Similarly, Bertinelli came to fame as everyone’s favorite girl-next-door on the 1970s situation comedy One Day at a Time (1975–1984), gracing magazine covers such as TV Guide, US, Young Miss, and People during the run of the show.3 A top-rated Norman Lear sitcom, One Day at a Time showcased the young bubbly pigtailed tomboy-cum-glamorous young woman. After the show ended, Bertinelli gained prominence as a major MFTVM actress with such films as Rockabye (1986), Taken Away (1989), and In a Child’s Name (1991), all of which depict her attempting to retrieve a wronged child in one way or another. Despite her 1981 marriage to Eddie Van Halen, her early and later acting roles (including a stint on Touched by an Angel) combine to create the image of a wholesome victim.

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The actresses’ star personae aid in the creation of characters who beg for sympathetic identification. Press coverage of the films repeatedly link their star images to their performances in these films. Reviewers refer to Shields as

“far beyond her teen-star ‘beauty’ days,” “playing against her goofily frilly type,” and as “show[ing] here that she could be the first child star since Jodie Foster to become a real actress” (Smith A11; Wertheimer E10; Rosenfeld C1). Similarly, reviews describe Bertinelli as not being able to “disguise her magnificent cuteness” and “having thankfully lost a lot of her cutesy ways”

(“Two Mothers and Others” Y3; Vorhees 2). Newsday states “Bertinelli has come a long, long way since she took it One Day at a Time. She has become a regular TV-movie diva over the years, playing a variety of roles while always retaining her essential Valerie-ness” (Kelleher 03). Originally defined as adhering to desirable mainstream values of fun, youth, beauty, vivacity, and righteousness, the subsequent roles of both stars would, according to Dyer, retain the values attached to their greater public images. Even when described as surpassing them, the actresses still remain attached to their prior constructions. Consequently, both Bertinelli’s Jody and Shields’s Janine enter the die-gesis with connotations of sympathy on their sides. Rather than representing social pariahs and sexual deviants, their most popular performances evoked traditional American values. Consequently, by casting such well-known and established stars to play the main victimized lesbians, the films’ creators release these stories into a social consciousness that must negotiate the tension between preconceived notions of the lesbian characters and traditional social mores connected to the actresses. Bertinelli’s and Shields’s images thereby complicate the ongoing process of character/star identification or disidentification.

Mother-Child Bond

Although these films investigate social problems (in this case sexual rights and homophobia) through the lens of personal experience, they simultaneously force an investigation of the politics that created these stories. The films place major focus on the American judicial system, both providing a critique of its homophobic politics and policies. I believe this critique possesses the potential to be effective because of the films’ humanization of the lesbian mother via her star proxy and an attachment to and estrangement by the mythological figure of the Mother.

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normative social relations. Consequently, the narratives tug at the heart-strings by throwing this social expectation into jeopardy. In both films, the relationship of mother and child comes into question in multiple ways. At the center of each story stands a mother who may or may not lose her child; however, paralleling the threatened loss of her child is her symbolic loss of a mother. Both films depict heterosexual mothers as maliciously damaging their children; because the heterosexual mothers’ rejection of and damage to their daughters precedes and exceeds the circumstances surrounding the daughter’s lesbianism, conservative viewers may be swayed to disidentify with the otherwise seemingly righteous mothers/grandmothers. Whereas removing the child from a “perverse” home may seem morally just to some, the heterosexual mothers’ other actions may not be as easily defensible.

In the case of Two Mothers for Zachary, the grand/mother Nancy claims her motives are to remove the child from an unhealthy home, but the film simultaneously constructs her as a mother who had herself failed to protect her own child. Shortly after moving in with Maggie, Jody seeks anger therapy, only to return home concerned with different issues. After the session she decides she must confront her mother about the childhood molestation she suffered at the hands of her mother’s live-in boyfriend, Harlan. Nancy initially refuses to believe the accusation, and upon Jody’s threat to keep Zachary away from her house and Harlan, she pursues custody based on Jody’s lesbianism and supposed abuse. The film depicts Nancy’s acts as driven by deception and bigotry, exemplified by Jody’s look of shock as she discovers Nancy has secretly asked Harlan to leave (an act that Jody earlier suggested would preempt any legal battles). Shortly after the judge grants Nancy custody of Zachary, she denies Jody visitation.

Nancy: I’m doin’ this because I love Zack, because there is true love in my heart.

Jody: You call this love. Geez, you’re taking me to court. You’re keeping my son from me. Mama, what about me? I’m still your daughter!

Nancy: As long as you’re with her, you’re not my daughter.

Blatantly rejecting Jody, Nancy has not only failed her during childhood, but continues to play unsuccessfully the natural role of supportive mother in Jody’s adulthood. Consequently, the narrative simultaneously positions Jody’s unstable standing as mother and daughter, exemplified as she screams for her son as her mother and police drag him away.

Similarly, What Makes a Family? presents Janine as the damaged daughter.

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female classmate’s hair, an act that caused lasting trauma. After this early establishment of her parents as unsupportive and homophobic, Janine discusses her lesbianism and impending motherhood with them. She attempts to assume the role of mother and simultaneously becomes the rejected daughter. Portrayed as snobbish blue bloods and set apart from the rest of the characters by their social position and residence in an upper-class home, her parents coldly reject her.

Father: You come into our home and throw this in our faces!

Janine: You’re my family . . .

Father: If you want to live the way you do, that’s one thing, but don’t you dare . . . You expect me to stand here and congratulate you is that it?

You want me to tell you it’s okay? Well it’s not!

Mother: It’s not natural, Janine!

Throughout this scene, the mother sits stoically supporting her husband. Not only do her biological parents reject her, but Sandra’s parents, who earlier in the film act as her surrogate family, also hurl vicious homophobic slurs at her as they attempt to gain custody of Heather. After stating “I always wanted another daughter” at the wedding, Mr. Cataldi explodes after filing for custody following Sandy’s death.

Mr. Cataldi: We do not want her around those kind of people!

Janine: What kind of people?

Mr. Cataldi: Dykes! Queers!

Mrs. Cataldi: Frank don’t. (she responds to avoid confrontation, not because she does not agree with him)

Mr. Cataldi: Can I make that any clearer for you?

Janine: Your daughter was those kind of people!

Mr. Cataldi: Yeah, thanks to you!

Janine: Me . . . Sandy told you what she was in high school.

Mr. Cataldi: What she was in high school, what she was . . . she was confused. She didn’t know what she wanted. You messed up her life and I don’t want you messing up Heather’s life!

Both films use the accepted normalcy of the mother-child bond and the repeated disruption of that normalcy to draw an emotional response when the lesbian mother loses her child. She emerges as a double victim, not allowed to carry out her natural roles of either mother or daughter. I believe this double disruption encourages sympathy for the protagonists.

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Both films’ conflicts come to a head when they embrace highly manipulative visual tactics of the MFTVM. In each film, the viewer sees the child painfully ripped from the arms of the mother after she loses custody. Both Zachary and Heather are removed forcefully from their mothers; with police officers in attendance, the grandparents surprise the actual parent and pull the child, screaming, from his/her mother. With much breast-beating and innocence stealing (Zachary looks as if he has been awakened from a nap and Heather is just returning, still in leotard, from a ballet class), these scenes show the “natural” pained reaction of a mother losing a child, further establishing the lesbian as normal and the grandmothers as aberrant. By relying on this emotionally wrenching device, the films throw into question the ideological and judicial norms that allow the narratives to progress, surpassing criticisms leveled at MFTVMs by focusing on causality beyond individual happenstance.

Troubling the Nuclear Family

This double victimization of the lesbian mother troubles the primacy of the very nuclear family. Through a complete manipulation of the viewer’s emotions as described earlier, the narratives encourage the questioning of “normal” families, thereby throwing into question the abnormality of the lesbian.

Each film systematically introduces the seemingly stable nuclear family, only to show its destructiveness and abnormality. Overtly constructed as the villains, heterosexual, biological parents of the lesbian force a critical eye on accepted norms. Heterosexual families scream, shout, lie, and steal children.

Lesbian mothers find stability, both financial and emotional, with their female partners. Closely resembling a storybook family, the lesbian/s pull themselves together and fight for their children. In both films, the nonbiological parent herself is constructed as the surrogate traditional father, functioning as the breadwinner of the floundering family.

In Two Mothers for Zachary, just after Jody loses custody, she and Maggie attempt to flee Virginia with Zachary. Jody questions the logic of their actions and their ability to escape successfully. Asserting her commitment to her partner and their family, Maggie reassures of her ability to support them saying, “You know me. People like me. I’ve got skills. I can find a job and take care of this family.” Shortly thereafter, as Nancy snatches Zachary from Jody while accusing Maggie of pretending to be his father, Jody shouts, “Maggie will make a better parent than you and Harlan could ever be.” A similar exchange occurs in What Makes a Family? when Janine orders Sandy, riddled with lupus and the side effects of its treatment, to quit her job. Sandy says,

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I can. I’ll work extra shifts at the hospital. We’ll be okay. I promise.”4

Furthermore, the film shows Janine’s parents again refusing to help her regain custody of Heather, stating, “The child is not blood to us or Janine. I’m sure she’ll be better off with her family.” A friend of Janine’s scoffs and overtly critiques this perception stating (in an almost soapbox-ish way), “I keep hearing about this notion of blood bonds making for a family . . .” Juxtaposed with the behaviors of their respective parents, the uncompromising support the nonbiological lesbian parents show their children and partners uncovers the hypocrisy in the unquestioned superiority of biology over nurture. Again, the star protagonists and the associated narratives establish a preconceived notion of right and wrong, thereby positioning the legitimate relationship. In turn, the bad behavior of those representing the nuclear families (deception, backstabbing, and disbelief and disrespect of children) transfer easily into a questioning of their essential righteousness.

Judicial System

Aside from problematizing the notion of the nuclear family, these MFTVMs also turn their sights on the American judicial system. Driven by emotion, but more pointedly critical than typical MFTVMs, they resist a complete individualization and personalization of the problem of homophobia. While still investigating social problems through the lens of personal experience, they simultaneously force an investigation of the politics that created these stories. This politicization of the personal occurs in various ways: by the bizarrely defined notion of “moral,” the injustice of the appeal system, and the implied subjectivity of the judicial process. Both films place major focus on the courts, providing a critique of their homophobic politics and policies.

The systemic problems rendered visible are implied as unjust, based on their effect on the tragic heroines. Also, by juxtaposing legal policy with a constant evocation of the normalcy of family, the films uncover the hypocrisy implicit in the legal statutes that literally plucked these children from their mothers’

breasts.

Two Mothers for Zachary shows the victimized lesbian mother’s inability to sufficiently defend herself as she discovers, as it is happening, that Nancy is demanding full custody of, rather than visitation rights to, the child. This discovery occurs seconds before the judge passes his ruling. Despite the revela-tions in court that Nancy’s live-in had repeatedly molested Jody and that the heretofore-estranged biological father requested Zachary stay with Jody, the court grants Nancy custody claiming neglect (based on sustained diaper rash and the practice of disciplining Zachary by standing him in the corner) in addition to perversion. Evoking the injustices in their specific case and the 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 43

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system as a whole to their new lawyer, Maggie says, “Well aren’t we the criminals. Too bad we’re not fine upstanding straight citizens like all those wife beaters and child molesters. They’ve got custody of their kids, don’t they!?” In a subsequent appeal Jody wins custody, but Nancy’s immediate appeal prohibits Zachary from returning home, highlighting the ease with which the child could be taken away but the difficulty for the parent to regain custody. The injustice hits home as the film ends with Zachary in slow motion letting go of his mother’s hand (“mama”) as he takes his grandmother’s (“maw-maw”) and the title reads “In February 1996, the juvenile and domestic court of the state of Virginia rejected Jody Ann’s petition for custody based on changed circumstances.” The title mirrors the chronology of the Bottoms case and, therefore, not only speaks to the reality, but also the timeliness of the case. The film aired on September 22, 1996.

In a similar fashion, What Makes a Family? renders explicit the homophobia implicit in the legal system, foregrounding injustices through judges’ rul-ings and lawyers’ statements. In one session the judge states, “Florida law is quite explicit regarding the rights of blood relatives over all other rights,” and excessive exposure to Janine “would be confusing and potentially destructive.” Janine’s lawyer, when explaining the improbability of a positive outcome states, “Florida law expressly forbids gays and lesbians from adopting.”

The film then shows Janine working through the process of regaining her child by adhering to the rules set down by the judge. Demanding visitation from the Cataldis, she uses the courts that took Heather away as her own pro-tector. For example, the police officer that escorts Janine to the Cataldis to enforce visitation informs the grandparents that defiance of the order will be grounds for appeal. In the following appeal, the film attempts to discredit the homophobia implicit in the system; a psychiatrist rattles off statistics regarding the intelligence, sexual preference, and stability of children of gay parents.

Like Maggie’s questioning of straight parents’ right to keep their children, Janine acknowledges the lack of a similar controversy over nonbiological heterosexual parents’ rights regarding their children conceived by artificial insemination. The film ends with the words “Janine’s case is a landmark in child custody law. The judge overturned the Cataldi’s adoption and returned Heather to the custody of Janine. Florida remains the only state which outlaws adoptions by gays and lesbians. Heather and Janine still live in Florida.”

In these scenes of judicial triumph and calamity, the well-known faces of American actresses symbolically represent Every(wo)man’s journey. As Gitlin claims, “The triumphs of American TV naturalism, in fiction as in the news, is [ sic] the revelation of familiar figures visibly coping with public troubles, right here in the living room” (192). These already endearing personalities, act out the injustices of the American judicial system. The films attempt to 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 44

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use the actresses’ recognizability to drive home the hypocrisy, homophobia, and personal ramifications of the actions represented in the films. I believe these films possess the ability to endear the audience because they have first drawn them in with familiar faces and personalized accounts. A notion of personal understanding and identification has a better chance of questioning bigotry and misunderstanding than facts and figures. A preconceived bond with stars encourages this type of attachment. By using this manipulative tactic, coupled with the explicit problematizing of social givens, such as American justice and the idea of “real” family, the films attempt to inhibit the viewer’s ability simply to dismiss the films’ messages.

But . . .

Despite what I see as a more progressive approach to the MFTVM and perhaps a more effective means to present topics dealing with gay and lesbian issues, these films quickly slide into the trap of a heterocentric profit-driven television industry. In order to target the largest audience, they compromise their messages through the false construction of an essentialized lesbian; they cast recognizable heterosexual actresses and legitimize the image of “the lesbian” by means of physical and class construction. A bankable name and a nonthreatening image may aid in not alienating potentially threatened viewers. Through a combination of the reworking of true narratives, the choice of actresses to play the lead roles, and the visual portrayal in terms of beauty and notions of class, the films move to construct a safe lesbian. This construction partially occurs through a combination of the star personae of Bertinelli and Shields, as well as design choices that adhere to traditional notions of beauty and class. Furthermore, though producers often claim they have no responsibility to adhere to the facts, the label “based on a real story” invokes a notion of authenticity. The visual representations imply a notion of authenticity.

The solidification of a legitimate lesbian occurs as these lesbian mothers shift from lower middle- and lower working-class (often butch) lesbians to glamorous middle-class-looking and -sounding lesbians portrayed by attractive stars. Repeated, similar visual representations of “the lesbian” in terms of beauty and class effectively aid in the construction of a false sense of an essence. In Gender Trouble Judith Butler states that “acts, gestures, and desire produce the effect of an internal core or substance, but produce this on the surface of the body, through the play of signifying absences that suggest, but never reveal the organizing principle of identity as a cause” (136). The films’

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notion of lesbianism (contrary to that in the factual stories) encourages an acceptance of “the lesbian.” Though the emotional nature of the film, along with its successful interweaving of political critique, may encourage the viewer to reconsider traditional notions of right and wrong or moral and immoral, the films do this with a set of qualifiers: middle-class, traditionally feminine, and culturally assimilated and legitimized.

Despite arguing that the use of established star personae may aid in the identification process with the lesbian protagonists, I believe these same star personae create a catch twenty-two, establishing a legitimate lesbianism associated with the respective stars’ characteristics. In both of these films, an actress who evolved publicly in terms of traditional notions of feminine beauty portrays the main lesbian. Reviews commend the films for their ability to portray the non-stereotypical lesbian with comments such as “Without resorting to the stereotype of a lesbian, Shields is impressive as the emotionally wrecked Janine” and “Colleen Flynn [holds her own] as the girlfriend, here called Maggie and neither stereotyped nor idealized” (Turegano TVWeek-6; Shales C01). Whereas these reviews attach this lack of stereotyping to a positive notion of representation, embedded in this avoidance of so-called stereotypical representations is the avoidance of a certain image of lesbianism. By legitimizing Bertinelli and Shields, the films devalue other types of lesbian presence (single, butch, nonmonogamous, poor, etc.).

Bottoms’s and Wade’s appearances diverge greatly from those of Jody and Maggie. Throughout, Two Mothers for Zachary depicts Maggie as relatively feminine: her hair is in a neat, curly, shoulder length bob, her clothes are less feminine than Jody’s, but would likely not be described as butch, and she almost always inexplicably wears what looks like a silk scarf around her neck.

Jody has a weakness for western wear but often wears very stylish suits and a silk robe. Despite the occasional trite flannel shirt, the film fails in making Maggie and Jody look anything like their real-life counterparts; rather, it provides a feminized version thereof. Wade and Bottoms, who sport matching tattoos, have appeared in various magazines, Wade usually in some sort of traditionally masculine or “dykey” wear. In a photo of the two leaving the court-house she sports gray chinos, sunglasses, a plaid vest buttoned to the top, and smokes a cigarette (Helber 100). Time and New York show Wade lanky and masculine (Henry, “Gay Parents” 66; Taylor, “The Good Mother?” 16). All of the photos depict her as significantly more butch than Bottoms and consistently sporting the telltale mullet. Is it progressive to avoid depictions of a stereotype if the authentic source speaks to that convention?

What Makes a Family? makes similar choices. In The Advocate, Neff Meron, one of the producers, refers to the real Janine and Joan (Sandy in the film) as “a very middle-class couple.” Director Maggie Greenwald states, “So 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 46

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we picked a wardrobe that was not glamorous. And Brooke was thrilled to be wearing the wardrobe. She has the willingness and joy to embrace this character in a deep way and not be treated like a glamour girl” (Stockwell). This statement works on the assumption that Shields can be totally removed from her glamorous star image, an assumption that clothing (that was not particularly unglamorous) can construct the character against a preconceived notion of type. Despite clothing, the real Janine and Joan were very plain, not traditionally beautiful women with “non-ideal” body types and short no-frills hairdos. Shields and Jones each provide an image and aesthetic that adheres to traditional notions of feminine beauty. Again, by avoiding a stereotype, the films render the butch invisible and thus delegitimized.

Likewise, the films transform real-life middle- and working class women into solidly middle to upper middle-class characters. Along with the transformation of their physical appearances, this shift of visible signifiers of class further assimilates the lesbian mother with whom the audience is encouraged to identify, by placing her solidly within the false, overarching position of middle-class American. This transformation of social class is most apparent in Two Mothers for Zachary. Though Jody is unemployed and on and off of wel-fare, her clothes are impeccable and not recognizably attached to the class she claims to represent. Jody and Maggie joke about their white-trashness, but their belongings and speech belie this. At least one reviewer recognized the contradiction between the film’s intention regarding class and its explicit representation thereof: “The movie’s first, insurmountable hurdle is making us believe that Redgrave is the mother of Valerie Bertinelli, and that they’re both a step above Southern white trash” (Koehler F13). This misrepresenta-tion of class directly relates to the erasure of the butch or lesbian visibility.

Chris Holmlund and Sue Ellen Case argue that rendering the butch invisible aids in veiling the lesbian herself, as well as making implied statements regarding acceptable lesbian socioeconomic class. The working-class lesbian often historically assumed the butch role. Case surveys the butch’s disappearance or disavowal as the feminist movement dubbed the role “politically incorrect” or unsavvy. As the butch was deemed passé or oppressive, a major semiotic signpost that marked lesbianism was shelved (Case 295–297).

Holmlund addresses the proliferation of femme images in Hollywood-produced film, stating, “Admittedly the femme’s lesbianism is visible most when she is in the arms of her lover. . . . For most observers, the assumption of heterosexuality is so strong that the femme is easily seen as just another woman’s friend” (148). Both films suffer this type of butch invisibility. The representations of Maggie, Jody, Sandy, and Janine all imply a certain socioeconomic standing and the safety and assumed heterosexuality that goes along with a femme in lieu of her butch lover. This neutralization of the social threat of 9780230600805ts04.qxd 12-10-07 09:03 PM Page 47

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lesbianism occurs when actresses so extradiegetically associated with heterosexuality and devoid of signifiers that would associate them with a recognizable lesbian community serve as the representation of the minority group. Despite minor occurrences of lesbian intimacy in the films, they may allow the viewer to dismiss the lesbian for the preconceived perception and visual reification of the heterosexual (and commercially viable) actress.5

Conclusion

Ultimately, these lesbian-mother MFTVMs exist within a negotiated space of progressivity and economic restriction. Unlike the episodic situation comedy and the serial drama, the genre does not constrain the MFTVM by either requiring it to sustain a realistic lesbian relationship throughout a series or weekly (and neatly) resolve any controversial plotlines. Rather, MFTVMs have approximately two hours to tell a story that may or may not ultimately resolve in a pleasing or culture-confirming way. However, like the weekly shows, the requirements of this heterocentric and profit-driven medium still constrain the projects. Audience draw and maintenance of a legitimate vision of society encourage representations that lack breadth. Rewriting narratives and flatten-ing the lesbian to a point of singularity, these mainstream MFTVMs use heterosexual stars to draw an audience, thereby linking the sympathetic lesbian mother to social norms of beauty, gender, and class. They simultaneously dismiss and delegitimize divergent lesbianisms. Although pay cable channels such as HBO and Showtime have pushed the envelope further by presenting more diverse images of lesbianism and lesbian eroticism in films such as If These Walls Could Talk 2 and Common Ground, network and basic cable MFTVMs have found a more conservative means to introduce discourses surrounding lesbian issues into the mainstream. This step forward must not be dismissed because of problematic cultural connotations or scholars’ disdain for the genre, as the MFTVM shows signs of complicating representations often turned into depoliticized caricatures in serial and episodic programming.

Though economics and an underlying heterocentrism may continue to control the television industry, progressive messages will nonetheless seep into the social consciousness via seemingly innocuous means.

Notes

1. After Sharon admitted to having oral sex with Wade, a felonious crime in Virginia, Judge Buford M. Parsons ruled in favor of the grandmother, deeming her “immoral”

and an “unfit” mother who committed a “crime against nature.” William A. Henry,

“Gay Parents: Under Fire and On the Rise,” 16.

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2. People December 29, 1980, U.S. Magazine May 15, 1979, Vogue September 1981, Sassy November 1978, Glamour February 1981, and Cosmopolitan February 1981—see “Publicity for Brooke Shields.”

3. TV Guide May 11, 1977, TV Guide December 17, 1977, Young Miss May 1979, People Magazine March 17, 1980, and US Magazine February 5, 1980.

“Publicity for Valerie Bertinelli.”

4. It can be argued that the depicted strength of the familial lesbian bonds in these films reproduce lesbianism as a mirror of heteronormative relationships (and place the lesbian lover in the role of man/father/breadwinner), thereby effectively nulli-fying the mélange of possible lesbian lifestyles. Paula Ettelbrick argues, “Marriage runs counter to two of the primary goals of the lesbian and gay movement: the affirmation of gay identity and culture; and the validation of many relationships . . . .The moment we argue, as some among us insist on doing, that we should be treated as equals because we are really just like married couples and hold the same values, we undermine the very purpose of our movement and begin the dangerous process of silencing our different voices” (quoted in Straayer 179). Originally printed in Paula Ettelbrick, “Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation?”

5. In Two Mothers for Zachary, Jody and Maggie once kiss briefly and console each other with brief hugs. What Makes a Family? includes more physical intimacy: kissing and cuddling—in and out of bed; however, Sandy dies less than halfway through the film (that then renders Janine basically asexual). In both cases, the physicality of the lesbian relationship passes to the wayside in favor of an image more solely defined by maternal (not erotic) love.

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CHAPTER 3

Complicating the Open Closet:

The Visual Rhetoric of Buffy the

Vampire Slayer’s Sapphic Lovers

Tanya R. Cochran

Buffy is neither homophobic, nor is it lesbian-

positive, and yet it is both . . . for it does not take up a single portrayal, but instead develops slowly an

ever-evolving and complex vision . . .

—Rebecca Beirne, “Queering the Slayer-text”

If words are always contextual and contested, . . .

static images, hot links, sound files, animation, and

video raises the stakes exponentially . . .

—Helen Burgess, Jeanne Hamming, and

Robert Markley, “The Dialogics of New Media”

From the earliest episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer( Buffy), creator Joss Whedon was crafting landmark television. Foreshadowing in the third season’s “Doppelgängland” (3.16) held particular promise for lesbian viewers. When a spell goes awry, Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) meets her vampire doppelgänger, observing, “I’m so evil. And skanky. And I think I’m kinda gay!” A year later, Whedon introduced the subtext of a lesbian relationship between Willow and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson) in

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with provocative headlines: “Kiss Each Other Girls, The Ratings Are Down” —New York Post (Kaplan 114), “Willow Gay?”— Entertainment Weekly (Rice), and “Buffy Creator Titillates the Audience”— TV Guide (Ausiello).

But when Whedon proved he did not intend to exploit the relationship for ratings, mainstream attention waned. As the characters’ interest grew from subtext to revelation in “New Moon Rising,” the actors were cultivating their careers and becoming more visible by, among other decisions, accepting invitations to interview and pose for magazines. Particular photo shoots of Hannigan in FHM and Benson in Stuff created and continue to maintain a conversation that seems discordant with Whedon’s self-proclaimed feminist agenda.

By drawing on sociology and media studies as well as theories of visual rhetoric and critical theory, I first examine primary sources: the television series and the magazines. Next, I demonstrate the significance of reading the television and magazine images, the dialogue and text in conversation. To reinforce my reading, I turn to theory to argue that neglecting the exchange of ideas among the dissonant images, text, and audiences denies the intricate interaction of cross-media images and text, ignores fans’ blurring of actor/character identities, and dilutes Whedon’s feminist intentions. The interaction of actors, characters, images, and text leads me to question and complicate, as an extension of Vito Russo’s work, the idea of an open media closet or equitable opportunities for visual representation. Finally, I advocate for resistant readings of “questionable” content in addition to more critical readings that lead to new kinds of content altogether. The “vision” of Buffy—

what is seen and what is understood—is complex, and because the series tra-verses media, it raises the stakes for writers and directors, actors, critics, and fans in that each group shapes the cultural productions of the other.

The Media Closet: New Moon Rising or Falling?

At the close of “New Moon Rising” (4.19) Willow enters Tara’s dorm room carrying an “extra flamey” candle. The small light draws viewers’ attention to the characters’ faces as Willow declares her interest in Tara. Tara smiles and blows out the candle, closing the episode and leaving what follows to imagination. “New Moon Rising” supposedly marks the transition from subtext to text, of lesbian invisibility to visibility. Here, I challenge that idea, arguing that visual representations are always already slippery, constantly being rein-terpreted by Buffy’s writers and directors, actors, critics, and fans. But first, the work of Vito Russo provides historical context for my contention.

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that produced flat characters excluded from “the American dream.” Possibly Russo’s most important observation and the reason for homosexuals’ alien-ation can be summarized in one sentence: “When gays became real, they became threatening” (154). To circumvent the threat, the film industry adopted several strategies. Either by making gay men “sissies” and lesbians

“bull dykes” and “vice queens” or by rendering both invisible in various ways (typically by murder or suicide), Hollywood denied the significance, even the existence, of intimate relationships among people of the same sex. Though by the book’s second release in 1987 much had changed in American cinema, Russo still found its treatment of homosexuals and homosexuality hostile.

Traditionally, this hostility has been maintained in American film by the very visible celebration of the heterosexual male, one that has made any other orientation nearly if not completely in visible. Particularly, “the rendering invisible of all else has caused lesbianism to disappear behind a male vision of sex in general” (Russo 5). In Russo’s estimation, then, no matter what a woman does or whom she does it with, she, as an object of sexual desire, embodies innocuousness. Because lesbians are female, their visual representations are prey to what I call “visual dilution,” a particular form of (in)visibility that can blur and, as a result, weaken the intended meaning or full potential of an image or portrayal. Referring to Amber Benson and her character Tara, a fan—whose online pseudonym is “misterQ”—illustrates what I mean: “I have to say that I agree with Amber Benson being hot. Her innocence on the show makes her that way, [ sic] plus, girl on girl, whew!” The exclamation brings into focus several key complexities posed by visibility. Q

conflates Benson’s identity with that of her character’s. Also, misterQ normalizes and feminizes the character by emphasizing Benson’s/Tara’s innocence while simultaneously equating this innocence with physical attractiveness. Finally, the comment (though Q is not necessarily male or heterosexual) suggests the universally acknowledged and ignored or accepted assumption that straight men take pleasure in “girl on girl” g(r)azing—

whether or not the female participants are, in fact, heterosexual. Thus, one way or another, “lesbianism is never allowed to become a threatening reality any more than female sexuality of other kinds” (Russo 5). In many ways, lesbian sex in particular is portrayed as being created by men for men, a portrayal that emphasizes sex over relationships.

Two decades after Russo’s revised work appeared, one expects that TV and film representations of various sexual orientations have evolved. After all, some argue, television series such as Xena: Warrior Princess, ER, Six Feet Under, Queer as Folk, and The L Word have favored and celebrated gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (GLBTQ) characters and fans.

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open—equal and fair visual representations for all. But as misterQ’s post alone suggests, just saying or even believing so oversimplifies the situation. As a case study, Buffy illustrates the complicated relationships among media venues—film, TV, print, and the internet—and the portrayal of GLBTQ

characters generally, lesbians specifically.

Many scholars and fans, for example, continue to debate whether Willow’s admission of her interest in Tara in “New Moon Rising” (4.19) actually represents a lesbian coming out. In the passage that follows, of note is the obscu-rity with which Buffy and Willow dialogue. In their shared dorm room, the two discuss the sudden return of Oz, Willow’s former boyfriend. Oz, who left earlier in the year to find a cure for his lycanthropy, has returned to Sunnydale and proposed that he and Willow rekindle their relationship: Buffy: I wanna hear about you and Oz. You saw him, right?

Willow: I was with him all night.

Buffy: All night? [Grins.] Oh my god. Wait. Last night was a wolf moon, right?

Willow: Yup.

Buffy: Either you’re about to tell me something incredibly kinky, or—

Willow: No kink. He didn’t change, Buffy. He said he was gonna find a cure, and he did. In Tibet.

Buffy: [Smiling.] Oh my god. I can’t believe it. [Pause] Okay, I’m all with the woo-hoo here, and you’re not.

Willow: No, there’s “woo” and, and “hoo.” But there’s “uh-oh” and “why now?” and . . . it’s complicated.

Buffy: Why complicated?

Willow: It’s complicated . . . because of Tara.

Buffy: You mean Tara has a crush on Oz? No. Oh! Oh. Um . . . well . . .

that’s great . You know, I mean, I think Tara’s a, a really great girl, Will.

Willow: She is! And there’s something between us. It, it wasn’t something I was looking for. It’s just powerful. And it’s totally different from what Oz and I have. . . . I was gonna tell him . . . but then we started hanging out, and . . . I could just feel everything coming back. . . . He’s Oz, you know?

Both Willow’s confusion about what she actually feels and her inability, tentativeness, or refusal to name her relationship with Tara illustrate the obscu-rity of the scene. In fact, Rebecca Beirne insists that the entire episode is ambiguous, citing Steven Seidman’s Beyond the Closet in which he argues that the “lesbian is imagined as a transitional status—an immature phase or a case of gender maladjustment” (143). Seidman contends that if their sexual 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 53

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preference is not denied, lesbians are often portrayed as standing on shifting sand; they may or may not actually be gay. Russo identifies such women in James Bond films (consider how 007 woos and “straightens out” Pussy Galore in Goldfinger) (154–156). According to Beirne, the ambiguity of Willow’s revelation is one way to normalize her relationship with Tara. What remains for the audience is a “lack of any clear definition between the straight Willow and the lesbian Willow,” an uncertainty that “lends a high level of inauthenticity to her sexuality” (Beirne). Ambiguity, then, is bound to inauthenticity. As Russo might note, Willow is just as disarming, or innocuous, after as before her declaration.

Even as late as the seventh and final season of Buffy, Willow’s “gayness”

remains somewhat unclear. When Kennedy questions Willow’s sexuality in

“The Killer in Me” (7.13), Willow explains that she has never loved women, only a woman—Tara. And though she eventually becomes intimately involved with Kennedy, Willow and her friends consistently avoid language that identifies Willow as gay. For instance, the word lesbian is only used once during the series. When the Watchers’ Council comes to Sunnydale to interrogate Buffy and friends as well as offer unsolicited advice regarding the current “Big Bad,” Willow describes her relationship with Tara to a Council member like this: “We’re lesbian, gay-type lovers”

(“Checkpoint” 5.12). A mostly British governing body, the Council trains and manages watchers who, in turn, train and manage slayers. It is portrayed as not only stuffy but also manipulative, so much so that Buffy leaves their auspices halfway through the series. The fact that Willow uses lesbian during the interrogation seems to suggest that a richer, more accurate definition would be difficult to articulate as well as lost on the bureaucratic audience. Consequently, Willow simplifies the relationship for them: lesbian, an adjective that suggests a definition only based on generalizations and stereotypes.

Dialogue alone does not support the indeterminate nature of Willow and Tara’s relationship; they are also visually coded within “normal” boundaries for their gender, according to hair, dress, makeup, and behavior. More accurately, perhaps, their sexuality is visually unassuming: no stereotypically short, “butch” haircuts (Tara maintains long, silky locks throughout her tenure) and no conventionally masculine clothing (both are costumed in modest, nouveau hippy apparel—long, flowing skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked shirts often in geometric or floral prints). Yet they are not “lipstick lesbians,” an identity likely incompatible with their practice of Wicca; rather, earth tones and natural makeup befit them. In collaboration with hair, wardrobe, and makeup, the traditionally feminized roles Tara assumes further dilutes the relationship, fortifying its normality and ambiguity. As Willow 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 54

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develops into a powerful, confident witch, for example, Tara is repeatedly cast as silent or at least as a quiet companion, moral center, and parent. In her shy and stuttering way, Tara encourages Willow’s growing mastery of spells. But when Willow begins to use magic for her own convenience, Tara reprimands her, defining her actions as “wrong” (“Tabula Rasa” 6.8). Tara also assumes many of the caretaking responsibilities for Buffy’s younger sister Dawn when Buffy’s mother dies unexpectedly in the fifth season: she prepares meals, gets Dawn to school on time, and babysits when an apocalypse arises, a common occurrence in Sunnydale.

According to fan websites and discussion boards, the characters’ inconspicuous wardrobe and traditional gender roles, though, are much less important to queer audiences than what they are chiefly denied: recurring visual depictions of Willow and Tara’s physical relationship. While Buffy’s intimate encounters—whether tender and loving with Angel or violent and sado-masochistic with Spike—are given detailed exploration and copious screentime, Willow and Tara are granted little more than hand-holding, cuddling, and occasional pecks on the lips. Kissing passionately and making love are rarely depicted. Curiously, as Beirne notes, the lovers’ first sexualized scene occurs during Xander’s dream sequence in “Restless” (4.22). Uncharacteristically bedecked in heavy, dark makeup and form-fitting, cleavage-revealing bodices (much like the actors who appear in FHM and Stuff ), Willow and Tara perform like two straight women cast as lesbians in an adult film, a private (for the straight, male Xander) yet public (for the straight and queer audience) screening. Subsequent to Xander’s fantasizing, Willow and Tara’s lovemaking is presented mainly through the metaphor of magic—the casting of spells and body levitation. Their physical intimacy does visually crescendo, though, in

“Seeing Red” (6.19). Extremely disturbing to most Buffy devotees is that Willow and Tara’s most visceral expression of physical love and passion is immediately followed by Tara’s accidental murder. Her death, lament some critics and fans, perpetuates the “lesbian sex ϭ death” cliché.1 The couple’s normality, their ambiguousness, does not prevent the seemingly inevitable.

Ultimately, Willow and Tara are (in)visible as well as (anti)stereotypical. In Up From Invisibility, Larry Gross argues that traditional views of femininity and masculinity and, thus, gender roles, continue to fuel the invisibility of GLBTQs on television where they appear “in roles that support the ‘natural’

order” (14); they are created to be anti-stereotypical and, therefore, unidentifiable. Unidentifiable queers are not the trouble, though. The trouble, Gross insists, is the double-edged result of normalizing GLBTQ characters: what is

“normal” is unseen. And yet Gross finds this kind of invisibility rare, as the mass media much prefers the “weak and silly, or evil and corrupt” queer (16).

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“the visible presence of healthy, unapologetic lesbians and gay men [poses] a serious threat: it undermines the unquestioned normalcy of the status quo . . .” (16–17). Visibility, then, complicates, making Willow and Tara concurrently (in)visible and (anti)stereotypical. Visibility ramifies, compelling Buffy fans and scholars to question whether or not the “new moon” of accurate, objective, or equitable representation is actually rising (however gradually), falling, or simply standing still.

Regardless of perspective, the representation of Willow and Tara through image and dialogue is problematic. Even as Whedon created a feminist, cutting-edge text, he also created stereotypes. Whedon set in motion a never-ending cycle of creation and re-creation that occurs simultaneously within multiple spheres of cultural production: the team of writers and directors, the actors, the critics, and the fans. Each of these spheres contributes to the definition of what it means—what it looks like, sounds like, feels like—to be a lesbian. Such a definition is slippery and, therefore, resists discovery, a resistance complicated even more by considering the actors’ personal and professional lives in light of the world’s technologically networked culture.

For Him, the Stuff (In)Visibility Is Made of:

Who Is that Woman in the Photo?

The cultural productions generated by the characters Willow and Tara cannot be read in isolation of those fostered by the actors Hannigan and Benson and their decisions to grant interviews and photo shoots to men’s magazines FHM and Stuff, respectively. As Anne Wysocki notes in “Seriously Visible,”

“no technology is autonomous. . . . We use no technology outside the webs of its history, of its connections to other technologies, or of our motley and complex relations with others” (41). Just as intricately webbed are critics’

and fans’ readings of actors, the characters they play, and cross-media texts.2

In the context of such readings and Wysocki’s observation, the FHM and Stuff photographs are akin to the pornographic film or, more specifically, the stag film. “Distinctively primitive,” according to Linda Williams, stag films boast “[a] male film spectator who is encouraged to talk to, and even to reach his hand into, the screen; a female film body who spreads her legs (and labia) for the eye and hand behind the camera” (76). With parted lips and engaged postures, Hannigan and Benson visually resound with their filmic relatives and are reminiscent of Roland Barthes’s reflection on the desire that pictures can arouse: “This longing to inhabit, if I observe it clearly in myself, . . . is fantasmatic, deriving from a kind of second sight which seems to bear me forward to a utopian time . . .” ( Camera Lucida 39–40).3 He notes that the plethora of books about photography explains neither the 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 56

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pleasure nor the affect he experiences when looking at a particular photo.

For him, composition or lighting do not matter. What matters is what is there in the picture: “Myself, I saw only the referent, the desired object, the beloved body” ( Camera Lucida 7). That, too, is what is seen in the Hannigan and Benson photographs: referents, objects, bodies. In many senses, who is posing is of little or no consequence. The scantily clad figures and come-hither stares, by echoing an historical tradition of objectification, lack of agency, and patriarchy, mark the women in the pictures as ones with no identity at all.

And yet, simultaneously their identities as actors (both declaredly straight) and characters encourage viewers to read them not simply as bodies but specifically as lesbian bodies, ones intended for “the male gaze,” specifically the straight male gaze of FHM and Stuff readers. In the magazines, words and images collaborate to accomplish such a blurring of identity and, in turn, create a “viseo-textual” invitation for readers to watch the series. As subtly—

and even unintentionally—embedded as the invitation is, it is not without significance to the feminist movement, one Whedon sees himself a part of. As Annette Kuhn affirms, “feminism has regarded ideas, language and images as crucial in shaping women’s (and men’s) lives” (2). Some of those crucial words are found in Michael Olson’s Stuff interview with Amber Benson. Olson euphemistically observes that Tara “doesn’t care for ‘riding the broom’” and wonders whether Benson is concerned about being “typecast as a lesbian Wiccan” (120). Benson responds, “Not really. If people are so stupid that they can’t see beyond it, then that’s their issue, not mine. I just do whatever comes my way” (120). Yet in other interviews, Benson has admitted she wishes not to market herself by exposing breasts and thighs but feels somewhat resigned to the “reality” of how Hollywood works. The articles on both actors contribute to the shape of straight and lesbian women’s lives with these words: “You know her as Tara, the lesbian witch on Buffy. But there’s more to Amber Benson than . . . sorcery. If only there were some way for you to find out more about her . . .” (Olson 118), and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s kindly witch flirts with her dark side” (Raub 132).

When text and images of the actors in lingerie, heavy makeup, and sexualized positions are juxtaposed—images that recall Xander’s dream in

“Restless” (4.22)—it is difficult to decide who is in the pictures. Is the woman Benson or her character Tara? Hannigan or Willow? Women with names and faces or nameless, faceless fantasy girls? All or none of the above?

As Willow says, “It’s complicated . . .” (“New Moon Rising” 4.19).

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not “immediatel y or generally”: “By nature, the Photograph . . . has something tautological about it: a pipe, here, is always and intractably a pipe. It is as if the Photograph always carries its referent with itself . . .: they are glued together, limb by limb. . . . The Photograph belongs to that class of lami-nated objects whose two leaves cannot be separated without destroying them both . . .” ( Camera Lucida 5–6, emphasis in original). In respect to Willow and Tara, Hannigan and Benson, the logical extension of Barthes’s statement suggests that both the characters and actors are referents of each other. In this visual age, the television and magazine images cannot be separated: “You know her as Tara, the lesbian witch on Buffy. But there’s more to Amber Benson . . .” (Olson 118). Character and actor identity are amalgamated.

Such words and images render the referents in the Stuff and FHM photos ambiguous: they could be the actors themselves, their characters, Everywoman, lesbians, or girl-on-girl action figures. But ostensibly all of them, because they imply each other, are woven into a web of (in)visibility; the referents are multiple “leaves” that cannot be separated.

Reading Images and Text in Conversation:

A Win-Win Situation?

It is tempting to simplify, to say that the magazine and television images of Hannigan, Benson, and their Buffy characters are utterly different and, therefore, cannot be compared—separate audiences, exclusive mediums, literal versus fictional human beings. It is also tempting to dismiss the magazine photos as typical of the reading and viewing habits of straight men. The images, though, do not exist in vacuums or distant universes, a truth evident in a simple search of Internet message boards on the topic of Amber Benson’s Stuff photo shoot. In a webbed culture, images talk, and what they say is not always easily deciphered. In fact, depending on when, where, how, and by whom they are read, some images may experience dilution as others are intensified; one set of images may lose or gain something over other images.

While Hannigan and Benson are certainly at liberty to pose in any position and in any magazine they choose, Benson herself, as noted earlier, has expressed a desire not to solicit notice by posing for the likes of Stuff. Still, the actors’ actual choices make professional statements that cannot necessarily be separated from political or even commercial ones. Hannigan’s and Benson’s choices, the representations of themselves and their characters matter, especially to those invested in feminist ideals. Kuhn argues, “From the point of view of its politics . . . the women’s movement has always been interested in images, meaning, representations—and especially in challenging representations which, while questionable or offensive from a feminist standpoint, are 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 58

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from other points of view—if they are noticed at all—perfectly acceptable”

(3). If Buffy challenges traditional representations of both heterosexual and lesbian women (and it certainly does), the challenge is still weakened by the actors’ “questionable” photo shoots for FHM and Stuff. Particularly in question is reality.

According to Helen Burgess, Jeanne Hamming, and Robert Markley,

“Rather than transcending technology, multimedia reinforces our sense of what [Michelle] Kendrick (1996) terms the ‘technological real’: the recognition, whether implicit or explicit, that consciousness, identity, and ‘ reality’ are and always have been mediated by technology and that this mediation is always dynamic (144)” (66, emphasis added). Similar to Burgess, Hamming, and Markley’s understanding of Kendrick is Barthes’s assertion that a photo or more precisely what is in the photo is often the center of a reader’s attention, yet “a complex of concurrent messages” surround and supplement the image: the photo’s caption, the article that it accompanies, the layout of the page, and even the name of the paper, magazine, website, or television show ( Image 15).

In regard to Buffy, intentional costuming, directed body language, scripted roles alongside extratextual images of the actors in suggestive positions accentuated by text that purposely blurs the actors’ and characters’ identities revises—in some ways weakening, in others neutralizing—the power of the series’ feminist spirit. An even further complication occurs when pictures of the actors’ day-to-day or “real” lives appear with captions such as the following: “Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson play lovers on Buffy. In real life, they’re just good friends. Very, very good friends.”4 Disregarded by many readers as witty, mock-innuendo, the text yet underscores that the imaginary is just as real as the real is imaginary—an always already dynamic mediation.

A film studies graduate of Wesleyan University, Whedon is no stranger to the mediated language of moving and still pictures. So while he did not deliberately construct Buffy’s Sapphic lovers to invite the gaze of FHM and Stuff readers or have control over which magazines, lingerie, or positions Hannigan and Benson posed in (as he should not have), he remains a collaborator in the visual dilution of his own purportedly feminist visual text. Whedon is caught in the web of Willow and Tara’s (in)visibility. When read in dialogue, then, the magazine and television images suggest that a win-win situation may be possible for marketers and certain viewers of the series or readers of the magazines but is unlikely or impossible for many fans as well as scholars.

The Age-Old Dispute: Can Images Really Argue?

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unfounded claim. To address any suspicion requires only a brief explanation of an ongoing dispute that usually ends in two contentions, however reductive: “there are those who think that the image is an extremely rudimentary system in comparison with language and those who think that signification cannot exhaust the images’ ineffable richness” (Barthes, Image 32). Speaking for the former, Gross declares that, unlike text, the image—particularly the television image—“does not require literacy” (6). Are we, then, a society quickly becoming completely illiterate? After all, as Jay Bolter observes, our lives are “dominated by visual representation” (19). From food labels to magazine ads, from billboards to the Internet, we are daily and continuously bombarded with the rhetoric of images. It seems that Jürgen Habermas and Paul Virilio agree that we, in fact, are becoming illiterate or, as Gross argues, that we do not need to be literate at all; rather than developing a discriminating palate, we simply consume what we see, swallow without savoring.

Habermas in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Virilio in The Vision Machine contend that, whether transmitted via page or screen, images are predigested and standardizing; they render simplistic even the textual arguments they accompany. Thus, readers do not wrestle rigorously with ideas and then assume differing positions on issues, acts that Habermas and Virilio “believe necessary for the functioning of democratic societies”

(Wysocki 43).

Though Habermas and Virilio maintain a firm position on the weakness of visual elements, Wysocki challenges them: “The assumption behind [their]

critique of the visual is that we each take in what we see, automatically and immediately, in the exact same way as everyone else, so that the visual requires no interpretation and in fact functions as though we have no power before it” (43). Allegedly, the viewer is caught in what Wysocki describes as a Darwin-inspired, Schopenhauerian “imperative to reproduce,” an infinite and inescapable cycle in which what is produced gives birth to re-production and what is “consumed is re-cycled” (48–49). In the face of such a position, Schopenhauer argues that the only possible response, in Wysocki’s words, is

“aesthetic resignation: We are to appreciate the beauty and to accept that we neither deny nor challenge our lack of independence” (49). In his own words,

“Only knowledge remains; the will has vanished” (Schopenhauer 411). But Wysocki rejects such an argument, buttressing her position by demonstrating the intellectual rigor required to read—not simply view—two web projects: Scrutiny in the Great Round by Tennessee Rice Dixon, Jim Gasperini, and Charlie Morrow and Throwing Apples at the Sun by Elliot Earls. She concludes that reading images can be just as “pleasurably challenging” as reading print-only texts and stresses that in order to perform the reading, she “had to apply abilities and approaches and understanding from rhetoric and art and 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 60

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visual communication and philosophy and critical theory . . .” (56). No matter its object, reading is always already dynamic.

As the expression goes, “There are two sides to every story.” But the story of image versus text has more. The world may be dominated by the visual, but many of us remain progeny of the word via books, magazines, newspa-pers, and websites. Significantly, in all of these mediums, pictures and text rarely exist in isolation; instead, they are in constant—sometimes comple-mentary, sometimes contentious—conversation. For too long, as visual rhetoricians Mary Hocks and Michelle Kendrick note, academics have articulated the battle between image and word rather than “the dynamic interplay that already exists and has always existed between visual and verbal texts . . .”

(1). And that dynamic interplay need not exist solely between the visual and the textual. Just as certainly, as I have argued in this chapter, images can argue between and among themselves.

Still, do Buffy fans read FHM and Stuff? Did the regular magazine readers actually begin to watch the series simply because they picked up their monthly copies? I cannot answer either question with certainty. I can, though, draw on personal experience as a Buffy scholar and fan to strongly suggest that what binds the magazines, the series, the readers, and the viewers is the Internet. Particular fans of Buffy hawkishly look for any article, image, video clip, or even single-sentence quote related to the series. They then alert other fans via chat rooms, message boards, and personal websites, a signal that sends them online or to local book stores in search of the source.

Because of such notices, I—neither a straight man nor a gay woman—

immediately went to buy FHM and Stuff when they hit newsstands. Since my purchase years ago, I have wrestled with the magazine and television images, questioning the reality of what I saw and grappling with the concept that these particular depictions of the actors and characters are at the same time historical and contemporary, stereotypical and normalizing. Not wanting to be caught in an “imperative to reproduce” or to experience “aesthetic resignation” (Wysocki 48–49), I have sought some way to “appreciate beauty”

while not simply consuming it. My search for steady ground has led not so much to conclusions as to questions: “So what?” and “What now?”

To See through a Glass Darkly:

Where Do We Go from Here?

As murky as the answers to the “so what” and “what now” questions may seem, answers do exist. Linda Williams suggests one of many. When she began writing about filmic bodies, Williams thought one of her books should contain a short chapter on pornography, short because pornographic films 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 61

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would “[illustrate] a total objectification of the female ‘film body’ as object of male desire” (xvi, emphasis in original). Williams found, though, that such a claim was far too simplistic. In Hard Core, she argues that the traditional positions of feminists—to celebrate or condemn pornography—has left little room for substantive debate; in fact, such positions have completely ignored the complexity of the genre, especially as it developed in the 1990s to reach more marginalized and “non-traditional” viewers such as GLBTQs and heterosexual women. Williams insists that we need to “come to terms with pornography” by not viewing it simply as misogynistic (though, much of it is) or denying that it is art (though, much of it is not) but by attempting to define what it is and why it continues to be so popular (5). Williams’s assertion pertains to my argument in that, though Buffy’s message is “feminist,”

the images of Hannigan/Willow and Benson/Tara create a formidable affront to that message, one that scholars and fans continue to correctly but excessively praise rather than complicate.5 As Beirne notes, the show is neither homophobic nor friendly to the GLBTQ perspective; it is also neither agonistic toward nor amicable to Whedon’s feminist agenda. Instead, the series demonstrates the slippage of images. Just as letters and words, as signifiers, are not the objects they represent, so static or moving images slip, a deconstruction that makes impossible a fair or equitable representation of anyone.

Where do we—writers and directors, critics, fans, and scholars—go from here, then?

First, we can continue to acknowledge what Buffy does well. In a review of Buffy’s seventh season, AfterEllen.com’s Sarah Warn laments the passing of one of network television’s most popular cult series and what the audience has lost: a lesbian couple they can identify with and celebrate (“DVD Release”).

AfterEllen.com is one of few online media sources that has hailed Buffy for bringing about several important firsts for lesbians on TV, among which include one of the longest, most passionate kisses between two female lovers not “experimenting.” Warn describes these firsts as giving lesbians much cov-eted and rarely granted visibility. She notes, “When the series ended in May, 2003, we knew lesbian visibility on TV would suffer[;] . . . it makes me long for the days when lesbian and bisexual women could watch [television]. . . and find an interesting, likeable, well-developed lesbian character like Willow . . .”

(“DVD Release”). More than being personable or multifaceted characters, Willow and Tara hopefully altered the course of American television: “We changed the world,” exclaims Willow in the last moments of the series finale

“Chosen” (7.22). True. More than any other network series during its run, Buffy realized several milestones. It also did not conceal the flaws that come with being human. As Warn believes, the characters were humanized, normalized in ways so as to desensitize viewers to sexual attraction and love 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 62

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between women: “network television will never . . . be able to stuff the lesbian genie back into the bottle . . .” (“How Buffy Changed the World”). As the slippage of images implies, however, Warn’s assertion is debatable.

The invisibility of normality constantly challenges lesbian visibility, so we must also acknowledge what Buffy in juxtaposition with such images and text as found in FHM and Stuff does not do: give each lesbian viewer the model she desires. Made too often are dismissive statements such as “It’s just a TV

show,” “Boys will be boys,” or “FHM and Stuff have really good articles!” I, like Todd Ramlow, neither understand nor believe the argument that what is popular is “ ‘just’ entertainment or ephemera.” Popular culture accomplishes

“real cultural work” that in too many cases upholds a dominant, closed-minded ideology: “The refusal to consider any social or political import to popular culture demonstrates how ideology functions through media to promote certain social and cultural values as ‘natural,’ and to make particular political investments and disseminations transparent” (Ramlow). Buffy does, in fact, do cultural work, work that is laudable. But FHM and Stuff do cultural work also.

Willow’s words—“It’s complicated . . .”—continue to echo (“New Moon Rising” 4.19). But the complex conversation of images and text is not so obfuscating that it is indecipherable and paralyzing. Problematizing opinions, hypotheses, and theories can lead to more resistant readings of

“questionable” texts, readings that hopefully will prompt and even demand the production of new kinds of texts all together. As Bolter insists, “A new critical theory is needed that can make us aware of the cultural and historical contexts (and ideologies) without dismissing or downplaying the formal characteristics of new media” (34). The building of such a theory is what feminist scholars such as Laura Mulvey, Mary Ann Doane, and Jackie Stacey have been trying to accomplish from the very beginning of their work. They have advocated for media transformation—change in the form of more options, more choices for female actors and spectators. As media continues to evolve, scholars should look for ways, as Bolter suggests, that various media can become in themselves cultural and societal critiques, not perpetuations of dominant norms (34). For “whatever it grants to vision and whatever its manner, a photograph is always invisible: it is not it that we see”

(Barthes, Camera Lucida 6). So what is there in the photo, text, website, or new media project, what is leaf for leaf inseparable is what we all—

producers, viewers, and scholars—are responsible for, what should drive us to question whether or not the closet of visual representation is indeed open, shut, or only standing ajar. We must note and understand that our cultural productions influence each other. We must defy any representation that 9780230600805ts05.qxd 12-10-07 09:02 PM Page 63

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attempts to define based solely on tokenism, stereotypes, or even archetypes.

Ultimately, we must not merely consume but complicate the whole notion of an open media closet.

Notes

1. For a more detailed discussion of the cliché, see, among other sources, Russo’s The Celluloid Closet (156–174) and Andy Mangels’s “Lesbian Sex = Death?” from The Advocate (70–71).

2. In his lecture “Searching for the Origami Unicorn: Media Convergence, Transmedia Storytelling, and the Matrix,” Henry Jenkins presents his research on the growing phenomenon of “transmedia,” or cross-media, consumption. For example, fans of the Matrix trilogy know a full understanding of the narrative is had only by viewing the films as well as reading the comic books, watching the Animatrix, and playing the video game.

3. Ironically, in this technologically advanced and webbed culture, it is still difficult, if not impossible, to acquire rights to reprint a photograph in a scholarly essay.

Thus, the photos of Hannigan and Benson do not appear here; a description must suffice. In several of the FHM photos, Hannigan wears a black bra and panties.

Her long, red hair is tousled, giving her a “bed head” look. Her makeup is heavier than what either she or Willow would normally apply. In other photos, Hannigan dons sheer, white, thigh-high hose with a baby blue garter that matches lacey biki-nis and ribbed bustier. The bright lighting, cool colors of the set, and black and blue lingerie draws attention to Hannigan’s porcelain skin. In nearly every photo, Hannigan gazes up, above the eye level of the camera with glossy, parted lips. In Stuff, Benson is placed against a backdrop of red curtains and red, carpeted stairs.

She is clad in black, boy-short underwear and lacey bustier. The dim lighting complements Benson’s rich, brown skin. Her hair is coifed like a lion’s mane, and she poses kneeling or bending over at her hips, pouring her breasts toward the floor.

She stares directly into the camera, straight-faced and bedroom-eyed.

4. The unattributed photo and caption of Hannigan and Benson at the celebration of Buffy’s one hundredth episode can currently be viewed on Majbritt’s [pseud.]

fan site at Ͻhttp://www.alysonhannigan.dk/alypictures/alypub/idol/bp3.jpgϾ.

5. See Mary Magoulick’s “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy” for a recent and notable exception.

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CHAPTER 4

“Can You Just Be Kissing Me Now?”:

The Question(s) of Willow in

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Cynthea Masson

B uffy the Vampire Slayer is known not only for the girl-power adventures of its eponymous hero but also for its array of complex relationships—one of which is the enduring love between two lesbian witches, Willow and Tara.1 In season six, after a temporary breakup, Tara admits her desire for renewed intimacy with Willow by asking two questions:

“It’s a long important process, and can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now?” (“Entropy” 6.18).2 Framed within the discourse function of questions, these are “indirect requests” because “the questioner is asking a question to induce the respondent to act” (Athanasiadou 110). As speech acts, they are locutionary (uttered aloud), illocutionary (propose an intended outcome), and perlocutionary (achieve an effect on the listener). They are, moreover, rhetorical questions: they imply the desired outcome without requiring a direct verbal response from the listener. Tara’s questions elicit from Willow nonverbal action that affectively and effectively reciprocates Tara’s desire. Willow, upon hearing the questions, moves immediately to Tara. They kiss, falling again into the silence that initiated their first exchange of desire in “Hush” (4.10).3 Tara knows Willow well enough to speak her language—a language that bridges, through questions, the ineffable gap between question and answer, between spoken word and silent response, between illocutionary intention and perlocutionary effect.

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In his article “Bodies That Mutter: Rhetoric and Sexuality,” Tim Dean asks, “Are bodies purely discursive? . . . [I]s sexuality purely rhetorical?” (83).

Within the context of psychoanalytic theory, Dean develops an argument on the rhetoricality of desire. For the purpose of exploring Willow’s rhetorical strategies, two of Dean’s concepts prove particularly useful. First, he suggests,

“We might modify the rhetoricalist notion that all language is performative, productive of effects, by saying that language becomes rhetorical only when it produces affective effects—that is, when it is imbued with desire”

(102–103). Second, he acknowledges the effect of the trope “erotema,” which he defines, within a discussion of Judith Butler’s rhetorical techniques, as “the rhetorical question that implies an answer and so produces an assertion by indirect means” (106). Tara’s two questions not only produce the desired

“affective effects” in Willow but are also examples of erotema. Willow’s emotional (affective) response produces the action (effect) of the kiss, an exchange of desire solicited by and already implied in Tara’s questions. Throughout Buffy’s seven seasons, this rhetorical strategy of questioning, followed by either silent or indirect affective response (rather than direct verbal response) is most acute in the conversations between Willow and her lovers. Willow is Buffy’s questioner: the one who, from her first scripted line to her last, uses questions as a means of establishing and securing her relationships and a place of power within the Buffyverse.4

The rhetoric of questioning, especially as seen in early theories of women and language, can be understood as a marker of insecurity or hesitancy in women.5 This interpretation of the use of questions as a sign of weakness certainly could be applied to Willow’s character early in the series. However, questioning can also be praised for its ability to promote and allow mutual exchange: “Instead of interpreting question-asking as the expression of an insecure personality, let us consider the question’s interactive attributes. . . . Questions are both explicit invitations to the listener to respond and demands that they do so. . . . Questions are stronger forms interactively than declaratives. . . . Women ask questions so often because of the conversational power of questions, not because of personality weakness”

(Fishman 255).6 Questions, moreover, negotiate power dynamics between speaker and addressee. As Angeliki Athanasiadou outlines, examination and interrogation questions “imply the dominance of the speaker” in that “the one who asks the question implies the authority to require an appropriate answer” (110).7 For Willow, questions and their subsequent responses represent not only a linguistic comfort zone but also a source of rhetorical power in her relationships. Thus, although she “stutters and stammers through much of her dialogue” (Owen 26), Willow also continually provides viewers with examples of the affective and effective power of questioning.

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Willow, as is well established in Buffy scholarship, becomes one of Buffy’s most confident characters in the realm of language and its power. Indeed, by the end of season six when Dawn accuses her of being “back on the magics,”

Willow, having drawn the literal text of volumes of black arts into her body (“Villains” 6.20), can state emphatically, “No, honey, I am the magics” (“Two to Go” 6.21). This assertion arguably represents the pinnacle of Willow’s linguistic power—through alchemical conjunction of word and flesh, Willow embodies locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. However, this linguistic power—supernatural, if not definitively divine—is a skill that gradually develops along with Willow’s character. In “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (the series premiere episode), Willow complains that she is linguistically challenged during a conversation with Buffy:

Willow: I don’t actually date a whole lot . . . lately.

Buffy: Why not?

Willow: Well, when I’m with a boy I like, it’s hard for me to say anything cool or witty, or at all . . . I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away.

Buffy: It’s not that bad.

Willow: It is. I think boys are more interested in a girl who can talk.

Willow criticizes herself for her lack of verbal skill and sees silence as a problem rather than a potential asset. However, in season two’s “Halloween” (2.6), Buffy emphasizes the opposite approach to this linguistic problem when she sees Willow dressed in her provocative costume: “I can’t wait for the boys to go nonverbal when they see you.” Whereas Willow is initially concerned that silence in relationships is a problem, Buffy sees the possibility of silencing potential partners to be advantageous to Willow. In regard to Willow’s costume in “Halloween,” Ian Shuttleworth says, “What is notable . . . is that her clothing beneath the spectral sheet, her original choice of get-up . . . is unwontedly sexy. Whilst the character is plainly uncomfortable with trying to be so openly alluring, this appearance sows the seeds of her next metamorphosis” (238–239). I would agree and, further, argue that Buffy’s reference to

“nonverbal” as something positive in relation to Willow’s sexiness likewise sows the seeds for a metamorphosis in Willow’s understanding of communication. Through her relationships, Willow learns to appreciate both her own rhetorical power of questioning and the power of silence within affective, perlocutionary response to those questions.

Willow again expresses concern about her rhetorical skills during a conversation with Buffy about Oz: “What if the talking thing becomes the awkward silence thing?” (“Surprise” 2.13).8 Oz, however, is known for his 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 68

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“mastery of laconicism” (Shuttleworth 243) or, as Xander puts it in

“Gingerbread” (3.11), his “verbal nonverbal” communication.9 Silence does not bother Oz. Indeed, silence (left in the wake of unanswered questions) becomes the very thing that allows space for Willow and Oz to initiate and, later, communicate their desire. When Oz sees Willow near the end of

“Halloween” (out of her ghost costume and, therefore, visible in her sexy clothing), he asks aloud to no one in particular, “Who is that girl?” This is the same question he asks when he sees her (two episodes earlier, in “Inca Mummy Girl”) dressed as “the Eskimo” (2.4). The question is rhetorical in that no answer is expected immediately following its utterance. Indeed, because the question is asked but left unanswered, a gap is opened for the possibility of discovering an answer and potential relationship. When Oz and Willow finally do meet (without costumes a few episodes later), Oz’s first comment to Willow is a single word, intoned as a question: “Canapé?”

(“What’s My Line? Part One” 2.9). This is the only word he can muster when he realizes that girl is sitting beside him. Willow, in response, merely looks at him and does not speak.

However, a while later, with another question similar in both structure and situation, Oz again offers food to Willow, saying “Oh, hey . . . animal cracker?” (“What’s My Line Part Two” 2.10). This time Willow responds directly with “No, thank you,” but then immediately follows this response with a question: “How’s your arm?” Oz answers, “Suddenly painless,” and Willow then asks, “You can still play the guitar okay?” Willow communicates her concern for (and interest in) Oz through questions and, thereby, assures interaction via response. Oz then reciprocates this interest by mimicking her rhetorical mode as the conversation continues. That is, when Willow attempts to thank Oz for saving her life, he avoids direct response to her gratitude. Instead he asks questions about the animal crackers: “The monkey’s the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes. You know that? You have the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen. So I’m wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sort of ripped?” He frames his compliment about her smile with rhetorical questions about the animal crackers. The attraction Willow feels for Oz is evident in her eyes and facial expression when she responds—nonverbally—

to his questions and comments. Oz communicates his desire to engage with Willow through questions; his illocutionary acts of questioning anticipate her perlocutionary effects. Willow understands the intention within Oz’s illocution; her nonverbal response is clearly affective, and their friendship is thereby established.

One of the more humorous yet endearing scenes between Willow and Oz also involves Willow’s penchant for questions. The conversation takes place in “Innocence” (2.14), while Willow and Oz wait in Oz’s van for Xander and 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 69

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Cordelia to return from the armory:

Willow: Do you want to make out with me?

Oz: What?

Willow: Forget it. I’m sorry. Well, do you?

Certainly these are not rhetorical questions—Willow asks a direct yes/no question and expects Oz to respond. Oz, however, does not answer the question with a simple yes or no; instead he first responds with a question (“What?”) and then (in response to “Well, do you?”) describes the way he has dreamt about kissing Willow in what Judith Tabron calls “possibly the world’s most romantic speech ever purported to come out of the mouth of a teenager” (para. 65). Their exchange, punctuated by questions, though not producing an actual kiss, certainly produces an affective effect in both Willow and Oz. Their desire for one another is established here. The two finally do kiss immediately after an exchange that, though it does not involve questions, does involve an implied question and silence. Having apologized for shooting him (in his werewolf form), Willow says, “So, I’d still if you still—”; Oz responds, “I’d very still—” (“Phases” 2.16); Willow then walks away but returns and kisses Oz. Michael Adams discusses this verbal exchange within his discussion of elliptical expressions in Buffy:

“Slayer slang, like all slang, is notable for a sort of casual efficiency, what many language purists decry as verbal laziness. . . . Willow and Oz sometimes employ elliptical items, like still, that also participate in the general tendency to abbreviate forms” (32–33). Although Willow’s elliptical statement is not technically a question, the ellipsis nonetheless functions in the same way as a question. In the silence, she is implying a question in that she leaves space for perlocutionary effect, waiting to know whether or not Oz still wants to be involved with her. In response, Oz again mimics Willow’s language and style by repeating “still” and the elliptical construction, thereby engaging with her in a way that leads to their first physical exchange of desire.

This is the identical method of communication Willow uses in a conversation with Tara just before they kiss for the first time: Willow: Tara, I have to tell you—

Tara: No, I—I understand. You have to be with the person you l-love.

Willow: I am.

Tara: You mean—

Willow: I mean. Okay?

Tara: Oh, yes.

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Willow: I feel horrible about everything I put you through, and I’m gonna make it up to you starting right now.

Tara: Right now?

This scene occurs at the end of “New Moon Rising” (4.19), the episode in which Willow must choose between Oz and Tara; their kiss occurs (or is implied to have occurred) in the darkness left after Tara blows out the “extra flamey” candle Willow has brought to her. Tara’s “You mean—” is an illocutionary act, a directive that functions in the same way as Willow’s “I’d still if you still—.” It is an elliptical statement that intones a question waiting for a response. In both cases, the conversation ends with a first kiss, the perlocutionary effect enacted within the silence left in the wake of the ellipsis and, in this case, the final question (“Right now?”). Significantly, the first on-air kiss that the audience witnesses between Willow and Tara also occurs in response to Willow’s questions. Willow, distraught in her attempts to find clothing appropriate to meet Buffy after Joyce’s death, asks Tara, “Why can’t I just dress like a grown-up? Can’t I be a grown-up?” (“The Body” 5.16). Tara comforts her and then kisses her—an act of intimacy that effectively and affectively (rather than verbally) responds to Willow’s rhetorical questions spoken in an affective moment of despair.

In “Fear Itself ” (4.4) Willow asks, “What is college for if not experimenting? I know when I’ve reached my limit.” Oz, who has just arrived on the scene, asks, “Wine coolers?” Buffy responds, “Magic,” and Oz asks,

“Ooh . . . didn’t encourage her did you?” Willow then responds with the question “Where’s supportive boyfriend guy?” At this point, Oz and Willow are still involved, still exchanging questions (rhetorical and otherwise). By the end of this season, however, “supportive boyfriend guy” will be replaced by supportive Wiccan girlfriend. Willow’s rhetorical exchange with Oz, like her sexual orientation, takes a turn. Questions are asked and answered but not with the reciprocal questions or silences she desires as response (or with which their relationship was initially established). Thus, in “Wild at Heart” (4.6) when Willow questions Oz’s decision to leave town, she receives direct verbal responses rather than reciprocal questions or silence from him: Willow: Don’t I get a say in this?

Oz: No.

Willow may intend her question to be rhetorical, an assertive illocutionary act. After all, “a speaker using a rhetorical question anticipates ratification by the hearer, and thus, also anticipates consensus between himself and the hearer” (Athanasiadou 117). Oz, however, treats her statement as a simple 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 71

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yes/no question. His response inhibits both the intended perlocutionary effect of the question and Willow’s desire for communication. As the relationship between Willow and Oz changes, their communication changes with it.

In comparison, a rhetorically and emotionally similar scene between Willow and Tara ends with reunion rather than separation. This occurs in

“Family” (5.6) when Willow questions Tara after Tara’s father claims his daughter has a demon side:

Willow: Tara, look at me. I trusted you more than anyone in my life. Was all that just a lie?

Tara: No.

. . .

Willow: Do you wanna leave?

In the first instance, Willow asks a yes/no question and receives a yes/no response. (“No,” of course, is the response Willow desires in this instance.) In response to Willow’s second question, Tara merely shakes her head; she does not respond verbally. But Tara’s silence in the gap left by Willow’s question gives Willow the affective answer and perlocutionary effect that she needs. In the final scene of this episode when Tara says, “Even when I’m at my worst you always make me feel special. How do you do that?” Willow responds,

“Magic.” Unlike Buffy’s response of “Magic” to Oz in “Fear Itself ” (as noted earlier), Willow’s answer is metaphorical here—that is, she has not consciously used her magical powers on Tara as she does in season six. The shot then pulls back, and we see that Willow and Tara are suspended in the air, dancing together. For now, their communication and relationship are still on solid ground.

One of the early intimate moments of conversation between Willow and Tara occurs in “Who Are You?” (4.16). The two women sit together on Tara’s bed talking. In response to Tara’s concern (phrased as a question) that Willow’s friends do not know she exists, Willow attempts to explain her perspective on this:

Willow: Tara, it’s not like I don’t want my friends to know you. . . . I really want you to meet them. But I—I just kind of like having something that’s just, you know, mine. And I usually don’t use so many words to say stuff that little, but do you get it at all?

Tara: I am you know.

Willow: What?

Tara: Yours.

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By saying “I am you know” rather than answering Willow’s question, Tara indirectly responds to Willow’s stated desire (to have something that is just hers) and simultaneously elicits another question, one that Tara answers directly. Tara’s responses in this scene acknowledge to both Willow and the audience her attraction to Willow. The perlocutionary effect on Willow (based on her facial expression) certainly is affective. Thus, once again, an exchange of desire occurs within the framework of questions and indirect response. This exchange is also interesting for the fact that Willow is aware of her language and its possible effect on Tara (in that she says she does not usually “use so many words to say stuff that little”).

Judith Tabron, in her discussion of Willow’s relationships, argues that both Oz and Tara court Willow through “romantic speech” (para. 65). In her exploration of this, Tabron cites both Oz’s explanation of his dream to kiss Willow (in “Innocence,” as discussed earlier) and Tara’s “I am you know . . . Yours” speech (in “Who Are You?”). Tabron, however, believes that Willow’s third partner—Kennedy—does not have this skill: “Kennedy, on the other hand, gets Willow’s attention by asking her how long she, Willow, has been gay, or rather how long she’s known that she enjoys having sex with women. Kennedy has no courting technique” (para. 66). However, I contend that if Kennedy’s courting technique is viewed rhetorically, looking specifically at the mode of questioning and response that occurs at the beginning of her relationship with Willow, the opposite argument can be made. That is, Kennedy and Willow’s early conversations comprise similar question/

response strategies used in the courting techniques of both Oz with Willow and Tara with Willow.

Willow’s first exchange of questions involving Kennedy does not take place with Kennedy herself but with Dawn in a discussion about Kennedy.

This occurs immediately after an initial disconcerting moment between Willow and Kennedy in “Bring on the Night” (7.10):

Kennedy: You, uh, better not hog the covers.

Willow: (She appears surprised and does not respond verbally.) Dawn: Does she want to eat?

Willow: What? Huh? Oh, she’s—oh, she’s new.

Willow’s response to Dawn uses two rhetorical silencing techniques. First she responds with a question, and then she responds with a statement that adds something new to the discussion (rather than directly answering Dawn’s question about Kennedy’s desire for food). Kennedy’s illocutionary directive not to hog the covers causes an obvious affective effect on Willow—she is initially unnerved by the possibility that Kennedy is flirting with her. Kennedy’s 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 73

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far more obvious flirtation, however, occurs in the long conversation she has with Willow at the Bronze in “The Killer in Me” (7.13). This is the conversation that Tabron uses as evidence of Kennedy’s lack of courting technique; it is, however, replete with questions (only a few of which are quoted here): Willow: All right. I’ll stay for one drink. Then I’m going home.

Kennedy: Okay. One drink. I can work with that. Let’s start with the easy stuff. How long have you known? That you were gay?

Willow: Wait. That’s easy? And, what, you just assume that I’m—I’m gay?

I mean, presume much?

Kennedy: Okay, sorry. How long have you enjoyed having sex with women?

Willow: Hey! And what, you think you have some sort of special “lesbidar”

or something?

Kennedy: Okay, you know there’s a better word for that, right?

. . .

Willow: Can you always tell—just by looking at someone?

Kennedy: No, no of course not. That wouldn’t be any fun. The fun part is the process of getting to know a girl. It’s like—it’s like flirting in code.

It’s using body language and laughing at the right jokes and—and looking into her eyes and knowing she’s still whispering to you, even when she’s not saying a word.

Kennedy knows how to “flirt in code” with Willow. Notice that many of the questions in this scene are not answered directly—they are answered indirectly either with a change of topic or, in most cases, another question.

Kennedy’s questions are generally straightforward, directive requests for information (“How long have you known?”). Willow’s response questions, on the other hand, are generally rhetorical (“I mean, presume much?”). As speech acts, requests for information are set in opposition to rhetorical questions: “[I]n contradistinction with the requesting information questions,

[rhetorical questions] minimize the emphasis on the information channel and stress the social relationships involved”; rhetorical questions are “opposites to information questions, since the former minimize the emphasis on information, while the latter stress the securing of information” (Athanasiadou 109). Kennedy is courting Willow. She wants information about Willow, and she uses Willow’s linguistic comfort zone to get it. She asks questions, is asked questions, and arguably illustrates that even within same-sex unions (or grammatically mimetic elements), opposites can attract. The only question answered directly is Willow’s final one, in response to which Kennedy acknowledges the necessity of silence within flirting. Kennedy speaks aloud what Willow has known all along.

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Notably, a while later when the episode returns again to the two women at the Bronze, Kennedy says to Willow, “I like the way you speak. It’s interesting.” It is interesting, perhaps, because of its inherent questions. Willow’s early concern that she can barely make vowel sounds around boys has been completely reversed by this point in the series. Not surprisingly, the first kiss between Willow and Kennedy occurs after a few more questions asked by Willow. In this scene, the two women have returned home from the Bronze: Willow: Glad we talked.

Kennedy: Yes. Kind of cleared the air, huh?

Willow: Yeah, totally. Air cleared. Check.

Kennedy: You know, in the spirit of air clearing—

Willow: Yeah?

Kennedy: I feel like I need to be honest about something.

Willow: Is something wrong?

Kennedy: No. No. It’s just—I think you should know—

Kennedy then stops speaking and kisses Willow, thus moving from affect (desire) to effect (kiss). Willow’s yes/no question is answered; however, Kennedy’s illocutionary act falls into elliptical silence, clarifying its intention with the kiss. As in conversations with both Oz and Tara, Willow’s initial conversations with Kennedy, leading first to affective response and then a physical expression of desire, involve exchanges of questions. This is a method of courting, one that by this point Willow understands all too well.

Of course, Willow changes into Warren (Adam Busch; Tara’s killer, whom Willow had flayed in vengeance during season six) during her first kiss with Kennedy, and the episode moves temporarily away from their budding relationship while they search for a cure for Willow’s transformation. Notably, however, in the final scene of this episode, Willow is brought back to herself after another exchange of questions and affective responses with Kennedy: Kennedy: Willow, what did you make happen?

Willow: You were there, bitch. You saw it. I killed her.

. . .

Kennedy: Who did you kill, Willow?

Willow: It was your fault, slut! You tricked me. You got me to forget.

Kennedy: Tara—

Willow: Shut up! Shut up! You do not get to say her name. Offering it up to whoever’s there. Tricking me into kissing you. . . . Kennedy?

. . .

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Willow: What are you doing?

Kennedy: Bringing you back to life. (They kiss, and Willow turns back into herself.)

Kennedy: Hmm. I am good.

Willow: It’s me? I’m back? Oh, God.

Kennedy: Are you all right?

Willow: I have no idea. I’m so tired.

Kennedy: Yeah. I’ll make you some tea.

Kennedy is able to bring Willow back to herself and her mode of speaking (“It’s me? I’m back?”) by sharing the intimacy of the kiss. Though it may seem that the kiss is the key to transformation here, Kennedy’s questions are equally as important in Willow’s transformation. Kennedy uses interrogation questions (“What did you make happen?” and “Who did you kill?”) and, thereby, “implies the authority to require an appropriate answer”

(Athanasiadou 110). She establishes her authority over Warren/Willow, and the perlocutionary effect is literally transformative. In this scene, more so perhaps than anywhere else thus far in the series, rhetorical mode is inextri-cably linked with physical action.

Karen Eileen Overbey and Lahney Preston-Matto discuss Willow’s language in “Staking in Tongues: Speech Act as Weapon in Buffy.” They con-vincingly posit “the materiality of language in Buffy,” outlining the ways in which “[w]ords and utterances have palpable power” within the Buffyverse (73). They call Willow’s language “foundational,” justifiably claiming

“she builds a base of operation for the crew, establishing context from text, providing a sort of local landscape for the group’s actions” (80). Overbey and Preston-Matto, though they quote an exchange between Willow and Tara that includes a question, do not discuss Willow’s penchant for questioning. The lines that Overbey and Preston-Matto quote are from

“Primeval” (4.21):

Willow: I think I’m onto something. I’ve been assuming the cipher-text was encrypted with an asymmetric algorithm. Then it hit me: a hexagonic key pattern. It’s—I’m scaring you now, huh?

Tara: A little. In a good way. It’s like a different kind of magic.

Overbey and Preston-Matto, in their discussion of these lines, connect magic and language, claiming “there is magic in linguistic force. And Willow, with her command of text and of magic, functions as a kind of linguist herself, exploring and exposing the systems of magical logic that give Buffy rhetorical potency” (80). Although this exchange between Tara and Willow may not seem significant in terms of a connection between questioning and desire, the 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 76

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affective effect of Tara’s fear (or potential fear) in response to Willow’s question and in relation to Willow’s power with magic does indeed become a significant component of their relationship (leading to its demise in season six). Here Tara’s fear is minimal; the phrase “in a good way” suggests that she is enticed by or attracted to Willow’s knowledge and power. Willow’s question, on its surface, is evidence of her concern for Tara’s emotional reaction; yet simultaneously the question asserts the possibility of Willow’s potential to cause fear and thus opens a gap that provides space for her abuse of power (rhetorical and otherwise) and, later, for the emergence of Dark Willow.

Thus along with allowing space for desire, Willow’s questions and questioning also leave space for other affects, such as fear and anger. Indeed, the first major argument between Tara and Willow in season five (“Tough Love”

5.19) is full of questions, one of which picks up the thread left by the “I’m scaring you” question of season four:

Tara: I mean, it frightens me how powerful you’re getting.

Willow: That’s a weird word.

Tara: “Getting”?

Willow: It frightens you? I frighten you?

Tara: That is so not what I meant. I mean it impresses—impressive.

. . .

Willow: D-Don’t you trust me?

Tara: With my life.

Willow: That’s not what I mean.

. . .

Willow: What is it about me that you don’t trust?

Tara: It’s not that. I worry sometimes. You’re changing so much, so fast. I don’t know where you’re heading.

Willow: Where I’m heading?

Tara: I’m saying everything wrong.

Willow: No, I think you’re being pretty clear. This isn’t about the witch thing. It’s about the other changes in my life.

Tara: I trust you, I just—I don’t know where I’m gonna fit in your life when—

Willow: When—I change back? Yeah, this is a college thing, just a little experimentation before I get over the thrill and head back to Boys’

Town. You think that?

Tara: Should I?

Willow: I’m really sorry that I didn’t establish my lesbo street cred before I got into this relationship. You’re the only woman I’ve ever fallen in love with so how on earth could you ever take me seriously?

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In this scene, the question “I frighten you?” echoes Willow’s assertive question to Tara from “Primeval,” “I’m scaring you now, huh?” The scene revolves around questions, but the questions do not incite desire. They do, nonetheless, produce emotion—anger mainly—and, thus, again elicit an affective effect, engaging both speaker and respondent. Notice, too, that both women are aware that they are struggling with language here (Tara says,

“That is so not what I meant” and “I’m saying everything wrong”; Willow says, “That’s not what I mean”). Their ability to communicate—to ask questions that imply and elicit desired response—breaks down and allows the possibility for a breakdown of the entire relationship.

Another argument that involves questions and emotional response occurs in “Tabula Rasa” (6.8). Here, Tara confronts Willow on her use of magic to erase memory:

Tara: What is wrong with you?

. . .

Tara: Do you think I’m stupid? I know you used that spell on me.

Willow: Tara, I’m sorry. I—

Tara: Don’t. Just don’t. There’s nothing you can say.

Willow: Tara, I didn’t mean to—

Tara: To what? Violate my mind like that? How could you, Willow? How could you after what Glory did to me?

Willow: Violate you? I—I didn’t mean anything like that. I—I just wanted us not to fight anymore. I love you.

In this scene, Tara holds the linguistic and ethical power in that she not only asks but answers her own interrogation questions (“To what? Violate my mind like that?”). Each question is assertive in its accusation. By asking one after the next, Tara does not allow time for Willow to respond. Tara’s technique blurs the boundary between interrogation questions and rhetorical questions and, finally, forces Willow to question, through rhetorical echo, her own unethical behavior. The argument continues, ending with a final question from Willow: “Are you saying you’re gonna leave me?” As in response to Willow’s question to Tara in “Family” (“Are you gonna leave?”

discussed earlier), Tara does not respond directly. In this case, however, the scene cuts immediately to Giles who says to Buffy “I have to.” (They, the cut suggests, have been having a similar conversation in regard to Giles leaving Buffy.) Thus although the audience does not see Tara’s response to Willow, whether verbally or otherwise, the implication is clear—if Willow does not stop abusing magic, Tara will have to leave her (as, indeed, is what happens at the end of this episode). Thus we see in this scene of questions and ellipsis, 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 78

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words and silences, the affective effect not of desire but of anger, sadness, and fear.

The affective effects of questions, then, can be both positive and negative.

Notably, one of the most disturbing yet unique emotionally charged scenes involving this rhetorical mode occurs when Willow exchanges questions with her double, Vamp Willow, in “Doppelgangland” (3.16). In this episode, Vamp Willow first seductively approaches and then kills a young woman named Sandy; afterward, she says to everyone at the Bronze: “Questions?

Comments?” Her actions produce the desired affective effect—fear—and her questions are, in effect, rhetorical: she expects no questions or comments from her audience. She thus holds power, rhetorically and physically, over the crowd. But Willow herself questions Vamp Willow later in the episode: Vamp Willow: I kind of like the idea of the two of us. . . . We could be quite the team if you came around to my way of thinking.

Willow: Would that mean we have to snuggle?

Vamp Willow: What do you say? (She licks Willow’s neck.) Want to be bad?

Willow: This can’t get more disturbing.

Of course, an argument can be made that Willow eventually does come around to Vamp Willow’s way of thinking, both in terms of her sexual orientation and in the emergence of Dark Willow. Indeed, Lorna Jowett discusses this in Sex and the Slayer: “Vamp Willow at first seems to be Willow’s dark shadow but with hindsight acts more as a fore shadowing of her internal contradictions, brought out subsequently in Dark Willow. Thus Vamp Willow, in dress, speech, and action appears to be everything Willow is not” (81).

Although I agree with most of Jowett’s argument here, I disagree on the reference to speech. That is, Vamp Willow’s choice of rhetorical mode—

questions— mirrors Willow’s speech rather than reflecting its opposite.

In regard to this scene, Rebecca Beirne argues, “When Vampire Willow licks Willow’s neck, Willow is completely unnerved . . . . It is clear that it is not fear of being bitten that unnerves her, but rather the eroticism behind that lick, and the fact that it comes from, not only a woman, but her mirror image” (“Queering”). As I have stated, the rhetorical strategy also provides a mirror image: both Willow and Vamp Willow ask questions that the other does not answer. Thus, Willow may be unnerved not only by Vamp Willow’s sexuality but also by her method of communication—both of which, as the series establishes, are aspects of Willow herself. She does not know what to do when confronted with her double’s rhetorical questions. Elsewhere, as we have seen, an exchange of questions can lead to a positive exchange of desire.

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Here, when confronted with the double, the exchange of questions, followed by the sexually explicit act of neck-licking, leads (from Willow’s perspective) to a disturbing moment of desire enacted by Vamp Willow. Later, when the two meet again in the episode’s final battle scene, Willow says to Vamp Willow, “No more snuggles?” Her tone is one of uncertainty, and Vamp Willow responds by knocking her across the face, a nonverbal response that sends Willow crashing into a drum set. Willow, whether or not tentative in tone, teases Vamp Willow with “No more snuggles?”—thereby playing not only with sexuality but also with rhetoricality in response to her double.

Willow is, one could say, playing at her own game. Thus, as in other episodes, in “Doppelgangland,” the exchange of questions results in affective effects.

These effects are disturbing only in that the moment of desire occurs between two aspects of the same character.

In a pivotal scene from the series’ final episode, Willow’s rhetorical strategy of questioning is adopted by Buffy.10 The scene moves in a series of cuts, linking Willow’s final spell with Buffy’s final speech to the Potentials. After Buffy calls out “Willow” (who is not with her at the time), the scene cuts to Willow immersed in the power of the spell and the scythe: “Oh—my—

Goddess,” she says, and the scene then cuts again, in flashback, to Buffy’s speech: “So here’s the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power—now? . . . Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?” Here, in one of the most moving speeches of the entire series, Buffy uses rhetorical questions as illocutionary directives. The answers to the questions are implied, but each individual must nonetheless make the choice as a perlocutionary act. Buffy chooses both to merge power with and mimic the rhetorical strategies of her best friend—a powerful lesbian witch—to awaken the strength and affective desire of young women around the world. The questions are left, along with their inherent silent gap, to be answered not only by every Potential but also by every viewer. Thus the audience participates in the language of the Buffyverse by entering the silence, the gap created by the rhetorical questions. The same effect occurs in the series’ final scene: Willow: What do you think we should do, Buffy?

Faith: Yeah, you’re not the one and only Chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How’s that feel?

Dawn: Yeah, Buffy. What are we gonna do now?

In response to the questions posed to her by Willow, Faith, and Dawn, Buffy merely looks out at the landscape and smiles. She says nothing. As Rhonda Wilcox notes, “Buffy’s lack of an answer means that we get to answer the question” (106). The unanswered questions open infinite possibilities for a 9780230600805ts06.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 80

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continuation of the Buffyverse within the imagination of the viewers. As we have learned listening to the questions exchanged by and with Willow, not answering the question can be the most affective and effective response of all.

Notes

This essay was first published as “‘Is that Just a Comforting Way of not Answering the Question?’: Willow, Questions, and Affective Response in Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

( Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, Issue 20, May 2006).

Whereas the current version focuses primarily on Willow in relation to her lovers, the original (and substantially longer) version also includes analysis of questions exchanged with or posed to Willow by Xander and Buffy.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven seasons (from 1997 to 2003). All seven seasons are available on DVD (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.).

Willow and Tara refer to themselves as “lesbian, gay-type lovers” in “Checkpoint”

(5.12). Andrew refers to Willow as a “lesbian witch” in the Angel episode

“Damage” (A5.11). Willow and Tara’s relationship begins in season four, develops throughout season five, and ends (tragically) in season six. Willow begins a relationship with another woman, Kennedy, in season seven. Prior to her lesbian relationships, Willow is involved with a young man (Oz); however, she never refers to herself as bisexual.

2. Quotations from Buffy are cited by episode title, followed by season and episode numbers.

3. I refer here to the moment in “Hush” (4.10) when Willow and Tara join hands and perform their first moment of magic together.

4. “Buffyverse” is a term used within Buffy scholarship and fan culture to describe the universe associated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As discussed in the original version of this essay, Willow’s first line in “Welcome to the Hellmouth” (1.1) and her final line in “Chosen” (7.22) are both questions.

5. As Robin Lakoff argues, e.g., “One makes a statement when one has confidence in his knowledge and is pretty certain that his statement will be believed; one asks a question when one lacks knowledge on some point and has reason to believe that this gap can and will be remedied by an answer by the addressee” (15).

6. Jane Gallop (in regard to Lacan’s use of questions) argues “This may be a truly feminist gesture, to end with questions, not to conclude, but to be open” (32).

Gallop sees feminist theorist Luce Irigaray as “an impertinent questioner” (65); she analyzes Irigaray’s questioning in the chapter “The Father’s Seduction” (56–79).

7. Angeliki Athanasiadou contends, “Questioning is a speech act which affects the way information is organized” (1991: 107). He outlines the following four categories of questions: (1) requests for information, (2) rhetorical questions, (3) examination and interrogation questions, and (4) indirect requests. Examination questions are asked when “the questioner is testing the knowledge of the respondent” (109); interrogation questions are asked when “questioning aims at establishing a fact and pinning down responsibilities” (110).

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8. Oz is the young male musician with whom Willow has her first serious relationship. Though Willow’s relationship with Oz is heterosexual, it could also be considered “queer” given that Oz is a werewolf.

9. As Overbey and Preston-Matto point out, Willow’s “partners, too, seem uncomfortable in speech and body—monosyllabic Oz, tentative Tara. But with text, Willow is, well, a wunderkind” (79).

10. On the DVD, this scene occurs in Chapter 12 (“Chosen” 7.22).

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CHAPTER 5

States of Emergency: The Labors

of Lesbian Desire in ER

Dana Heller

In popular American television of the past thirty years, the workplace has evolved into the primary setting for the production of multi-plot serial narrative and ensemble character drama. While economic shifts within the television industry can partly account for this development, a genealogy of workplace television drama must also consider the long-standing tendency of American culture to recruit its most potent images and forms, to reproduce its foundational myths, and to resolve its most debilitating social contradic-tions through narrative studies of the unstable boundaries of industry and intimacy, the reproduction of wealth and the reproduction of life, the public performance of labor and the private performance of intimacy, domesticity, and sexuality. The social topography of the workplace in American popular culture thus describes an evolving fantasy of late twentieth-century American life, a fantasy embodied in what Ella Taylor calls the “television work-family.”

Originating in the 1970s and reshaped by changing historical contexts, Taylor’s identifies the television work-family as an expression of “a cultural dilemma: on the one hand, the yearning for meaning and community in the workplace, and on the other, the fear of the power of corporations and of professionals in corporate settings” (14). The “familialized” workplace allows for the symbolic resolution of conflicts arising from competing social and cultural inducements. Whether the setting is a police station, law firm, crime lab, hospital, or high school, the television workplace naturalizes the disciplinary constraints of American capitalism, its administrative ethic of 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 84

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professionalism, and its management of productivity by staging these processes as emotionally gratifying extensions of the disciplinary constraints of the oedipal family, its administrative ethic of care, and its management of sexual desire.

In other words, the American workplace in popular narrative television is one of the primary locations for the construction of public-personal crisis.

The typical scripting of familial dynamics onto sites of labor has effectively transformed the American television workplace into a principle locus of intimacy, secrecy, revelation, desire, and rivalry. In fact, in early popular dramatic series such as L.A. Law, Hillstreet Blues, and St. Elsewhere, as in contemporary shows such as NYPD Blue, The Practice, Law & Order, and ER, recurring characters often appear to have no interests or relationships, sexual or otherwise, beyond the incestuous web of professional affiliation, competition, loy-alty and betrayal, that the demanding high-stress work environment compels.

While it is possible to treat this as mimetic representation of a notoriously overworked, increasingly competitive American labor force, popular television drama’s apparent dissolution or blurring of the boundaries separating work and domestic life, private and public, and its more recent investments in the development of lesbian and gay characters and story lines, points toward a complicated critical examination of the social, occupational, and intimate spaces and practices that constitute us as citizens and as legible, desiring subjects of the American democratic family. In this essay, I want to sketch out some of the broader stakes involved in this process by analyzing the lesbian “coming-out” narrative in the popular medical drama ER. My purpose in doing so is to demonstrate how network television’s contradictory assertions and denials of lesbian desire signify a redefinition of national identification that promotes a healing universality—the therapeutic aims of liberal political culture—through the individual capacity to oversee crises and traumas that exist at the nation’s core.

In its seventh season, ER began developing—hesitatingly, in fits and starts—a story line that focuses on one character’s acknowledgment and acceptance of her lesbianism. For those who may be unfamiliar with the show, Kerry Weaver (played by Laura Innes) first became involved in an affair with staff psychiatrist, Kim Legaspi, an out lesbian who agrees to keep their relationship a secret at the hospital. Despite this agreement, the ER staff soon detects their intimacy and rumors begin to circulate, causing Weaver to feel deeply ambivalent about her attraction to Legaspi and, at the same time, vulnerable in her authoritative role as Chief of Emergency Medicine.

In ER’s eighth season Weaver continues to struggle both with the personal knowledge that was awakened by the affair and the political knowledge that Legaspi’s firing (as the result of a psychiatric patient’s bogus 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 85

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charge of sexual harassment), and her own complicity in it, forces her to confront: love’s knowledge, or the unleashing of the body’s cognitive powers comes into direct conflict with the corporate and medical management of bodies, a managerial structure that Weaver herself represents to the hilt.

Indeed, since Kerry Weaver appeared as a regular character in ER’ s second season she has been defined principally by her personal ambitiousness and steadfast dedication to administrative policy. Weaver first came to County General as chief resident, later becoming attending physician in the ER, then rising to Chief of Emergency Medicine, and finally gaining promotion to Chief of Staff. Through it all Weaver has remained as unfazed by her physical disability (which requires that she move about the crowded and chaotic ER with a cane) as by the fact of her controversial standing among coworkers and colleagues, many of whom regard her as abrasive and officious. At the same time, her professionalism and undeniable skill in emergency situations have earned her the respect, and at times even the sympathy, of some in the ER.

However, it is precisely this conflict—the supremely competent, hyper-efficient Weaver reduced to denial, hypocrisy, and fear of exposure—that produces interest and speculation among Weaver’s staff and colleagues, whose reactions to the rumors of her relationship with Legaspi run the gamut from indifference to amusement and from supportiveness to outright contempt.

Weaver’s character is marked during this period by a seemingly irreconcilable inner rift between her public function as hospital administrator and her lesbian private life. At work, she goes on an inexplicable rampage, becoming increasingly irresponsible, unreasonable, and, at the same time, excessively concerned about what the other doctors and hospital staff might be saying behind her back. In the eighth season opener, “Four Corners,” Weaver returns to the ER after what has ostensibly been a three-week leave of absence in Nairobi, where she once lived. But it is highly questionable whether Weaver has actually spent her leave in Africa. On her way back to work, we see her buy a bracelet from a street vendor who assures her that it came “direct from Kenya.” She slips on the bracelet and, as she pulls into the hospital parking lot, she listens to a radio talk show debate about homosexuals in the workplace. Her reception in the ER is decidedly cool. Nervously, she pulls Dr. Kovac aside and asks whether people have been talking about her. “People always talk about their boss,” he reasons (8.1). For the next six episodes, Weaver remains volatile and directionless, as writers appear to put her story line on hold. Finally, in the episode titled “Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain”

(8.8) they advance Weaver’s sexual identity crisis by introducing Lieutenant Sandy Lopez, a Latina fire fighter for whom being out is a matter of professional integrity and personal honor.

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Weaver and Lopez begin dating; however, Weaver’s neatly compartmen-talized, closeted life does not sit well with Lopez. Frustrated and irritated by Weaver’s fear of being seen with her in public, Lopez unravels Weaver’s professional composure in the episode aptly entitled, “A River in Egypt” (8.12).

Lopez shows up unexpectedly at the ER in order to speak with Weaver, only to be met with more of her hesitancy and ambivalence. Tired of the same old run-around, Lopez sighs and says, “You know, forget it.” She begins to walk away. Weaver grabs her, unwilling to let her simply walk away, and as she does so something in Lopez snaps. She draws Weaver forward into a furious, theatrical kiss. The kiss catches Weaver off guard, as she seems to lose herself in the moment. The camera swivels around them, so that when they break apart, we see the curious faces of staff, coworkers, and underlings Frank, Malik, Abby, and Chen staring from the reception desk. “Goodbye, Dr.

Weaver,” Lopez says quietly, fleeing the ER and a dazed Dr. Weaver who silently returns to her work.

Later, Weaver goes to the firehouse to confront Lopez. She rails at Lopez for outing her so flagrantly, especially when she had so closely guarded her privacy, while Lopez argues that Weaver was lying to her about who she is. “I never misrepresented myself!” insists Weaver. “No, you just pretend to be something you’re not,” Lopez shouts as she jumps aboard a fire truck, cau-tioning Weaver, “You can’t separate who you are from what you do.” Weaver reminds her that this is not her decision to make, and Lopez accuses Weaver of wanting the best of both worlds—to be a lesbian but to escape the hard-ship that comes with it. “You don’t get one without the other,” she shouts, “at least not with me.” Weaver is unwilling to believe that Lopez would kiss her in public just to make a point on principle. As the fire truck pulls away, Lopez explains. “I did you a huge favor! You just don’t know it yet!”

Finally, in the episode, “Bygones,” Weaver comes to understand this, as two seemingly disconnected Sapphic story lines converge to effect her recon-ciliation with Lopez and her newly acquired self-acceptance (8.17). First, two girls are discovered with deep, multiple stab wounds in their college dormi-tory. One of them has been mortally stabbed all over her body, including her hands. The other girl, her “best friend,” according to their classmate, has also suffered multiple stab wounds and her throat is cut. The dying girl is brought to the ER where Dr. Weaver and a team of doctors mobilize in an effort to save her life. However, just as it becomes evident to Weaver that their efforts are in vain, the young girl—drenched in gore and blood, lifts her head as if indicating a desire to speak. Weaver leans toward her and silences the physicians still working in a frenzy around them. “I loved her,” the girl says, and then dies. Her best friend remains unconscious with her mother at her bed-side. Weaver, who already suspects that the “attack” was actually a lover’s 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 87

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murder/suicide, delicately tries to solicit information about the nature of girls’ relationship. “Were they close,” she asks? The mother, indignant at the implications of Weaver’s question, refuses to even entertain the possibility that there was anything peculiar about their friendship, or that her daughter’s wounds could have been self-inflicted. At the conclusion of the episode, the girl remains in a coma and the truth of her lover’s death remains locked within Weaver.

In the same episode, the ER receives the victims of a three-alarm fire that has ripped through a local elementary school and Weaver flies into a state of alarm when she learns that her former flame, Sandy Lopez, was one of the firefighters who rushed into the inferno to save the children trapped inside the school. She later learns from a little boy who is brought to the ER, unharmed, that a lady firefighter—also unharmed—comforted him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, a piece of information which Weaver takes as proof of Lopez’s safe escape from the burning school. Nevertheless, she instructs Jerry to put in a call to ensure that all firefighters were accounted for, and, later that night, she tracks Lopez at a local lesbian bar and stands outside waiting for her at her car. Leaving the bar, Lopez spots her, and Weaver begins explaining that she was worried and wanted to thank her for what had done that day. At first hesitant to engage with her at first, Lopez begins to sense that Weaver has had a change of heart, and her suspicions are confirmed when Weaver—in a move signifying her preparedness to own her lesbianism—passionately and publicly kisses Lopez with the camera squarely framing their faces.

What I would like to do now is focus on this transformation of character, as well as some of the broader implications of the discursive juxtapositions that have shaped—at least through the ninth season—Kerry Weaver’s formation as a lesbian subject in a popular television narrative. The change that takes place here is significant: previous to the moment in the parking lot, Weaver had not been portrayed as the active, initiating subject of lesbian desire. With Kim, she is ambivalent, manipulative, emotionally inaccessible, and ultimately not interested in a “lifestyle,” as she patronizingly informs Kim over dinner one evening. If this relationship is meant to signal her “coming out” as lesbian, it is a process that unfolds less in terms of emotional and sexual discovery than in terms of abjection, narcissism, and health-care mismanagement as Weaver’s advancing state of mental distraction and her total erosion of self-confidence produce a series of administrative blunders and medical misjudgment that she refuses to take responsibility for. In the mean-time, she resumes her ultimately unsuccessful quest to discover the identity of her birth mother with the help of a private detective, a story line all but forgotten from the fourth season until writers apparently sought through its 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 88

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resurrection a psychological motive for the sudden redirection of Weaver’s sexual energies. Lesbianism, the new twist in her character development, is scientifically rationalized as compensation for the lost and long-sought mother.

When analyzed in the context of a blockbuster prime-time medical drama, replete with a cast of recurring characters whose personal crises provide the backdrop for nonstop medical emergencies, Weaver’s sexual identity crisis reflects cultural anxieties stemming from the question of lesbianism’s compatibility with the management of one’s own body, and by extension, the question of lesbianism’s compatibility with the care and well-being of the democratic body, the disciplined labor of the American body politic. In other words, in its ongoing focus on the tumultuous intimate relationships of attending physicians, their marital discord, their backgrounds of wealth and economic disadvantage, their struggles against racism and ethnic dislocation, the overcoming of barriers based on gender and physical handicap, plus the kaleidoscopic, revolving-door demographics of the urban Emergency Room, the pattern of dramatic family trauma mapped over graphic images of bodily and health crisis, ER presents televisual narratives that simultaneously exploit and seek to resolve fears of social instability and mismanagement of the rapidly changing and vulnerable body of the nation. The pace of the show is

“an acknowledgement of a medicalised public sphere that is increasingly concerned with the dramatic potency of the traumatized human body” (Jacobs,

“Hospital Drama” 24). The swiftly moving Steadicam that has become ER’s aesthetic signature naturalizes such routine chaos, the daily trafficking of wounded and diseased bodies, as the camera zips erratically around corners and dashes restlessly down hallways. As they race about, ER doctors and medics speak rapidly to one another in a highly specialized (and reportedly accurate) jargon that writers know most viewers will not understand. But it is precisely the mystification of their professional vocabulary that generates viewers’ faith in ER doctors’ abilities to wrest the truth from each newly delivered, inarticulate mass of flesh and make split-second life or death decisions based on this knowledge. In such an environment, doctors themselves become divine manifestations of a truth that our bodies conceal from us: the powers we grant them do not admit to shame and self-loathing. Weaver’s crisis of sexual identity and desire thus constitutes a “public personal crisis”

within the realm of perpetual personal crises that are every day made public by the mechanisms and operations of institutional care-giving, the life of the ER. Bodily trauma, the social and economic management of bodies in crisis, bodies cut open and made vulnerable to the operations of state agencies, corporate power structures and profit-driven bureaucracies have provided the foundation for narratives of revelation and confession, bodily spillage and 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 89

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transgression, all of which must ultimately be stitched back together and re-contained within the healing national body of myth generated and regenerated by ER since the show’s inception.

In this sense, the bloody spectacle of the mortally stabbed co-ed in

“Bygones,” the victim of a lesbian love affair gone awry or unable to sustain itself in an homophobic culture, provides the ideal punitive counterpart to Weaver’s sudden affirmation of desire, her determination to find and seduce the erstwhile cause of her public humiliation, openly on the streets of Chicago. Medical drama here meets slasher genre, as the open body—the body turned inside out—signals the attainment of sexual knowledge and the embrace of adult sexual agency, all of which Carol Clover’s designated “final girl” resists in the typical slasher narrative by dint of remaining a mobile, androgynous point of identification for young male viewers. The cut body, Clover reminds us, is a body that has met its demise through intimate contact, a crime of proximity (103). As Weaver recognizes her own complicity in this girl’s death, she is enlisted in the role of witness to a conspiracy of deadly silence, a conspiracy that she supports. The messy truth that lies beyond medical knowledge bleeds out uncontrollably. And then, as the girl utters her last words, Weaver is drawn into her confidence, a rapt participant in the spectacle of transformation that points to the transformative possibility of every emergency—the embrace of death and lesbian love.

At the same time, the girl’s confession stages a visualizing ritual, the effects of which are broadly social as well as narrative. Understandably, the dying girl’s disclosure contributes to the episode’s emotional and dramatic appeal.

But more importantly, the words, “I loved her,” thrust the lesbian body into a field of social knowledge, marking it as visible, conscious, and dangerously at risk. Weaver, whose function at the deathbed scene is a jumble of disciplinary roles—part physician, part surrogate parent, and part priest—appears uncharacteristically pained by the girl’s admission. This suggests a departure from Weaver’s customary stoicism, an unusual moment of voyeuristic absorp-tion into her patient’s transgressions and pleasures. From the perspective of the dying girl, confession begs forgiveness. According to Steven Poole, this should come as no surprise when we consider that “hospitals to some degree are the churches of modernity . . . those places where individuals from all classes and walks of life gather together, united by fear of death and hope of salvation” (18). The medicalized scene of confession stages the urgency of revealing oneself and one’s body before the doctor to whom we look for hope or absolution. In this particular case, it blurs the boundaries between god and sinner, doctor and patient, murderer and victim. Nevertheless, as lesbian desire breathes its final breath, it submits itself to a “regime of scientific visibility” that sustains “biomedical relations of power and knowledge” (Mensah 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 90

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140). Moreover, lesbian desire submits itself to the social body, or to a regime of therapeutic visibility that underwrites the liberal democratic rhetoric of inclusiveness by assuming that rights and legitimacy are granted only to those minoritized groups who make themselves distinguishable before the eyes and ears of the body politic. As the attending physician whose powers are insufficient to save the girl and as a closeted lesbian, Weaver is, so to speak, turned inside-out by the deathbed confession. This is what determines her subsequent return to Lopez, who has spent her day, not insignificantly, rescuing innocent children from hellfire. Weaver’s reunion with Lopez constitutes her confession, her assumption of the patient/sinner’s role. Her moral illness/sin, however, is not lesbian desire itself, but her earlier denial of its proper relation to the ethic of caring for others and for oneself. Perhaps even more to the point, it provides the scene for her avowal in the modern juridical sense that Foucault outlines, as “the effect of a power that constrains us” (60).

And through her confession Weaver places herself safely under state surveillance and control, no threat to the stability of paternal order and normative heterosexuality.

In sketching out ER’s contradictory visualization of the lesbian, it is worth noting that Weaver’s coming-out story line is reminiscent of an earlier ER story line in which physician’s assistant Jeanie Boulet (played by Gloria Ruben) discovers that she has been infected with HIV from her ex–husband. Although she tries to hide her HIV status from coworkers, even going so far as to lie about her condition, Mark Greene discovers the truth from reading Jeanie’s medical records. Rumors that someone on the staff is infected with HIV begin to fly. Jeanie is finally compelled to confess that she is a HIV carrier, a moment that becomes one of a series of self-disclosures through which Jeanie is increasingly seen and known as a healthy functional HIV positive African American woman. Her confession also prompts hospital administrators to confront their own irrational prejudice and to devise a fair and compassionate policy for HIV-infected staff.

As Maria Nengeh Mensah argues, ER often relies on confession as a narrative strategy that reinforces biomedical strategies that allow us to see, clas-sify, and contain disease and pathology in women. However, in the case of Jeanie Boulet the question of “how to see HIV in women” remains tied to the question of “how to see women with HIV” (149). The same may be said of ER’s portrayal of Weaver’s coming out: while we await the biomedical breakthrough that may one day make it possible to see lesbianism in women, and while scriptwriters flounder in their efforts to show the psy-chic and emotional origins of Weaver’s orientation, the more urgent question for ER, as for network television in general, is how heterosexual viewers see women who are lesbian.

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Undoubtedly, how viewers see lesbians has much to do with the historical contexts in which they are framed. And here I should note that in ER’s eighth season, which was the autumn of 2001, Lieutenant Sandy Lopez represented more than Weaver’s new love interest. She also represented a new breed of the American hero that appeared in the mass media in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. At this time, firefighters, police, and emergency medical workers—ordinary working-class people doing their ordinary jobs—emerged in American popular culture as extraordinary. By tapping into the post–9/11

exaltation of the nation’s emergency rescue workers, ER writers were able to deflect attention away from the “ick factor” of homosexuality. The courageous and stubborn Lopez could be seen as a living cross-reference to those who had recently lost their lives in the course of their routine labors; she embodied the tremendous degree of consensual equilibrium between American social and cultural groups that was momentarily created by the attacks. History itself would seem to have imbued Lieutenant Lopez with the right symbolic capital to market her across social, ethnic, and ideological boundaries.

While it is tempting to situate Weaver and Lopez within this narrative, the post–9/11 working-class hero represented—above all—a persevering, inde-fatigable American masculinity (Bloodgood). The firefighter in post–9/11

media and popular culture became an important figure through which the nation was encouraged to seek compensation for symbolic castration. From this perspective, Kaja Silverman’s notion of “historical trauma,” or a crisis of faith in the adequacy of masculinity, is useful in understanding the cultural and symbolic meanings that became attached to firefighters in the mass media wake of 9/11 as television dramas such as First Watch played a major role in reaffirming and sustaining collective faith in masculine adequacy and the coherence of the national body. However, the firefighter also assumed a pervasive symbolic function as a cultural locus of ideological struggle and conflict, a crucial site for the questioning and renegotiation of gender and sexuality in a time of national crisis. Alongside photographic images of firefighters standing atop mountains of steel debris, gallantly hoisting the American flag, some of the most widely circulated images of 9/11 images depict firefighters emotionally embracing one another and fighting back tears during the memorial services following the attacks. These popular images challenged the category of classic American masculinity. For example, the photographs of Father Mychal Judge, the openly gay Franciscan chaplain of the New York City Fire department, as his ashen body was carried from the rubble of the World Trade Center after being killed by falling debris, was hailed as a modern pieta. His image, widely circulated on the Internet and included in popular commemorative photography books, came to symbolize 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 92

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the crucial ideological link between Christianity and nation, American godli-ness and American patriotism. The revelation that Father Mychal had been a leading public advocate for homosexual rights did little to undermine his popular status as a national hero and martyr.

As heroic abstraction, the urban firefighter, fortified by his comrades-in-arms, preserved an image of the nation intact not unlike classic American war photography from generations past. However, in the controversy surrounding the design of the $180,000 memorial sculpture based on Thomas E.

Franklin’s image of three firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero (an image noted for its striking resemblance to the 1945 World War II image of six marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima), it became evident that images and myths of the nation’s past are inadequate to defining who we are today as a nation, or even more importantly, how we wish to see ourselves.

When a clay model of the bronze sculpture was unveiled on December 21, 2001, the three white firefighters of Franklin’s photograph had been replaced with one white, one African American, and one Hispanic firefighter. In this way, the ritual consumption of images consecrating the firefighter, heir to the American masculine ideal, became part of the collective process of reimagining social relationships and relations across axes of national power, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

What I would argue is that popular television dramas such as First Watch and ER played a part in this process of commemorating and reimagining the heroic labors of “other” national subjects. Specifically, in appearing to conse-crate both post–9/11 American heroism and a lesbian love affair that crosses lines of ethnicity as well as social class, ER writers placed the Lopez-Weaver story line at the center of a process of cultural and social remembering, a process by which myths of the past are being rewritten to accommodate new possibilities, new romances, new niche markets. In these new myths, talented hospital administrators such as Kerry Weaver and dedicated firefighters such as Sandy Lopez become potent defenders of our personal and national security—champions of the endangered child within us all. Significantly, both women hold jobs that are traditionally coded as “men’s jobs,” labor requiring the institutional authority and physical strength associated with masculinity. However, their visibility as lesbians is still conditioned by narrative rituals of disclosure that contain homosexuality within structures of surveillance and accommodate it to an image of the democratic family and its proper alignment of sex and gender. It is important, therefore, that Weaver and Lopez perform their public duties on behalf of conventionally feminine interests, such as child safety, sensitivity, and compassion. Accordingly, when Romano taunts Dr. Carter with the line, “I told Weaver to fire you, but you can’t trust a lesbian to do a man’s job,” he expresses not only the cliché that 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 93

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lesbians vainly aspire to be masculine but the threat that her “out” status at work poses to his privileging of managerial effectiveness and emotional detachment (“Insurrection” 9.3).

Additionally it is important to note that while Lopez’s character is multiply marked as firefighter, lesbian, and Latina, race and ethnicity have not figured significantly in her character’s limited development within the series, nor has the potentially rich interracial dimension of the romance between Weaver and Lopez informed their story line. The omission, which would seem to suggest that Lopez is only incidentally Latina, positions her character within the dilemma experienced by many gay men and lesbians of color who, in certain social and political contexts, feel compelled to choose between their ethnic identities and their queer identities, as if one could be sacrificed without the other. Part of the problem is that viewers rarely see Lopez interacting with anyone other than Weaver: she appears to have no family, no friends, and no connection to a larger community of Latinos or lesbians. However, through Lopez’s embodiment of the devoted firefighter and Latin lover, viewers are positioned to read Latina lesbian sexuality as butch sexuality, a role only hinted at in fleeting remarks, such as when Lopez first meets Weaver and proudly informs her that she is just one of the “guys,” the only female firefighter in Company B (“Quo Vadis?” 8.9). Such coded invitations to view racial difference through the suggestion of butch identity correspond, on one hand, with the stereotypical representation of Latinos as hot-blooded and impetuous. At the same time, Lopez’s obvious intelligence, strength, self-possession, and physical attractiveness constitute a powerful mass cultural

“disidentification” (to borrow José Esteban Muñoz’s useful term) with the history of butch stereotyping in the dominant media as well as with the history of Latina stereotyping. We can read the latter in the character of Rosario Salazar, the abused and much-ridiculed Salvadorian maid (played by Shelley Morrison), who works for the wealthy socialite, Karen Walker (played by Megan Mullally), in the sitcom Will and Grace. Indeed, the extent to which Latina femininity remains fixed within the twofold frame of sexual spitfire and abject domestic, even in scripts touted as socially progressive and queer-positive, is a reminder of the importance of disidentification, a concept that Muñoz posits as a powerful mode of scrambling and reconstructing “the encoded message of a cultural text in a fashion that both exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recircuits its workings to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications” (31). To consider Lopez as an example of this process is to consider ways in which network television texts may intentionally or unintentionally perform such scrambling or make available such repositionings in the process of cross-marketing to diverse audiences.

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Almost halfway through ER’s ninth season, in the episode entitled “Walk Like a Man” (9.4), Weaver once again becomes the subject of rumor and critical scrutiny. Susan and Abby, engaged in private conversation, retreat into the women’s restroom, and are soon distracted by the sound of an object hitting the floor. They turn to find a syringe on the floor of a stall that is occupied by Weaver, who behaves as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

Perplexed as to what Weaver might be doing in the bathroom with a syringe, Susan later approaches her to ask if she is all right. Weaver reluctantly admits that she is taking hormones. Her confession is juxtaposed, once again, with images of intense bitchiness, mental distraction, and medical mishap, a vivid example of which occurs when she appears on local television as “Dr. Kerry”

in a news segment promoting flu shots. While demonstrating for the cameras how quick and painless the flu shot is, Weaver unthinkingly (and uncharacteristically) vaccinates her two interviewers using the same needle. In almost the same instant we see the mistake register on her face, as she looks straight into the news camera, horror-struck.

In the following episode “Tell Me Where It Hurts” (9.7), Sandy Lopez reappears in the ER after a long period of absence from the script, as she and Weaver make public the news that they are pregnant. Their happy domesticity, indicated by a brief scene in the episode “A Little Help from My Friends”

(9.11), in which Lopez prepares to paint the nursery while Weaver teases her about her “nesting” impulse, is soon shattered. At work later the same day, one of the nurses notices some blood on Weaver’s physician’s coat and assumes that it is from a wounded patient. Weaver, realizing that the blood is her own, calmly goes into an empty treatment room in order to use the Sonosight and is stunned when she cannot find the baby’s heartbeat. Abby enters the room and gently suggests that Weaver see an obstetrician and go home. Weaver declines, preferring to let the miscarriage occur “naturally.” Although she eventually does see the OB, who assures her that the miscarriage is proceeding normally, and although she finally breaks down and cries in the arms of a deaf patient (a scene in which we discover Weaver’s fluency in sign language), Weaver oddly refuses to leave the ER before her shift is over or allow anyone to contact Lopez at work to inform her about the miscarriage.

I want to raise two points with respect to the contradictory development of the Weaver-Lopez story line in ER’s ninth season. First, as Weaver grows increasingly more comfortable with being out at the hospital, writers seem to grow increasingly less so. Indeed, so long as Weaver remained in the closet, reluctant to be seen as openly lesbian, Lopez’s pride and refusal to separate who she is from what she does provided the ideal counterweight, a balancing act that positions the Latina as the righteous moral voice of social activism and progress. In other words, through Weaver and Lopez writers could reflect 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 95

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divided public opinion on the limits of gay and lesbian civil rights and, at the same time, advocate for greater acceptance of gay and lesbian visibility by channeling that struggle through the discourse of multiculturalism that Lopez implicitly stands in for. However, once Weaver ostensibly accepts her lesbianism and comes out to coworkers the ambivalence that had earlier registered in her character shifts to the plot, as every progressive image of lesbian intimacy and coupling seems to call forth an equal and opposite regressive image. Certainly, Weaver’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage make for dramatic television, but more than that her miscarriage suggests high ambivalence about whether mainstream America is prepared to accept a lesbian couple as both parents and as fully authorized participants in the political public sphere. In this way, Weaver’s miscarriage reflects much more than the reluctance of ER writers to offend so-called majority opinion, but additionally reflects the state’s reluctance to carry justice to full term for women and queers in this country, on one hand affirming gay and lesbian aspirations to participate in traditional family life, and on the other hand appeasing the homophobic elements of American culture by putting the lesbian couple back in their proper place by the end of the season. The long-running NBC

sitcom Friends, which had already set a precedent for portraying lesbian childbirth (in the case of Ross’s ex-wife and her girlfriend), circumvented controversy by focusing principally on Ross’s conflicted personal feelings as he anticipates the birth of a child that he, in fact, fathered. In this way, Friends managed to promote urban liberal tolerance toward lesbian families, presenting such arrangements as acceptable to the extent that they obtain heterosexual approval and retain male heterosexual participation and presence at their emotional core.

Moreover, as a situation comedy, Friends is able to contain potentially controversial subject matter within the “safe and familiar” comedic conventions of the genre, which include the feminization of male characters coded as intellectual (Ross is an academic, a paleontologist, and, therefore, unlikely to pose any masculine threat to his ex-wife or her new lover); sexual tension (viewers are invited to take greater interest in the possibility of romance between Ross and Rachel than in the lesbian ex-wife subplot); and the centrality of interpersonal relationships over characters’ struggles with society and institutions (Battles and Hilton-Morrow 87). Contemporary medical drama relies less on these conventions, instead emphasizing realism as well as the tensions and personal conflicts that result from the unrelenting demands of the workplace (Jacobs, Body Trauma 14). As physician and aspiring lesbian mother, Weaver’s “labor” in the ER takes on dual meaning here, referring not only to her managerial relationship to bodily trauma but to the traumatic and prolonged birth pangs of discursive elements new to the portrayal of lesbians 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 96

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on television. These elements must still be assimilated into the familiar televisual frames that advertisers and viewers are assumed to be comfortable with, and increasingly these frames correspond to American “family values.”

Accordingly, Weaver and Lopez are framed within conventional gestures of attachment resonant of Lauren Berlant’s “nationalist politics of intimacy,”

gestures that cross from private to public, from the nursery to the ER.

However, despite the ninth season revelation that Weaver and Lopez have moved in together and decided to make a baby, viewers are continually prompted to wonder where the couple’s deepest emotional commitments lie.

Again and again, Weaver’s true family turns out to be her “work-family,” the assemblage of coworkers and patients, who week after week scrutinize her behavior, intrude on her privacy, talk behind her back, and offer her com-panionship and comfort in her moments of emotional need. Analee Newitz argues that the dissolution of public/private boundaries on ER presents “a synthesis of the most disturbing elements of work and family” (96). And yet, by comparison ER story lines have failed to develop any emotional depth in Weaver’s nonwork relationship with Lopez. They are shown together in fleeting instances, brief scenes of conflict or confession. When Weaver begins to miscarry, her reluctance to phone home or inform Lopez would certainly seem to bode poorly for the future of their story line. Moreover, Lopez’s negative response to Weaver’s request that she try to carry a baby suggests that their desires may be fundamentally different: Lopez is first and foremost a firefighter, the “roof man,” and she is unwilling to sacrifice her hard-earned position to pregnancy (“A Boy Falling from the Sky” 9.15). The final image we see of the couple in season nine is Lopez confessing to Weaver that she feels no desire to carry a child inside her, even though she knows that she ought to want this.

Imagine viewers’ surprise then, when halfway through ER’s tenth season Lopez and Weaver bring a child into the world, with Lopez as birth mother.

This surprising turn of plot occurs with neither warning nor fanfare in the episode “NICU” (10.12). The narrative traces the day-by-day discoveries and challenges of Abby Lockhart (now an aspiring doctor) and Neela Rasgotra (a new British-Indian med student, played by Parminder K. Nagra) as they undergo their rotation in neonatology. How Weaver finally convinced Lopez to carry the fetus, how they obtained sperm, or how Lopez managed her responsibilities as a pregnant firefighter are all good questions, none of which are addressed in the story line. Rather, the lesbian childbirth subplot is casually absorbed into the high-strung procession of infant births and deaths that direct the routine labors of the neonatal intensive care unit. Abby literally happens upon Weaver and Lopez in the delivery room, arriving just in time to assist with the birth of the baby boy whom they name Henry. Later, she 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 97

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remarks that she had no idea Lopez was even pregnant. “Nobody did,”

Weaver assures her, or rather assures the audience, who by this point must be wondering what they missed and when they missed it. But it would appear that ER writers made a last-minute decision about the scene, perhaps the result of pressure to advance the Weaver-Lopez story line without asking viewers to confront the obstacles that lesbian couples actually face in their efforts to become parents. Above all, however, “NICU” is an episode concerned with education. Abby and Neela learn some challenging lessons about themselves, the fragility of neonatal life, and the compassion and tolerance that it takes to succeed in medicine. And, within that frame, it is certainly possible to read Weaver and Lopez’s ultimate triumph in childbirth as a stealth lesson in compassionate social inclusiveness, offhandedly delivered to network audiences.

Accounting for the medical drama’s increase in popularity during the decade of the 1990s, Jason Jacobs observes that the period represented an unprecedented intensification of the medicalisation of everyday life: regular health scares, the theorization of the “risk society,”

the state promotion of “healthy living” as a moral as much as a medical imperative all contributed to a popular engagement with the fictional depiction of hospital life. At the same time, with the collapse of the old distinctions between Left and Right, and the narrowing of politics to a managerial role, any sense of social change became collapsed on to the body itself. . . .” (“Hospital Drama” 26)

As a drama of the body in various states of transformation, loss, and recovery, ER is a show deeply engaged with public debates about the possibility—

indeed, even the desirability—of meaningful social change. It was probably only a matter a time before the drama of coming out, or the (re)presentation of the lesbian/gay body to the public as meaningfully itself, found its way into the ER script. However, it has done so at a time when coming-out narratives are generally viewed as relics of an earlier stage of gay and lesbian cultural expression, outmoded attempts to ground homosexual identity in a moment of revelatory becoming that ignores the fact that all sexuality involves a public performance that can be likened to a process of emergence. Perhaps the greatest emergency that network television shows such as ER will face in their increasing experimentation with queer character development is that coming out constitutes less of a crisis for the lesbian than it does for the society to which she presents herself. The knowledge that is engendered by the act of coming out precipitates an emergency in the normative health and stability of the familialized social sphere, particularly to the extent that institutions 9780230600805ts07.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 98

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remain invested in the maintenance of a structural, political opposition between homo- and hetero desires. The impulse to construct crisis around the coming-out narrative, the need to wring drama, and personal trauma out of a particular mode of self-knowledge is one of the more disingenuous covers for shoring up this fictional opposition. Perhaps a revival of critical interest in coming-out stories is called for, specifically one that understands the genre as a manifestation of collective social trauma, an aesthetic labor of destabilization, and a strategic displacement of national emergency and transformative possibility onto the emerging subject of lesbian desire.

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CHAPTER 6

Mapping Lesbian Sexuality

on Queer as Folk

Rebecca Beirne

Fundamental to Marilyn’s enactment of patriarchal conceptions of femininity is the absence of female desire . . . Marilyn’s absent desire, in particular, perpetuates the heterosexist notion that women are unable to define their desire. Heterosexual women have access to desire through men who define and contain that desire; lesbianism, which offers a site of female desire, is controlled in Heartbeat when it is rendered as nonsexuality.

—Darlene Hantzis and Valerie Lehr, “Whose Desire?

Lesbian (Non)Sexuality and Television’s

Perpetuation of Hetereo/Sexism,” 112

The lesbian characters on Showtime’s Queer as Folk(2000–2005) were remarkable in that, unlike almost all previous lesbian characters on television, they were not positioned in relation to a heterosexual environment. The television world of these characters is one that revolves around queerness, indeed, they exist in a homonormative environment rather than a heteronormative one. What exactly, however, does this homonormativity constitute? As I argued in “Embattled Sex,” lesbians are excluded from the domain of “queer” that Queer as Folk privileges, and, by extension, from the realm of “sex.” The series thereby enacts heteronormative patriarchal discourse even as it queers it, by maintaining gender distinctions that privilege male narratives and sexuality over female ones.

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Like other television series that have presented lesbians, there are definite limitations to the presentation of lesbian desire and sex in Queer as Folk, particularly when compared with the presentation of gay male sexuality the series offers. In Queer as Folk lesbians and women in general are not, unlike men, figured as subjects consumed and driven by sexual desire. Lesbian characters Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill) are rarely involved in sexual activity in the series, and when they are, the manner in which these scenes unfold is temporally and representationally limited. While these factors in and of themselves would not be notable due to their ubiquity, here they are of particular significance since in Queer as Folk it is not heterosexuals who are the main protagonists, but rather gay men. Despite these limitations however, the lesbian characters on Queer as Folk are also of historical and representational significance, because they do indeed receive more screentime, have more on-screen sex, and certainly have more focus placed upon their lives as lesbians than in any previous television series.1

Melanie and Lindsay do at least take a step forward from the comforting arm pats or chaste kisses seen in Heartbeat or most of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the tame titillation served up by sweeps week “lesbian” kisses.2 At the beginning of the second season of Queer as Folk, the producers even appeared to be making an attempt to provide some degree of corrective to the lesbian sexual characterization of the first season, which was soundly critiqued by lesbian viewers. This is engendered both via showing the couple engaged in more sexual encounters and allowing them to respond to the frequent comments made by other characters about female, and particularly lesbian, sexuality. Take, for example, the following exchange:

Michael: . . . sex is different for men than it is for women, the need is more immediate, more intense. At least that’s what I’ve read.

Lindsay: Where? In “Field and Stream?”

Melanie: Now, just for your information, Lindsay and I fuck like crazy, we pant and drool like a couple of bitches in heat. Our pussies soak the sheets.

Lindsay: And we go on a lot longer than the ten minute tumble you guys call sex.

Melanie: You don’t wanna know how many times we get off in a night.

Michael: You’re right I don’t. Mom!! (2.8)

This interaction offsets the frequent comments made by Michael (Hal Sparks) and the others as to “the lesbians,” as they are generally known in the series, perceived lack of sexual desire. It is perhaps further intended to imply that it is the characters themselves, rather than the writers of the series, who hold such views.

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However, such progress is negated, both narratively, as will be discussed later, and by the representationally limited depiction of lesbian sexuality in the series. Perhaps the most marked feature of the lesbian sex visually depicted in Queer as Folk is the constant interruptions Melanie and Lindsay encounter—either within the narrative, through one or other of them losing interest in the activity, or by interruptions of phone calls and doorbells, or without, by cutting away to another scene during or immediately after initial foreplay. In a series that purports to be “all about sex”

(1.1), we only very rarely see a woman at the height of pleasure, and only once do we see a woman achieve orgasm, rendering lesbian sex once again as mysterious and women’s desires as unknowable and undepictable. This cannot be due to coyness or network restrictions, as not only are the male characters frequently depicted while orgasming, but orgasm is situated as central to many of the sex acts—whether by narratively focusing upon them (e.g., Justin’s squirting scene in the first episode) or simply by presenting sex whose ultimate goal is orgasm. In fact, a “completed act of lesbian sex (with one of the women achieving orgasm on screen) does not occur until Episode 13’s one-night stand, thus contextualising the act of female orgasm as an outlaw one” (Monteiro and Bowers). The de-prioritizing of orgasm in depictions of lesbian sex is not a new one. Even in a pornographic film made by and for lesbians discussed by Heather Butler “None of the scenes end with orgasm; in fact, orgasm does not seem to be a preoccupation in this film” (187). When placed in direct contrast to the male, goal-oriented sexuality in Queer as Folk, however, the presentation of only foreplay or frustrated sexual acts between the lesbian characters reinforces socially preconceived notions of lesbian sex as foreplay, inherently incomplete and lacking.

The more sexual characterization of lesbians in the early part of the second season, too, is directly undermined by the lesbian characters’ narrative for the second portion of the second season, as they suddenly and inexplicably begin to wonder whether they have fallen prey to “lesbian bed death” (2.17). Such

“bed death” is not an unusual plot device for the lesbian characters in Queer as Folk, having also previously been utilized in the first season. In the beginning of each of these seasons, the couple is shown happy and engaging in a traditional rite of passage (the birth of Gus in the first season and their wedding in the second); after which a period of “lesbian bed death” ensues, as do a variety of other conflicts; an act of extramarital sex occurs (Melanie’s affair, the threesome with Leda); the couple is then reunified by someone else (Brian in season one and Leda in season two). After these seasons, the narrative pattern changes somewhat, and yet the depiction of the couple’s sex life actually becomes worse. During season three, no sex is depicted between the two characters, aside from a rather lackluster and rushed insemination, the 9780230600805ts08.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 102

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presentation of which would indicate that it should not be characterized as sex. Season four sees Melanie pregnant and amorous, but gaining little or no response from Lindsay, whose interest lies with Sam (Robin Thomas), while season five shows the couple estranged up until episode 5.9 where they share a passionately violent sexual reunion, perhaps inspired by a similar scene between Bette and Tina in The L Word (1.13). As can thus be seen, despite being a soap opera revolving around gay sex, the lesbian characters have little sex, and this further marginalizes them from the narrative. As Paul Robinson observes, “the women are no longer engaged in the dialectic of lust and love that is the leitmotif in the lives of the men” (156), a dialectic that is indeed, as Robinson sees it, “[t]he show’s central theme” (152).

The only lesbian character in Queer as Folk who does seem to participate in this economy of desire is Leda (Nancy Anne Sakovich), the most markedly sexual and “queer” lesbian character in the series, who appears for a number of episodes in the second season. Leda seems to be an archetypal representative for the sex-positive lesbian: her relationships consist of one-night stands, she constantly refers to strap-ons, is dismissive of gay marriage, rides a motor-bike, and organizes a stagette party for Melanie and Lindsay complete with lesbian strippers. She undermines homo/hetero boundaries and manages to surprise even Brian (Gale Harold) with her overt sexuality. This can be seen when she asks him whether he has “ever been fucked by a dyke with a dildo,” thereby placing the quintessential gay male top into the recipient position (2.7). The manner in which this overt sexuality or empowerment takes place is an interesting one, as it appears that in Queer as Folk queer positionality is only available to women via entry into the phallic economy and identification with gay males over and above lesbians or straight women.

Leda’s frequent and vocal dissociation from and denigration of “the ladies who munch” (2.7), strangely shows her queerness as also constructed via opposition to “the lesbians,” and even more curiously, cunnilingus. It seems that the only way the text is able to picture lesbians as queer or overtly sexual beings, is by figuring them as phallic women or “dildo dykes.” This tendency can also be seen in the work of writers such as Michael Warner on whose list of “sexual outlaws” the only female outlaws consist of “dildo dykes” (32). And even the portrayal of Leda is returned to a normative understanding of female sexuality when she immediately latches onto Melanie and Lindsay after having a threesome with them, and she expresses a desire to “settle down” before riding off out of Queer as Folk (2.19).

While some male characters experience physical/psychological problems restraining them from having sex,3 in Melanie and Lindsay’s case their lack of sex is rather induced by a lack of desire, especially on the part of Lindsay.

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upset, as she discusses with Ted in the first season and expresses to Lindsay in the second, they do not appear to be an issue to Lindsay. In fact, Lindsay frequently yawns or otherwise expresses her lack of interest when Melanie does attempt to kiss or seduce her. In one of the few times we see Lindsay initiating what appears to be a seduction (at least of a woman), it soon becomes apparent that she is doing so in order to manipulate Melanie to “give Brian a chance” (1.5)—portraying feminine sexuality as a tool instead of an end in itself.

The suggestions of Lindsay’s lesbianism as being somewhat unstable become more clearly textual in episode six of the fourth series, when a story line begins to develop that will see Lindsay having sex with a male character by episode ten. This begins via the introduction of the character of artist Sam, who is from the beginning characterized as a difficult and chauvinistic man.

Lindsay, attempting to get Sam to show his artwork at her gallery, is initially horrified by both his rudeness and his clear objectification of women. Later Melanie, in a very uncharacteristic move, after listening to Lindsay’s ranting that “the man is a pig . . . if I wasn’t already a dyke he’d have me diving for the nearest muff ”4 advises her to use her feminine wiles to get his attention, and thereby his artwork.

The next time we see Lindsay, she is clad in over-the-knee black boots, flirting with and flattering Sam, who proceeds to repeatedly proposition and grope her. Their flirtation continues throughout Lindsay’s curation of Sam’s show, with several conversations occurring that use “art” as a barely veiled metaphor for Lindsay’s desire for Sam, while her desire for Melanie is expressed in terms of filial connections and responsibilities, acting to rearticulate Queer as Folk’s association of creativity and cultural production within the phallic economy, regulating women’s relationships and endeavors to the realms of hearth, home, and family.

Lindsay’s desires are further indicated by a rare sex scene with Melanie (significantly, their first since episode 2.19) in 4.10. A very pregnant Melanie is performing cunnilingus on Lindsay, who quite extravagantly expresses her boredom with several sighs. Lindsay then requests that Melanie use a vibrator, which, as Sarah Warn remarks “we’re clearly meant to understand is a phallic replacement” (“Queer as Folk”). Although the scene soon cuts away, their next conversation informs us that Lindsay was “wild” and

“so turned on” (Melanie 4.10), although she has already turned back to avoidance of discussing anything sexual, and instead is deeply engrossed in the grocery list. Later in the same episode, after various displays of guilt-induced domesticity, including not attending the opening of the art show that she has curated, Lindsay has feverish sex with Sam (up against an original painting no less).

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In a review of this series of rather unfortunate events, Warn asserts that the story line “does more damage than good”:

The lesbian-who-sleeps-with-a-man plot device has been used so frequently in entertainment that it dwarfs almost all other representations of lesbians on screen (except perhaps the equally frustrating lesbian-motherhood plot device, which QAF also employs regularly), and gives the impression that it occurs more frequently in real life than it actually does—that in fact, most lesbians want to sleep with men, rather than just a few. It also makes no distinction between lesbians and bisexual women, and continues to reinforce the notion that bisexual women will inevitably betray lesbians for a man, as if infidelity is the particular vice of one sexual orientation rather than cutting across all. (“Queer as Folk”) While Warn’s frustrations are completely justified, her later claims that Queer as Folk’s Lindsay is among the television characters that “momentarily switch sexual orientations” are somewhat inflated, since Lindsay has been depicted as latently bisexual throughout the series via her clear attraction to Brian.

The surrounding story lines do also act to somewhat contextualize, or at least add a degree of complexity to, this plot development. Such narrative contextualization can be seen in Michael and Ben’s (Robert Gant) foster son Hunter (Harris Allen) being depicted dating a girl, having previously (with the exception of one comment) been presented as gay. In a highly comic series of scenes, Hunter is anxious about coming out to his gay parents as straight, eventually does so, and Michael expresses all the classic parental coming-out lines (e.g., questioning whether it is “just a phase?” and whether Hunter just needs to meet the right boy). Ben in contrast displays more understanding, albeit understanding that is underlaid by a polarized view of gay and straight. In answer to Michael’s curiosity as to how this could be the case considering Hunter’s previous sexual experience with men (within the context of sex work) and desire for Brian, Ben reveals that he himself had had sexual experiences with women prior to his coming out. The ongoing insin-uations that Brian and Lindsay had sex when they were in college are even confirmed in this episode, showing that even Brian, the “ultimate homosexual” of the series, has had a heterosexual encounter.

Despite such narratives, the text refuses to name bisexuality. Sexual experiences with the opposite sex for “homosexuals,” or same sex for “heterosexuals,” are seen as aberrations to who one “really is” (Ben 4.11) and the verbal suggestion of bisexuality is never made. Even for Lindsay, who has had an ongoing struggle between her desires for Melanie and Brian, and in season four clearly is conflicted between her desires for Sam and her desires for 9780230600805ts08.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 105

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Melanie, does not question whether or not she may be bisexual, or indeed simply “queer.” During Lindsay’s confession to Brian about her affair, he tells her “it’s okay to like cock, and it’s okay to like pussy, just not at the same time” (4.11). Lindsay herself also consistently expresses her sexuality in terms of an either/or choice. When Sam asks her “what about the part of you that secretly yearns for something else? The part of you that both of us know is there,” Lindsay responds, “my house has many rooms, I occupy but a few, the rest go unvisited” (4.11). The emphasis placed upon “choosing a team” by both Melanie and Brian, appears to be one that the series as a whole espouses.

It is of definite significance that it is Melanie who is depicted as clearly lesbian while Lindsay displays attractions to men. From sexological discourse to pop-cultural representations and even within queer culture itself, there are often distinctions drawn between the real or authentic lesbian, who is almost always portrayed as masculine (or at least more masculine than her consort), and those whose sexual preference is depicted as more fluid, who are generally marked by their femininity. Queer as Folk’s Lindsay is portrayed as “less lesbian” and more identified with men than her partner Melanie precisely because she is coded as the femme. As such, the series activates a very traditional view of feminine lesbians—seeing them as latent heterosexuals. While

“lesbian chic” may have already seen two blooms, little it seems has changed in the last two decades in regard to how feminine lesbians are represented in popular culture. This observation must be tempered by the fact that the vast majority of lesbians who appear in popular discourse at all are feminine in both appearance and narrative-identification. The point, however, remains that the sexualities of those characters identified by the narrative with masculinity (whether or not they actually appear to express female masculinity) are not similarly positioned as associated with fluidity of sexual-object-choice.

In Queer as Folk one cannot help but notice the curious practice of encoding Melanie as butch while not presenting her as such, much as characters were once coded as queer while not giving any definitive visible indication of their queerness (most famously discussed by Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet).

Melanie’s appearance is less feminine than Lindsay’s, with her fairly short, dark hair, less voluptuous physique and usual garb of pants and shirts.5 But she is certainly still visibly within acceptable codes of femininity—her hair is not too short, she is conventionally beautiful, wears makeup, and even occasionally wears frocks for work or social occasions. Her encoding as butch instead operates through contrast and on a verbal level. Such characterizations usually take place negatively, via jokes or insults at Melanie’s expense on the part of the gay male characters (and at times Debbie [Sharon Gless]), though they are sometimes more positively framed by Melanie herself, or, on a couple of occasions, other characters. This need to encode rather than show 9780230600805ts08.qxd 12-10-07 09:01 PM Page 106

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is particularly peculiar in light of the portrayal of Emmett as a flamboyantly effeminate gay man, perhaps pointing to television reading female masculinity as more threatening than male femininity. One of the few times that a woman who is clearly physically expressive of female masculinity is given a foregrounded role (still of course a one-liner), she is characterized by the narrative as grotesque and fear-inspiring. Attending Gus’s bris (1.3), Michael is greeted by a larger butch woman with a “hi Michael” and a hug. While this hug lasts for the briefest of moments, Michael displays an expression of extreme distaste and acts as if he is being squashed.

Whether or not Melanie actually performs “butch,” the traditional associations directed at butch-femme relationships are present throughout the series, although these associations have been gradually undermined over the last two decades. The butch is seen as the authentic lesbian, who is figured as the desiring party with a higher sex drive than the femme, and the sexual top.

Melanie also prioritizes her bond with and attachments to women, and is at times portrayed as anti-men. While Queer as Folk is willing to present a small spectrum of differently gendered presentations with its gay male characters (contrast, for example, the camp Emmett and the hypermasculine Brian)6

without defining one as inherently more gay than the other, “true” lesbianism appears to only be accessible within the series to those in possession of (butch) lesbian signifiers.

While Queer as Folk has certainly been groundbreaking for its medium in its presentation of gay and lesbian characters in a gay world, in its candid sexuality and its willingness to engage with contemporary political issues that directly pertain to homosexuals, the manner in which its lesbian characters are represented has seen little change from earlier depictions of lesbianism.

The distinctions between the manner in which the sexuality of heterosexual and homosexual characters are portrayed in televisual texts with one or two gay characters, are, in Queer as Folk, displaced onto gender—with lesbians taking up the desexualized role. Perhaps the clearest lesson coming out of Queer as Folk is that even when operating within a queer framework, attention still needs to be paid to the specificities and privileges of gender.

Notes

The author’s monograph Lesbians in Television and Text after the Millennium (Palgrave Macmillan) contains a longer discussion of the lesbian characters in Queer as Folk.

1. While such characters as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Willow, e.g., may have received proportionately more screentime, little attention was paid to her lesbianism.

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2. U.S. television has a long tradition of broadcasting same-sex kisses between women during “sweeps week” in order to boost their ratings to entice advertisers.

See Virginia Heffernan’s New York Times article “It’s February; Pucker Up, TV

Actresses.”

3. For example, in episode 2.9, Ted (Scott Lowell) is unable to achieve an erection due to an overload of sexual imagery, while Brian experiences a similar problem shortly after completing treatment for testicular cancer (4.9).

4. Reinforcing the popular notion that lesbians “turn to muff ” not because they like it, but because of male chauvinism.

5. Traditional coding in both mainstream and subcultural sources of many kinds still almost always presents the femm(er) character as blond and the butch(er) character as dark-haired. The butch character is also generally of a lower socioeconomic status. An exception to this rule can be seen in The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love (1995), which depicts a femme African American character dating a butch Caucasian girl (though the socioeconomic code still holds).

6. The spectrum is certainly not large. We see a few drag queens as one-off characters and there are a few references to transgenderism, but generally speaking, Queer as Folk is limited in its presentation of gender diversity.

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CHAPTER 7

A Label Like Gucci, Versace,

or Birkenstock: Sex and the City

and Queer Identity

Tabetha Adkins

As an enormously popular television series based on four single, independent, professional women, Sex and the City has inspired a good deal of feminist scholarship and criticism. In this essay, I do not abandon these feminist critiques of the series but demonstrate through close readings of several episodes what a queer lens can reveal about the sexual identity and labeling of that identity of one character in particular: Samantha Jones. This critique purports that what Sex and the City does with sexual identity categories goes beyond robbing sex that is not partnered and heterosexual of its legitimacy; beyond constructing an audience that only values Samantha’s heterosexual relationships; and beyond even reinforcing conservative ideas about coupling and marriage. The series, rather than constructing characters who are sexually independent, only affirms lesbian stereotypes and heteronormative ideas about female sexuality.

Before beginning my argument, however, it is first necessary to briefly contextualize the series and existing feminist scholarship in order to demonstrate the current gaps in scholarship on the series. Based on Candace Bushnell’s 1996 novel of the same name, the series’ main characters, Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda Hobbs, Charlotte York, and Samantha Jones bring specific personalities to the series. Of special interest to this project is the 9780230600805ts09.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 110

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character played by Kim Cattrall, Samantha Jones. Samantha is described on HBO’s website thus:

Scintillating Samantha is a successful PR exec who knows what she wants—and most of the time, she gets it. She radiates confidence in everything she does, whether it’s landing a star client, getting a table at the trendiest restaurant or bedding the hottest guy in a room. Samantha embraces her uninhibited sexuality with a diverse (and large) group of lovers, from wrestling coaches to power bachelors to a studly farmer. (“Sex and the City”)

It is important to note that the series website’s description of Samantha, like the show, focuses almost entirely on Samantha’s sexual behavior. Samantha’s friends, too, focus on Samantha’s sexuality. Described as “single and fabulous,” Carrie Bradshaw, the main character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is a weekly sex column writer whose career depends on her involvement with men (“Sex and the City”). In Sex and the City, Carrie acts as a narrator and as the character who most regulates Samantha’s sexuality. She is the

“ring-leader” of the group and usually the most critical of Samantha’s sexual choices. Miranda Hobbs, an attorney played by Cynthia Nixon and the first of the characters to have a child, “is smart, self-assured and proud of her achievements” (“Sex and the City”). Miranda is typically categorized as the character who is more independent than her friends and is typically cynical about relationships. In relation to Samantha and her lesbian relationship, Miranda acts as realist who uses sarcasm to criticize Samantha.

Finally, in direct contrast to Miranda, is Charlotte York. Played by Kristin Davis, she is described as having “a refreshingly optimistic [albeit naive]

outlook on love and romance amidst the ever-complex dating scene of NYC” (“Sex and the City”). Charlotte is the most sexually traditional of the women and her criticism of Samantha stems from her fears that being too sexually provocative, active, or experienced could “ruin” her chances of finding a good husband.

Different in varying ways, the characters of Sex and the City are undoubtedly influential to women viewers. These characters have not only inspired fashion trends and sexual fetishes but also scholarship. Feminist scholars in particular have examined the ways in which these four seemingly independent women are read by female viewers and the ways in which their lifestyles influence these viewers. After offering a short review of this scholarship, the most prominent example of which is Akass and McCabe’s edited collection Reading Sex and the City, I utilize this literature to provide a framework for a reading of the series influenced by queer theory.

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Scholars have both praised and criticized the show for its portrayal of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. Mostly, though, the series is critiqued for the fact that while it portrays women talking opening about sex, the kind of sex they discuss reinforces traditional ideas about sexuality.

Kathrin Maurer, for example, author of “Sex in the City: Nostalgic Pleasure and Primetime,” argues that while the series seems to leave no sexual topic unexplored, it actually reinforces and is based upon very conservative ideals about female sexuality, proven by the consistent focus on and striving for marriage. She points specifically to Carrie’s statement in episode 3.1: For millions of our forefathers, Manhattan was once the gateway to hope, opportunity, and happiness beyond their wildest dreams. Today that hope is still alive: it is called the first date. On Saturday night every restaurant in lower Manhattan resembles its own little Ellis Island: hordes of single women, crowded into a hot cramped space, and hoping to make their final destination: matrimony. (28)

Maurer asserts that any trailblazing Sex and the City accomplishes with frank discussions of female sexuality are quickly undermined by the portrayal of both single life and New York City as “a place of unfulfilled sexual desire, loneliness, and sadness” (26). Noy Thrupkaew, on the other hand, praises the series and argues that “the strongest part of the show” is “the women’s relationships with each other” and that the show deconstructs “the romantic myths that many straight women grapple with” to focus on the female characters’ relationships with one another rather than with men.

On a more Marxist-Feminist note, Jane Arthurs explains in “Sex and the City and Consumer Culture: Remediating Postfeminist Drama,” that Sex and the City’ s original affiliation with HBO, a subscription supported network, brings attention to high-priced name brands featured on the show, and the official website featuring style sections, “anticipates, encourages, and attempts to shape fan behavior that will convert into consumerism” (90).

Arthurs imagines the series as a dramatized women’s magazine that participates in the “process of commodification that continues to undermine our self-esteem and contentment” (95).

Coming back to the theme of sexuality, in the article “Safe Sex and the City: On Vibrators, Masturbation, and the Myth of ‘Real’ Sex,” Lynn Comella also addresses the idea that while Sex and the City seems to be doing something positive for women—and specifically women’s sexuality—the good is undermined by other aspects of the series. Comella points specifically to the purchase of vibrators and the sudden popularity of “The Rabbit” vibrator after the infamous “Vibrator Episode” (1.9) aired. After Miranda and Carrie stage an 9780230600805ts09.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 112

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intervention to take Charlotte’s time-consuming vibrator away from her, Carrie says “with a little help from her friends, Charlotte decided that she wasn’t going to settle for herself ” (111). Comella argues that while this is supposed to be “humorous . . . Sex and the City’s discussion of vibrator use and female masturbation hardly reflects a progressive sexual politic, feminist or otherwise.

In fact, it does quite the opposite” (111). “The ‘vibrator episode,’” she continues, “flirts with sexual empowerment only to uphold the common perception that masturbation isn’t ‘real’ sex” (112). As Comella’s insight points to the show’s tendency to only legitimize “partnered, heterosexual sex,” my forthcoming analysis demonstrates that Samantha’s relationship with a female partner, the highly sexualized Maria, in season four is similarly presented as illegitimate because it does not involve “real sex” (112).

The feminist critiques of Sex and the City— particularly the critique of the series’ representation of sexuality—are insightful and contribute to my critique of the series. What these critiques reveal is that all the attempts at subversive portrayals of female sexuality are undermined by labels used to describe Samantha, as well as those used to frame the homosexual context of Sex and the City. In an interview with Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin warns that to focus on talk or some ideal of “supportive relations” in lesbian relationships is to “evacuate [them] . . . of any sexual content” (74). And just as Rubin asserts that feminism should not be the “privileged site for analyzing sexuality” (71), I work beyond feminist critiques of the series to show that it is not only gender issues but sexual practices’ identity categories that are problematic on Sex and the City, especially during season four when Samantha experiences a lesbian relationship with Brazilian artist Maria. In addition to addressing the sexual identity category labels used to describe Samantha, I explain the ways in which Samantha’s use of the terms “relationship” and “lesbian” during her lesbian affair are telling given that she, along with her friends and society in general, knows no other way to define herself. This examination provides a broader discussion of Sex and the City’ s identity categories in the context of the queer project of exploding those categories and focuses more on Samantha who is robbed of her characteristic sexuality in order for her to become involved with a woman, and determine why this desexualizing or normalizing seemed necessary to the show’s writers and audience. Despite Sex and the City’s promises of frank discussion of women’s sexuality, through its repression of Samantha’s sexuality while in a lesbian relationship and her character’s inability to represent her nonnormative experiences in any but heteronormative terms familiar to the status quo, the series is inherently anti-queer and harmful to mainstream, female audiences’ perception of female sexuality in general and specifically of lesbian sexuality.

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Categories are especially important to this analysis, especially since it is precisely because Samantha discards her category—or, more specifically, her boundaries—that her relationship with Maria is so controversial to her friends. In order to understand the context in which Samantha approaches her relationship with Maria, one must look at the boundary-setting theme of the aptly titled episode “Defining Moments” (4.3). At brunch, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha discuss the importance of setting boundaries and having definitions and labels in relationships. Charlotte, for example, struggles with the status of her relationship with Trey:

Charlotte: It’s so confusing. Are we dating or are we back together? Is he my boyfriend or my lover? Or ex husband whom I have sex with occasionally in coat rooms or bathrooms?

. . .

Samantha: Oh who cares what you are? Just enjoy it.

Charlotte: No. I need to know where we’re going.

Miranda: Why do you have to define it?

Charlotte: He’s my husband. We were defined by law and now it’s all blurry.

It’s so hard.

In the same conversation, Carrie and Miranda debate the importance of Carrie defining her relationship with Mr. Big:

Miranda: Don’t you think you should define what you’re doing with him?

Carrie: Charlotte didn’t have to.

Miranda: Charlotte married the guy.

Carrie: We’re indefinable.

. . .

Miranda: It’s a slippery slope, Carrie. Without boundaries you never know what’s going to happen.

. . .

Carrie: Hey! Can we lighten up on the boundary talk? I’m fine.

Here viewers see that it is definitions that Charlotte and Miranda seek.

Samantha, however, seems less interested in definitions—even before the plot involving Maria occurs. In the next episode (4.4), Carrie’s voice-over refers to “Samantha’s willingness to explore new territory”—in other words, to step outside of her boundaries. The importance of boundaries becomes more evident in Samantha’s characterization as “not a relationship person,”

as it will become evident that Samantha disposes of her boundaries to attempt to create a new, lesbian, identity while her friends insist that she remain consistent.

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However inconsistent Samantha may be about her sexual identity category, her relationship with Maria demonstrates another inconsistency in her character; she is routinely described by herself and her friends as “not a relationship person.” Upon meeting Maria in episode 4.3, Samantha, true to her characterization, asks Maria where all the hot men are, to which Maria replies that she is not interested in men. Unshaken, Samantha buys a painting from Maria and arranges to pick up the painting at her apartment. When Samantha comes to get the painting, Maria seductively asks Samantha to paint with her. Once Samantha realizes that Maria may have romantic feelings for her, she says “I’ve done the girl thing. Once, twice . . . usually involving a guy and a couple Quaaludes. It was nice really, and really nice for the guy. But I’m not a relationship person. And you’re really something. Can we be friends?” (4.3). This is the first of many times throughout the following three episodes in which Samantha is reaffirmed as “not a relationship person,” as a woman who prefers casual sexual encounters, and in addition, a woman who is satisfied with casual heterosexual encounters, but interestingly enough, not with casual lesbian encounters. Samantha is so much “not a relationship person” that when she tells Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda that she is dating Maria, Carrie says

“Wait. You’re in a relationship?”—notice that this is not “You’re in a relationship with a woman?” (4.4). Additionally, Charlotte so intensely doubts Samantha’s ability to have a relationship that she says in the same episode, “Oh please. She’s not having a relationship. She’s just doing this to bug us” (4.4).

Samantha, too, seems to have problems with the fact that she is “not a relationship person” in a relationship. When she tells her friends that she is dating Maria, she says “We’re having a relationship” (4.4). The use of the word

“having” makes the sentence awkward, and reveals Samantha’s discomfort; it is almost as if she is substituting “relationship” for a word that would make the sentence more comfortable to her, such as “we’re having lunch” or “we’re having sex.” Samantha is reminded, however, why she is “not a relationship person” soon into her relationship. She finds herself frustrated by the fact that Maria always wants to talk rather than have sex. During an argument in episode 4.5, Maria says “I was talking about our relationship,” to which Samantha rolls her eyes and says, “of course you were.” Maria suggests, “we should talk about this,” but Samantha, frustrated, asks, “more talking?”

Viewers are led to believe that it is the fact that Maria is a woman and a lesbian that makes her want to talk. In fact, this is an inside joke for lesbians who are supposedly notorious for “processing” emotional issues to great lengths, theoretically because a lesbian relationship consists of two women, and women stereotypically want to talk about their feelings. Samantha, however, does not blame the excessive processing on Maria’s gender or sexuality but on the essence of a relationship itself.

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We only learn why the talk bothers Samantha so much during another fight with Maria. Maria asks Samantha, “You call this a relationship? [. . .] If you have something to say to me . . .” and Samantha replies, Well, it’s tedious and the sex is dwindling, so from what I’ve heard, yes, this is a relationship. [. . .] I have nothing to say to you. I am fresh out of things to say to you. All we ever do is talk, talk, talk. The talking in our relationship has replaced the fucking in our fucking relationship. I don’t want talk. I want passion. I want fireworks!” (4.5)

Carrie’s voice-over suggests that at this point, Samantha is no longer in denial about her ability to be in a relationship, but is having difficulties bringing herself to tell Maria. The importance placed on talk and the focus on the lack of sexual activity between Maria and Samantha reaffirms lesbian stereotypes that Sex and the City should avoid. For a show that purports to be subversive and supportive of a woman’s choices to sleep with whom they choose, Sex and the City restricts Samantha’s ability to have a relationship with anyone but a man by making her alternative unattractive and desexualized.

As I have shown in my discussion of Samantha as “not a relationship person,” language plays an important role in Samantha’s sexual identification. In efforts to realign herself as someone who could be in a relationship with Maria, Samantha tells her friends in episode 4.4, “Yes ladies, I’m a lesbian.” This is the only time viewers hear Samantha refer to herself or Maria as a lesbian. In episode 4.3, Samantha refers to lesbian sex as “the girl thing,” but after her initial declaration to her friends “I’m a lesbian,” we never hear Samantha refer to the gender of her new partner. Again, Samantha’s focus becomes more about the actual relationship she is having with Maria, rather than the fact that the person she is having a relationship with is a woman.

Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda, however, while they are interested, as I have already argued, in the fact that Samantha—not a “relationship person”—is having a relationship, are additionally shocked by the orientation of Samantha’s relationship. In episode 4.4, Miranda refers to Samantha as the

“lesbian du jour” and all three women speak of the situation as if it is simply absurd that Samantha, a woman who has enjoyed having sex with many men, would want to or could suddenly enjoy having sex with a woman. Carrie asks

“How does that work? You go to bed one night, you wake up the next morning and poof you’re a lesbian?” to which Miranda, in the same spirit of absurdity, replies “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m a fire hydrant.” “Yeah, I’m a shoe,”

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Samantha remains defined as what she is—straight, in their opinion—and not deviate from that label.

Although Samantha complains that “the sex is dwindling” in her relationship with Maria (4.5) and viewers see much less of Samantha’s active sex life than they are accustomed to, Samantha and Maria’s relationship is, in ways, constructed sexually, although never in an explicit manner. In the DVD summary of episode 4.3, Maria is not named but is only described as “a very sexy artist.” And Miranda insists during the following episode that if Samantha has “run out of men” as Charlotte suggests, she should not have sex at all instead of “eat[ing] pussy” (4.4). Upon Charlotte’s realization that it was she who introduced Samantha and Maria, Carrie says “Poof, you’re a pimp.”

When Samantha and Maria finally do have sex, in a narrative voice-over, Carrie announces “Samantha decided if she was going to be gay, she was going to be gay all the way,” referring to the fact that Samantha decides to perform oral sex on Maria (4.4). Thus, viewers must deduce that to the heterosexual narrator, being “gay all the way” is a status that can only be obtained through sex acts. At Sunday brunch in “What’s Sex Got to Do with It?” while insisting that she does not miss sex with men, Samantha tells Carrie “There are some places a dick just can’t go!” Carrie reasserts her own heterosexuality by insisting “Oh, some dicks manage just fine.” Samantha counters with

“Please, Maria has ten dicks,” and wiggles her fingers. Here, she is not only suggesting that she does not miss sex with men, but reasserting her “I am a lesbian” position by suggesting that sex with women is better.

Maria also contributes to the reading of the relationship between her and Samantha as purely sexual. During an argument in episode 4.5, she asks, “Do you miss dick? Is that what this is all about?” When trying to make up, she buys Samantha a strap-on dildo in what Carrie’s voice-over calls a “last ditch effort to give Samantha what she thought she needed.” In Maria’s mind, it is not Samantha’s status as “not a relationship person” that is hurting their relationship, but that she is heterosexual or misses heterosexual sex. When Samantha tells Carrie and Miranda later in the episode that she injured her back using the strap-on, Miranda asks how it works, to which Samantha answers “It doesn’t.

Maria and I broke up.” With this reply, Samantha is asserting that the relationship failed for sexual—or lack of the sexual—reasons, therefore, reaffirming her friends’ attitude reflecting the superiority of heterosexual sex.

Samantha’s heterosexuality and inability to have a relationship are not the only characteristic traits robbed from her in order for the relationship with Maria to occur. As mentioned, Samantha is Sex and the City’s hypersexualized character. She typically has sex with at least one man in each episode and is shown in many more nude or partial nude scenes than any other actress from the series. Upon beginning her relationship with Maria, however, Samantha 9780230600805ts09.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 117

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completely rejects heterosexuality by telling her friends “Yes ladies, I’m a lesbian” (4.4) and by telling Maria “p.s. I’m done with dick” (4.5). When Carrie questions her sexuality and new “label,” Samantha asserts, “This is not about being gay or straight. Maria is an incredible woman. She’s got passion and talent. Intelligence” (4.4). Carrie, however, is still invested in labeling Samantha and reminds her that while Maria may have “passion, talent, and intelligence,” she also has a vagina. In this way, Carrie attempts to regulate Samantha’s identity based on her past heterosexual acts.

But it is not simply Carrie who wishes to regulate Samantha’s identity.

Samantha asserts herself into ready-made identity categories, and according to Foucault’s theories of confession, in doing so, she seeks and gains approval from her friends. Foucault writes:

The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence of a partner who is not simply an interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile. ( The History of Sexuality 61–62) According to Foucault’s theory, “confessing” her sexuality to Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte, Samantha takes on a role in which she seeks acceptance from the majority—the heterosexuals.

Samantha’s friends are so sure of her position as a straight woman that, as outlined earlier, they do not take her relationship with Maria seriously and construct it as another sexual escapade. In the end, Samantha reconstructs herself as heterosexual by using the same techniques her friends have used. By telling Miranda in episode 4.5 that the strap-on, the substitute phallus, does not work and following with “Maria and I broke up,” she reasserts the importance of heterosexual sex. She even assures Miranda and Carrie that she will not date women again when, referring to the strap-on dildo, Miranda asks,

“Are you operating heavy machinery this evening?” and Samantha replies

“Never again” (4.5). Since sex played such an important part in why they broke up, viewers can deduce that with “never again,” Samantha both means sex with a strap-on and a lesbian relationship—if not any relationship.

The fact that Samantha essentially is not allowed, because of her identity category, to have a successful lesbian relationship on Sex and the City is per-plexing. Despite the overwhelmingly heterosexual plots, Sex and the City is a television series heavily influenced by gay culture. Darren Star and Michael Patrick King, both gay men, are credited as the show’s creators and in her article

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widely understood to be the creation of gay men” (52). Sex and the City was, however, innately homosexual before Star and King ever created the television series. Bushnell’s novel varies a great deal from the series, and according to Merck, Bushnell’s “chapter one introduces four straight men, a gay male couple and, finally at its conclusion, ‘my friend Carrie’” (48). Readers only briefly encounter Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha and the female friendships are so unlike the warm, sisterly friendships of the series that Bushnell’s narrator declares that “the only place you could find love and romance in New York was the gay community” (Bushnell 6, quoted in Merck 50). Critic Caitlin Morgan even claims that the series is “the story of four gay men racketing around NYC, but with four women given the roles because HBO couldn’t get a series off the ground about four men discussing fellatio” (Merck 61).

If viewers accept that the premise for Sex and the City is actually homosexual in nature but the series is not, then how do we read the homoerotic encounters that occur on the television series? Samantha’s relationship with Maria is complicated by several details. First, by the choice of the actress who plays Maria, Sonia Braga. As Merck argues, “Maria . . . is Brazilian, establishing the classic blonde/brunette opposition so often used to figure sexual difference in the face of its apparent absence. And true to form, the ‘real’ lesbian of the couple is the darker of the two women, ethnically marked in coloring, dress and accent”

(56). Within this racialized construction of homoeroticism, Samantha obviously becomes the less socially threatening of the two women, especially since she continues to be pursued by men throughout their relationship.

One must question the likely success of a relationship between Samantha and Maria. Besides the fact that the series is carried by the heterosexual plots, Merck argues that “the audience is turned off long before (their break-up) by a scene in which the orgasmic Brazilian propels what Carrie’s voiceover describes as a ‘rare female ejaculation’ straight into Samantha’s face” (57). It is Merck’s assertion, then, that the writers would never allow Samantha to have a “real” lesbian relationship, so it must be doomed early on, even when the relationship is seemingly good. Second, the sex between Maria and Samantha is, because of the camera angles, “gynecological” rather than erotic in nature

“as (Samantha) is repeatedly framed between Maria’s legs apparently peering into a vulva whose aroused features she excitedly describes to her embarrassed friends” (56). These camera angles, along with the fact that Maria and Samantha spend more time bathing than having sex, rob Samantha of her role on the series—the prowling, sexualized, man in drag.

How sex-loving Samantha is constructed as a man in drag is made most evident when she is literally compared to a drag queen in episode 2.9. She meets her ex-boyfriend who is now, as Merck puts it “a blonde-wigged drag queen named Samantha in her honor” (58). She also moves into “Manhattan’s cruise 9780230600805ts09.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 119

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central, the aptly named meat-packing district” where she “wars with and woos the neighborhood gang of pre-op transsexual hookers” (59). At the end of episode 3.18, Samantha has a party for her friends and her new pre-op neighbors. She is dressed in daisy dukes (American, iconic cut-off denim shorts), a midriff revealing shirt, pig tails, and five-inch heels—a drag queen’s tribute to Ellie May Clampet—while her female friends are dressed in their usual attire.

Here, it is clear that Samantha is being compared to and even placed in a category with the pre-op transsexuals. This is important. Again, this is just another example of how Samantha’s sexuality is easily categorized for viewers.

The combination of Samantha being denied sex with the regularity she is accustomed to in her lesbian relationship, her comparison to a drag queen, and the gynecological and off-putting nature of her sexual interactions with Maria point to the fact that this relationship is written to be “safe” for Sex and the City’s target audience. Maria is written as exotic rather than relatable so that viewers do not grow attached. Dark, mysterious, and knowledgeable about lesbian sex, Maria, the “real lesbian,” only appears on three episodes, is threatening to viewers, and is, therefore, dealt with in a way that keeps viewers from feeling as though they have to develop a bond with the character.

Meanwhile, Samantha’s sexual identity and behavior are, even when she seems to want to be taken seriously, malleable and, at best, humorous, and, therefore, safe and nonthreatening to viewers. José Esteban Muñoz points out that “commercial drag presents a sanitized and desexualized queer subject for mass consumption. Such drag represents a certain strand of integra-tionist liberal pluralism. The sanitized queen is meant to be enjoyed as an entertainer who will hopefully lead to social understanding and tolerance”

( Disidentifications 99). In a similar vein, Samantha’s likening to drag queens, while on the surface a measure of her openness to all sexualities, and a disruption of identity categories, really only serves to mock her sexuality.

Designer clothing labels are not the only labels of interest on Sex and the City. While the series has addressed sexual identities, the ways in which these identities have been explored leave a lot to be desired. Occasional appearances by gay characters, usually those who fit into the white, male, upper-class norm, while they may make for good comedy, do not fulfill the goals of the queer project of exploding identity categories, nor does robbing Samantha of her characteristic sexuality in order for her to engage in a relationship with a woman. While Sex and the City never claimed to participate in the queer project of identity deconstruction, the series constructs sexual identity categories for its characters based on stereotypes and unrealistic sterilization of sexual practices. As a result, Sex and the City creates misinformed audiences, while critics praise the producers, writers, and actors for their sexual trailblazing.

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CHAPTER 8

“Going Native on

Wonder Woman’s Island”:

The Exoticization of Lesbian

Sexuality in Sex and the City

Melissa M. M. Hidalgo

The increasing visibility of lesbians on mainstream television in the post- Ellen era points to a gradual cultural acceptance of lesbian sexuality and of female sexual agency in general. One show in particular, U.S. cable channel HBO’s Sex and the City, figures prominently as a cultural phenomenon that brought visibility and viability to the idea of a liberatory (heterosexual) female sexuality. As Samantha, the show’s vixen, says early on in the season, this is the “first time in the history of Manhattan” that “women have had as much money and power as men” (1.1). Samantha, constructed throughout the show’s six-season run as a sort of “honorary” male, a masculinized female who sees not “color but conquest” (3.5) in her sexual exploits and adventures, celebrates what she sees as a woman’s sexual freedom to have sex “like a man, without feelings” (1.1). Of course, this sexual “freedom” is only granted to those women who are privileged racially and economically, and favors those women who maintain and perpetuate heteronormativity.

Certainly, Sex and the City’s representations of four sexy, single women in their thirties living and loving in Manhattan have garnered critics’ praise and criticisms. The show’s wide audience and industry recognition brings a high visibility to the diversity of women’s sexual lives. But is visibility enough?

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What is the value of having sex like lesbians? Lesbians and lesbian sex in Sex and the City are valued like currency that flows throughout the heterosexual world of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Chic, exciting, and exotic, lesbians dot the landscape of the series, and they always represent the possibility of a more attractive life for each of the show’s protagonists. Now that lesbianism and its representations have arguably become more mainstream, there remains a tendency in certain shows to construct it as subversive. In shows such as Sex and the City and The L Word, the body of the lesbian woman of color becomes the site of sexual exploration and affirmation for the privileged white heterosexual woman.

Recently, in September of 2005, Sex and the City premiered on U.S. network television in syndication,1 and a volume of academic essays devoted entirely to the HBO hit show was published in 2004.2 This volume provides many interesting academic insights. While a few of the contributors do well to address the show’s “freakish” treatment of nonnormative sexuality (Greven 41–43) and the commodification of lesbians for consumption (Zieger 100), the issue of race and lesbianism is never fully engaged critically. The show has garnered much praise from the television and entertainment industries, earning Emmys, Golden Globes, and other honors for its stars and producers, indicating that it clearly occupies an important space in the popular cultural landscape both for viewers and now academics. Given this critical acclaim and wide influence on other television shows, it is important to consider Sex and the City’s treatment of not only lesbians, but of lesbians of color. In two episodes early in the series, lesbians of color are featured in central plotlines involving Charlotte and Samantha. Certainly, Charlotte’s “Power Lesbians,”

who buy art, wear Prada, and socialize at the trendiest women’s bars, and Samantha’s Maria, a Brazilian artist who piques Samantha’s interest to explore new sexual terrain, need to be considered as representations of a racialized nonnormative femininity. Accordingly, this essay addresses these current manifestations of the straight-white-woman-meets-exotic-lesbian-of-color themes in Sex and the City, which position the body of the queer woman of color as the site upon which the anxiety of white female heterosexuality gets played out.

In the series, lesbians and lesbian women of color become mere tools to deliver white women out of the closet just long enough to reaffirm and secure their heterosexuality and whiteness. For two of the series’ characters, Samantha and Charlotte, lesbian spheres and spaces become what Kelly Hankin would call “site[s] of heterosexual tourism,” safe spaces for the straight girls to visit and play with the (lesbian) natives for a night or three before heading back to the safe confines of heterosexuality (18). As such, the representations of lesbianism in these episodes and over the course of Sex and 9780230600805ts10.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 123

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the City’s six-season run operate as reminders to viewers of the exoticism and nonnormative nature of racialized lesbian sexuality. Positioned as “temporary gay tourists” (Manalansan 147), Samantha and Charlotte risk nothing by visiting “Wonder Woman’s island” (2.6) because their whiteness and heterosexuality grants them that privilege of mobility. Therefore, these representations of lesbians—white and nonwhite—vis-à-vis those of their white heterosexual counterparts, ultimately serve to re-marginalize lesbianism, reinstating its status as an exotic and taboo sexuality, while eliding the political, historical, and cultural consequences that actual lesbians face because of their sexuality in the United States and elsewhere. Ultimately, Sex and the City’s racial coding of lesbians serves to recenter normative white hetero female sexuality while positing lesbian sexuality as temporary and disposable, a label that only suits those who don it out of their heterosexual privilege.

“Poof! You’re a Lesbian!”: Designer Lesbianism

In this section, I discuss two episodes of Sex and the City to argue that queer3

female sexuality is commodified within the heterosexual matrix. As a commodity, lesbianism carries an exchange value for white hetero women, allowing them the possibility of advancing socially or economically, which ultimately positions lesbians as disposable and void of value once they have been “used” or “spent” by straight women. “Bay of Married Pigs” (1.3, first aired on June 21, 1998), features plot lines that shape and inform the show’s future treatment of lesbians by representing Miranda as a “pseudo-lesbian,”

eager to please her law firm’s senior partner. This episode also establishes Miranda’s queer potential. As a successful, career-oriented lawyer, Miranda is the pessimist of the show, eschewing anything too feminine and viewing with cynicism the cultural dictates that tell single women in their thirties that if they are not married (or partnered) with children by that age milestone, they are deemed worthless. Apparently, as Miranda discovers in this episode, the only way for a single thirty-something woman to accrue value is by posing as a lesbian.

The show sets the stage at Miranda’s firm’s annual softball game.

Frustrated that Miranda’s colleagues cannot “figure her out,” they assume she is gay and set her up with Syd, a lesbian lawyer at the firm. Syd’s androgynous name goes well with her androgynous appearance: her short hair, lack of makeup, and athleticism codes her as lesbian, and, therefore, it is assumed by Miranda’s colleagues, she must be an ideal match for Miranda. Given this episode’s preoccupation with the anxiety surrounding single women and the

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partners. Her male colleague responsible for setting her up with Syd prides himself on his ability to “pick ‘em,” as Sid is a “real find” (1.3), even though Miranda has to break the news to him that she is not gay, despite the fact that she has not been seen with a man in the eight months she has been at her firm. As Carrie’s voice-over tells us, the “pseudo-lesbian couple got the attention of Charles, the firm’s senior partner” (1.3), and he proceeds to invite the couple to his house for dinner. Later, an exasperated Miranda tells Carrie that he only invited her because he thinks she’s part of a couple. She tells Carrie,

“he seemed so relieved to finally figure me out.” Miranda, coded as lesbian by wearing a dark suit and tie, slicked-down hair, and little make-up, arrives at the dinner party with Syd, coded femme in this scene. After what seemed like a successful date, Miranda confesses to Charles that she is not with Syd and only came with her to “bend [his] ear about [her] work at the firm.”

Disappointed, he tells Miranda that his wife “will be disappointed” because

“she was looking to add a lesbian couple to our circle,” suggesting that Miranda is only valuable as a lesbian. Her butchness is what grants her access, albeit temporary, to her boss and to the potential of a higher income. But what about Syd, who is represented as the actual lesbian? She held no currency on her own, yet she suddenly acquired value to both Miranda and Charles, only to lose it again by being rendered invisible: we never hear from Syd again in this episode or in others, and it seems that Miranda’s confession that she is not an actual lesbian negates her need for Syd.

For Miranda in this episode, lesbianism’s value as a commodity works for her so she can get the attention of her firm’s lead partner. Syd, the lesbian in this context, is “trafficked,” assigned a value within a system of heterosexual exchange because of her potential “usefulness” to Miranda, Charles, and his wife (Rubin 164). The “traffic in lesbians” within the television economy of Sex and the City renders lesbianism as an object—“a find”—to be used and consumed for a greater purpose: in the service of Miranda’s job security and an acquired social status to the fashionably liberal hetero couple. As a commodified lesbian, Syd adds value to previously single Miranda in the eyes of her employer. Miranda is “determined to make partner even if it’s as a lesbian.” In this context, “lesbian” is not a sexual or political identity, but a label of convenience “tried on” by heterosexuals such as Miranda to advance in her field. As Mandy Merck notes, “The idea of homosexuality as erotically in fashion, but wrong for Miranda, is rammed home by Carrie’s comparison” of it to a DKNY dress (53). Miranda thus understands lesbianism as something to “try on” (Merck 53) in an attempt to fashion for herself an alternative identity that would open the doors to success for her at her law firm. Yet even in her drive to comprise one half of “a couple, any couple” (1.3), Miranda invokes her heterosexual privilege here. Because she is not actually a lesbian, 9780230600805ts10.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 125

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Miranda does not have to risk anything, allowing her to “negotiate and rejuvenate” her chances at making partner as a heterosexual single woman.

Miranda conveniently “discards” the lesbian and the label of lesbian (Hankin 35). Miranda handily admits to Chip, her boss, that she “took advantage of the situation” (1.3) with Syd just to gain access to him. Furthermore, while being gay could have stabilized Miranda professionally, her faux lesbianism and partnership with Syd are reified into a spectacle, an object to be collected and “added” to an already existing circle of friends. The heterosexuals are the ones that get to make that choice; their privilege allows them to co-opt the lesbians and assume they would want to be a part of their circle. Furthermore, heterosexual privilege produces another social irony. The politics of being

“out of the closet” at the workplace frame this part of the episode, but being out only works for Miranda because she is not gay. In a later episode, Miranda runs into a gay colleague at a club who asks that she not out him, for fear of losing his job at the firm and getting harassed by the older, more conservative partners. Clearly, there are consequences for gay people that accompany being out at work, as this later episode acknowledges. However, for Miranda, “coming out” as a lesbian with a partner enables her to sell herself as a worthy prospect for partner at her law firm. The threat of coming out at work is rendered nonexistent. Instead, the lesbian label becomes a useful tool for straight people, as can be seen when it is worn by Miranda to maintain economic security at her prestigious job. In effect, this particular episode elides the realities of many gay men and lesbians who literally cannot afford to come out, including bringing same-sex partners to work functions.

In another episode, “lesbian chic” is tried on by Charlotte in an attempt to escape a life “complicated by men” that leads her to the “safe, warm environment” of her new circle of lesbian friends (2.6). This episode, “The Cheating Curve” (first aired on July 11, 1999), features “power lesbians,” narratively introduced through Charlotte’s gallery hosting an opening for a lesbian artist from Brooklyn. That this lesbian artist is from Brooklyn, an already racially coded, “other” place, is significant. This is further established in the series’

final season, when Miranda very reluctantly moves to Brooklyn, which she considers to be an outpost of backwards, unfashionable living when compared with Manhattan. As Carrie’s voice-over trumpets, the power lesbians are defined as “lesbian chic meets art-world cool, a fabulous combustion that no one saw coming. They were the latest group to flaunt their disposable income.” The power lesbians in Charlotte’s gallery “seemed to have everything—

great shoes, killer eyewear, and the secrets to invisible make up.” Of course, their “power” comes only from their economic privilege and their affluence; their income is as disposable as they are in this world. Susan Zieger writes,

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specific high-end consumption” (100). I would also add that this episode enables a reading of lesbians of color as not only disposable, but as exotic, framing Samantha’s foray into lesbianism with Maria in later episodes.

As Carrie speaks, the camera catches a group of these power lesbians striding around Charlotte’s gallery, “apparently the only venue in which the principals can possibly encounter homosexual women” (Merck 56). The power lesbians hold champagne and look like they own the place, moving with confidence in the space designated just for them. We see a pair of these

“power lesbians” coded as an interracial lesbian couple, but in this world, black and white women are equalized by their earning power and high socioeconomic status. Lydia, the white lesbian, is a vice president at Warner music, while her ex-partner Eileen, a light-skinned black woman, works on Wall Street. Lydia and Eileen, who were a couple for five years and now remain

“just friends,” still function as a couple, purchasing art together, sharing “custody” of it, and socializing with the same group of friends, conveying that even after relationships end, lesbians’ love lives are “uncomplicated,” as Charlotte blithely observes. These power lesbians represent commodified lesbianism, one in which racial difference is erased by money, and lots of it.

Here, capitalism promotes the transcendence of race and sexuality issues that would otherwise stifle and repress the mobility of actual lesbians in the world.

It is significant that Eileen, a light-skinned black woman, ushers Charlotte into the power lesbian circle when she notices her Prada loafers. This scene indicates the extent to which money and status “whitens” blackness within this framework, and along with it, renders lesbianism a safe, desexualized space that Charlotte comfortably fits into. This episode is also important for locating the lesbian sphere in a marginal space that exists outside the realm of heteronormative female sexuality, one that gets constructed as “an exotic tourist locale” (Hankin 19). In this episode, the power lesbians take Charlotte on a tour of their “homeland,” as Carrie explains in a voice-over: “drinks at G-spot, dinner and scintillating conversation at Luke’s, the hot new French fusion restaurant with its equally hot Sapphic chef, followed by late-night dancing at the Love Tunnel.” The evening “left Charlotte as exhilarated and happy as she’d been in ages” in the relaxing and liberating atmosphere. Here, food is equated with consumption of lesbian chic, a temporary stay on the island, itself an “alternate universe that contained no thought of men.” The camera’s slow-motion captures Charlotte swaying, eyes closed, body writhing in a sexless sex act, in the throes of passion among many hot (mostly femme) women. Charlotte is constructed as a tourist flanked by racially diverse lesbian “natives” of the island. The power lesbians “allure” Charlotte with their

“gay hipness” (Walters 245), for the episode positions her as a “heterosexual onlooker” who yearns to be a “member of the happening crowd, untainted by 9780230600805ts10.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 127

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tired and stodgy prejudices” (Walters 247). Because Charlotte thinks “her”

lesbians and their embrace of her as their “new friend” must be attributed to her (mis)conception that “sex is not an issue,” she sees no danger in associating with them.

Yet, when sex is enunciated and becomes the “question on everybody’s mind,” it has to be coded racially so as to maintain its taboo, marginalized status. When Charlotte meets up with Lydia, the gallery patron, and the other lesbians, it is clear that Lydia is interested in Charlotte, and invites her to a gathering at Patty Aston’s house. As Carrie explains, “Patty Aston was the ex-wife of a Hollywood movie producer” who’s now a “lesbian,” “the queen bee of the power lesbian social hive.” Implicit here is that Patti was a straight woman who has “gone native” (2.6), but more significantly, situated within the cultural moment of the time, this scene resonates with references to real-life examples of other such women, such as Julie Cypher, Anne Heche, and Sex and the City’s own Cynthia Nixon.4 Placed in this cultural context, the message of the episode reads as a warning to straight women who might be

“converted” by lesbian society. But the conversion never happens, as Charlotte insists on draining lesbianism of its sexuality when she simply wants to be friends with the women whose company she finds so comforting.

Patty, however, does not allow this to happen when she asks Charlotte something “everybody wants to know,” which is whether or not Charlotte is gay.

Charlotte says no, but although she “connects to the female spirit,” “sexually,

[Charlotte] feel[s] that [she is] straight.” Patty, a woman of Asian descent, retorts: “Sweetheart, that’s all very nice, but if you’re not going to eat pussy, you’re not a dyke.” She walks away, leaving Charlotte stunned and rejected.

Essentially, Charlotte has just been dumped, and her vacation to “Wonder Woman’s island” is over. Patty sexualizes and racializes lesbianism; by speaking explicitly about “eating pussy,” she reorients lesbianism within a sexual realm, reminding Charlotte that lesbian sex is the “issue” she wants to naively deny. Becoming/being a dyke becomes an exclusive thing, a club to which the

“real lesbians” belong. Here, however, lesbianism becomes exoticized. As a woman of color, Patty (and later, Maria) represents an extreme version of marginality; race is the marker of the other, and in this case, of the exotic.

As Patty reminds the viewer, being a lesbian is first and foremost about sex, but in the show, it is also about being a racialized other. Contrary to Charlotte’s claim, being a lesbian is an issue, not the “nonissue” she wants it to be. Within the context of “cheating,” the episode’s thematic vehicle, Charlotte was trying to cheat and she got caught. A narrative of “I came, I saw, I conquered” frames the show’s dialogue and plot: lesbianism is coded as a “discovery,” an “island,” or “alternate universe” (2.6) just waiting to be discovered by Charlotte. The Asian woman is the “authentic dyke” who “eats 9780230600805ts10.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 128

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pussy” and basically casts Charlotte off her island. Charlotte cannot “go native” here. The sex act of “eating pussy” authenticates the lesbian experience and identity, defining it as primarily a sexual identity, one that Charlotte is unable to claim for herself because she does not engage in lesbian sex acts.

In rejecting Charlotte from the “lesbian club,” Patty ejects her back into “het-eroland,” and the world of lesbians remains intact, although as a faraway place, an exotic locale contained within itself. The world of lesbians remains a site of “heterosexual tourism”; it is a fixed space where power lesbians wear Prada, buy art, dance at clubs called the G-spot, and eat pussy. Once the sexual act is articulated, the Asian dyke woman seals off “the club” for Charlotte, but in doing so, services the heteronorm by reaffirming Charlotte’s heterosexuality. In the end, even the Power Lesbians with their warm, female spirits are inadequate substitutes for the “sorry men with their sorry excuses” (2.6) who continue to disappoint Charlotte. Furthermore, this episode ends with a shot of Big and Carrie dancing, their rekindled relationship on display. The power lesbian subplot generates a reading that positions lesbians as a diver-sion, a distraction from the hetero subplots, even though it momentarily renders heterosexuality as an unstable construction. Lesbianism is more assured and stable as it destabilizes heteronormativity, but in order to do so, it must exist in its own realm, as a faraway alternative universe, a safe distance from the heteronormative spaces inhabited by Charlotte and her friends.

“The Glorious boceta ”: Racializing Lesbian

Sexuality and “Eating the Other”

During season four, three episodes—“Defining Moments,” (4.3) “What’s Sex Got to Do with It?” (4.4) and “Ghost Town” (4.5)—featured the lesbian relationship between Samantha and Maria, played by Brazilian actress Sonia Braga. It is significant that the producers cast Braga to play the part of the exotic Brazilian artist. Brazil is often imagined by Europeans as a land of “sexual excess” and “heightened sexual desire” (Larvie 530). I read this casting move as a way for the producers to overmatch the usual sultry sexiness exuded constantly by Samantha’s character. How better to accomplish this than by casting a Brazilian Latina, who, according to stereotypes, is already a sexualized, alluring, seductive figure by virtue of her brown skin and accent-inflected English. Sonia Braga “others” the character of Maria, who is

“explored” and eventually discarded by Samantha. These three episodes showcase a colonial fantasy narrative of what bell hooks characterizes as “eating the other.”

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already figured in terms of commodity exchange. Charlotte metaphorically owns Maria by providing the space for her art; the Brazilian is a hot lesbian artist, a commodity to be shared and exchanged within the space of Charlotte’s gallery. When Samantha announces that she and Maria are dating, Charlotte stutters, “Mm-mm- my Maria? From the gallery?” Samantha replies, “Well she’s my Maria now.” This dialogue exchange signifies their ownership of the other, “the traffic in Maria” being exchanged among white hetero women. However, Maria is assigned a different value according to her use. For Charlotte, it is about the success of her gallery; for Samantha, it is about an exciting new sexual foray, a commodity always valued by Samantha within the narrative of the series. Maria represents the sexual frontier that Samantha has yet to “explore” and conquer. Maria is exoticized not only as a racialized other but as a sexual other; her race is necessary to mark her as

“other” apart from the white hetero-woman framework. Marked as such, Maria becomes something—a body—to be exchanged, owned, conquered, and disposed of when her use value is spent.

Maria’s racialized sexual agency is apparent throughout these three episodes. In almost every frame she is in, Maria’s race and Brazilianness is emphasized and made visible. She wears bright colors—lipstick red or cobalt blue—or all black. Her long black hair is either tied up in chopsticks or left long and hanging, as if out of control. She speaks Portuguese to an ex-girlfriend and struggles constantly with English colloquialisms that are not translatable to Portuguese. In the breakup scene in the last of this set of episodes, Maria is reduced to a flat stereotype. Merck observes of the Maria character: “[T]rue to form, the ‘real’ lesbian of the couple is the darker of the two women, ethnically marked in colouring, dress and accent” (56). Echoing the earlier episode in which Patty, the Asian woman, is marked as the

“authentic dyke,” Maria’s race makes visible her “sexualised difference”

(Merck 56). Maria shows a frustrated and bored Samantha the “fireworks”

she longs for; as salsa music plays in the background, Maria throws dishes to the floor, breaking them. She is violently animated, and the scene turns her into a caricature of a stereotypical fiery Latina woman with exaggerated movements, her behavior highly racialized and coded as irrational and uncontrollable. Here, Maria is coded as the “libidinally excessive and sexually uncontrolled” non-European woman (Loomba 155), a reading that carries more meaning if we read this relationship as another example of Samantha’s colonialist sexual fantasy. Effectively, Maria has been reduced to a “savage”

brown body by the end of the relationship. As she begins her seduction of Samantha, Maria explains to her that helping her with her art “is a Brazilian thing” (4.3). Maria, ever the smooth lesbian who knows how to “work it,”

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cleavage showing, her body sexualized next to an unusually modestly clad Samantha. Visibly and linguistically, Maria is cast as an outsider, a foreign presence in the white-washed, heterocentric world of Sex and the City.

Yet once she has seduced Samantha, Maria, installed now as a pedagogical figure, becomes the purveyor of the art of lesbian sex, teaching even sexually experienced Samantha new things about women’s sexuality and its functions.

The second episode that features Maria and Samantha posits Maria as kind of native informant of lesbian sex, teaching Samantha about the “glorious boceta,” while continuing the theme of a disposable, commodified lesbianism.

While for Samantha, “lesbian” is a label, “like Gucci or Versace” (4.3), and, therefore, only temporarily in use, lesbianism is a reality for Maria, a perma-nent identity that cannot simply be discarded when things get tough.

Economic and heterosexual privilege allows Samantha to claim lesbianism like a designer fashion, something she wears until it goes out of style.

Additionally, lesbianism is figured in this episode as a pedagogical spectacle to be appropriated by Samantha in the service of and as “inspiration” to help her straight friends consummate their hetero relationships. Carrie’s voice-over informs the viewer that “inspired by Samantha’s willingness to explore new territory, Charlotte felt it was time to conquer some old territory: The bed, where she and Trey had so much trouble as man and wife.” The rhetoric of colonization and conquest shapes Samantha’s encounter and involvement with the other. Consider bell hooks’s articulation of the politics and economy of interracial sexual encounters in her essay, “Eating the Other”: Exploring how desire for the Other is expressed, manipulated, and transformed by encounters with difference is a critical terrain that can indicate whether . . . potentially revolutionary longings are ever fulfilled . . . .To make oneself vulnerable to the seduction of difference, to seek an encounter with the Other, does not require that one relinquish forever one’s mainstream positionality. When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative play-ground where members of dominating races, genders, and sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other. (22–23) I cite this passage at length because of its bearing on my analysis of Maria and Samantha’s relationship, as well as the other lesbian figures in the show. It is through hooks that we can come to understand how Sex and the City others lesbianism, an othering that ultimately reinforces the status quo, for the episode draws out the connections between Samantha’s “willingness” to engage in lesbian sex and the consummation of the marriage bed for Trey and 9780230600805ts10.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 131

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Charlotte. Carrie, always the enforcer of heteronormativity, reminds us that Samantha’s brave foray into lesbianism has inspired Trey and Charlotte to try yet again to consummate their union as man and wife. Lesbianism functions here, it seems, as a way to legitimate Trey and Charlotte’s sex-starved marriage. As “members of dominating races, genders, and sexual practices,”

Samantha, Trey, and Charlotte “affirm their power-over in intimate relations”

(hooks 23) ultimately tied to the conquest of the Other.

In the same episode, the transitional voice-over cues us to the next scene in which Maria instructs Samantha how to make love to her liking. Carrie’s

“Meanwhile, at Casa de Lesbo . . .” exemplifies racialized and homophobic language inflected with sarcasm, devaluing the relationship. In this scene, Samantha initially assumes the role of “the man.” As she dives right in between Maria’s legs, Maria has to stop her, explaining that “it’s not really working for me.” Samantha tells her, “Honey, I’ve never gotten any complaints from the men.” Here, heteronormative sex practices inform Samantha’s understanding of what women want, but Maria knows the difference: “I’m not a man. This is love making. It’s not a porno flick.” As she lays down, she tells Samantha “to look at [her] boceta . . . that’s a Portuguese word for pussy” (4.4) Maria’s boceta becomes a visual aid in a pedagogical moment, and she also exoticizes it by calling it by its Portuguese name. Additionally, Maria’s “native informant” status legitimates her pedagogical role as the lesbian “sexpert,” teaching the straight woman about the wonders of female sexual excitement. It turns out that Samantha has much to learn about women’s sexuality, but she proves to be an eager student. Samantha excitedly tells the girls about the “fascinating education” she is getting from Maria. Now, she is the one teaching Charlotte and the girls all about lesbian sex, explaining what an engorged vagina looks like, and downplaying the importance of a dick:

“Maria has ten dicks,” Samantha gushes, as she holds up her fingers, wiggling them. She continues, “Well, I can tell you right now that this [jabs her finger violently into the air as if mimicking what a dick does] is not the same as . . . this [swirls a finger into the air and pretends to lick it.]” (4.4). As she describes her newfound knowledge about the joys of lesbian sex, Samantha’s face moves as if she is savoring a sweet dessert, or engaging in what hooks would call “eating the other.” Sex with Maria is conflated with eating, as food, such as strawberries, becomes the primary tool of seduction. This scene

“combines the culinary and the sexual” as “a commodity to be consumed and literally eaten up for people who will spend a few hours (in this case, a few episodes) being temporary gay tourists” (Manalansan 147). Furthermore, this scene represents cultural appropriation by dominant members of society.

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Samantha successfully arouses Maria, so much that Maria’s orgasm results in

“female ejaculation.” Obviously, Samantha is a deft student who is learning quickly, although in the end, the Other has been “eaten, consumed, and forgotten” (hooks 39).

Considered within the narrative arc of the show’s six-season run, most of the lesbian action occurs within the first four seasons; the last two seasons are dedicated to tying up narrative loose ends, culminating in the closure that sees Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte in stable heterosexual relationships. By the series’ end, two of them—Miranda and Charlotte—are married with children or with kids on the way. This is a politically regressive, retrograde construction of female sexuality, and the lesbians have faded from sight, not part of this particular hetero equation. As David Greven writes of the series, “[It] reinforces the notion that gay [male] sex is transitory, fleeting, intangible, but that heterosexual sex is forever” (42). I suggest a similar argument be made for lesbian sex or any other nonnormative sexual practices as they are represented in the show. Throughout Sex and the City, lesbianism is coded in racialized terms in order to exoticize it; for Maria, Patty, and Eileen, their race is aligned with a taboo, an other-than-white, other-than-norm characterization that maintains distinct and separate spheres of existence. In the show, the lesbians of color are the “authentic” lesbians who play the gate-keepers, like bouncers for the straight white women who want admission to the club. While Sex and the City celebrates female friendships, this is only as long as they are maintained and contained within a heteronormative framework, and sexual relationships between women become a commodity to be used and discarded, excluded altogether from the narrative economy. Sex in the City conflates queer/lesbian female sexuality with art and food, as something to be consumed and later expelled, or just bought on a whim with no thinking, no strings attached, and no real consequences for the consumer.

Queer female sexuality gets folded into a discourse of temporary erotic adventure-seeking, or as just another fashionable accessory to be added to or incorporated within a heteronormative sexual morality and reaffirming the narrative’s heterocentricity. To echo Judith Butler’s words about queer-themed films such as Paris is Burning, though Sex and the City is “surely important to read as [a] cultural text in which homophobia and homosexual panic are negotiated, I would be reticent to call [it] subversive” (126).

Notes

I would like to thank Nicole King and Meg Wesling for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.

1. The show debuted on the U.S. network WB on September 19, 2005.

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2. I refer to Reading Sex and the City, edited by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe.

London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.

3. For the purposes of my discussion, I use “queer” interchangeably with “lesbian,” as both point to the non-heternormative ways in which women express their sexuality or are coded themselves as nonnormative, either in terms of race and/or gender.

4. Melissa Etheridge’s former partner, Julie Cypher, who apparently left Lou Diamond Phillips for Etheridge; Anne Heche’s well-publicized, well-criticized denial of her lesbianism after having been in the spotlight as a couple with Ellen Degeneres; Sex and the City’s own Cynthia Nixon announcing she is now with a woman after being with her (male) high school sweetheart, and father of her two children, for fifteen years.

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CHAPTER 9

“This Is the Way We Live . . . and

Love!”: Feeding on and Still

Hungering for Lesbian

Representation in The L Word

Marnie Pratt

Representation (re•p•re•sen•ta•tion):

Noun:

1. The act of representing or the state of being represented.

2. Something that represents, as:

a. An image or likeness of something.

b. An account or statement, as of facts or arguments.

c. An expostulation; a protest.

d. A presentation or production, as of a play.

3. The state or condition of serving as an official delegate, agent, or spokesperson.

4. The right or privilege of being represented by delegates having a voice in a legislative body.

— American Heritage College Dictionary, 1180

Interdisciplinary scholars spend a significant amount of time discussing the concept of representation. We use it in conversations with our colleagues and friends. We attempt to explain it to our students. And, of course, we use it in our own work. As Richard Dyer explains, work on 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 136

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representation “is ‘images of ’ analysis of the kind that has burgeoned in the past twenty years” ( The Matter of Images 1). In fact, the term is used so often, scholars rarely provide any precise definition for the term. In most instances, they seem to utilize the term to mean definition number two given earlier:

“something that represents as an image or likeness” ( American Heritage College Dictionary 1180). For example, in Outlaw Culture, bell hooks equates representation with “popular culture” and “cultural icons” (4) and in Framing Blackness, she relates it to the “black image” (3). Both of these scholars’ work suggests a discussion of popular cultural images that “represent” certain groups or individuals.

Dyer also argues that much work on representation has only “demonstrate[d] that everything is the same and it’s all awful” ( The Matter of Images 1).

He believes that this type of reasoning is reductive and “does rather little politically” (1). Instead, he argues for a more nuanced and multifaceted analysis that is willing to acknowledge both positive and negative impacts of representations in popular culture. However, on the other hand, hooks warns against focusing too much on possible positive impacts of popular culture:

The desire to “appear cool” or “down” has led to the production of a body of cultural studies work in the United States that appropriates and rewrites the scripts and meanings of popular culture in ways that attribute to diverse cultural practices subversive, radical transgressive intent and power even when there is little evidence to suggest this is the case. . . . Voyeuristic cannibalization of popular culture by cultural critics is definitely dangerous when the intent is purely opportunistic. However, when we desire to decolonize minds and imaginations, cultural studies’s [ sic] focus on popular culture can be and is a powerful site for intervention, challenge, and change. ( Outlaw Culture 4)

A mediation of the term representation could hold profound implications for its use and tap into the “intervention, challenge, and change” that hooks identifies.

I return to Richard Dyer because I feel he has come closest to the mediated definition I propose. In The Matter of Images, he states: How a group is represented, presented over again in cultural forms, how an image of a member of a group is taken as representative of that group, how that group is represented in the sense of spoken for and on behalf of (whether they represent, speak for themselves or not), these all have to do with how members of groups see themselves and others like themselves, 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 137

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how they see their place in society, their right to the rights a society claims to ensure its citizens. (1)

While Dyer is certainly getting at definitions similar to those implied by hooks, he is also touching upon a meaning that implies “the state or condition of serving as and official delegate” or “the right or privilege of being represented” ( American Heritage College Dictionary 1180). I contend that when we rethink representation to also mean one of these definitions we are left with a very different approach and one that opens up new possibilities of change for marginalized groups within mainstream media.

This essay seeks to illustrate these possibilities with the definitional interplay of the term representation by demonstrating its application within the successful television drama The L Word. I begin with an analysis of The L Word using the more “traditional” definition of representation, but attempting to use Dyer’s more nuanced approach by showing the positive and negative aspects of what the series does regarding lesbian representations. I then focus upon the conversation developing between The L Word’s creators and audience to illustrate the possibilities for change and progress opened up when the term “representation” is mediated to mean both “an image or likeness” and “the condition of serving as an official delegate, agent, or spokesperson” ( American Heritage College Dictionary 1180). While this may seem to be an abstract or idyllic concept, the audience communities for The L Word appear to be utilizing this interplay to their advantage by fostering a sense of accountability that has led to changes within the show’s format and approach.

Lesbians Find Their Way to the Small Screen

The L Word is, of course, not the first television program to have lesbian characters. There have been lesbian characters on several cable and regular network series throughout recent years, such as on ER, Friends, Queer as Folk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, of course, Ellen. The majority of the lesbian characters on these programs were either peripheral or secondary characters.

Ellen’s main character, Ellen Morgan (Ellen Degeneres), was a groundbreaking exception; however, the character was unfortunately short-lived after actually coming out. What sets The L Word apart is not only the fact that the majority of its main characters are lesbians, but also that these characters’

lives, relationships, and political or social issues are the focus of the series.

Creator Ilene Chaiken pitched the project (then called Earthlings), loosely based on her own life experiences, to an uninterested Showtime in the late 1990s (Rosenduft 20). Shortly thereafter, however, Showtime scored a big hit 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 138

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with Queer as Folk and HBO had high ratings with Sex and the City. These shows proved that there were significant audiences for both all queer and all female character lineups. In 2001, Showtime went back to Chaiken to see whether she was still interested in combining the two (Rosenduft 23).

The L Word became an overnight sensation for Chaiken and Showtime. It debuted in January 2004 to mostly positive media reviews, has since reached more than 500,000 viewers per season (Cole, “Season 3” para. 2), and became the most quickly renewed series in Showtime’s history (Rosenduft 23). It was renewed for a second season after only two episodes and for a third season before the premier episode of season two (McDermott 26). The L Word’s success has also been felt in the second market of DVD sales, which according to Chaiken “are through the roof ” (quoted in Stockwell 48). This success also reflects The L Word’s highly devoted fan base. “Enthusiastic fans trade show secrets and leak spoilers or plot lines through weblogs, unofficial websites, and gossip circles” (Rosenduft 19). In fact, online fan communities began appearing before the pilot episode even aired. Most notable of these are www.l-word.com and www.thelwordonline.com. The former has over 30,000 members and around 150,000 visitors per month (Jacky) and the latter averages around 11,000 visitors a day (“The L Word Online—Site Summary”). Anne Ramsay (Robin), a guest actor on The L Word, attempted the following explanation for the overwhelming fan response: “I think [the lesbian community] is starving, and has been for years” (quoted in McDermott 27). However, a downside to the program’s pioneer status and resultant hungry fans is that this audience is also expectant and demanding.

The show’s most loyal fans have become its most challenging critics. Actor Leisha Hailey (Alice) explains, “There’s so much pressure on this one show, the first of its kind, to represent every dyke or lesbian in the world” (quoted in Champagne para. 14). However, Chaiken remains positive about the criticism, “I love that we have a passionate audience who seem to love the show but also take[s] issue with lots of things we do. I welcome that exchange”

(quoted in Wilkinson 24). It is within this exchange that viewers have the opportunity to rethink the definition of representation.

The L Word as “Image of” Representation

It cannot be denied that The L Word is groundbreaking television and that it deserves to be commended for a wealth of great features. For example, the characters are believable and complex and the series has dealt with a variety of tough topics in smart ways, such as coming out, childbearing, abuse/exploitation of women, substance addiction, and gay marriage. The show has also been cutting edge in many of its depictions of sexual encounters. Sexual 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 139

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practices are discussed frankly and realistically through the depictions of both long-term committed and “one night stand” relationships. A pregnant character was maintained as a sexually viable individual throughout season two.

When the often-stereotyped topic of strap-on dildos surfaced, not only was it depicted on screen, but the accompanying discussion also broke down common cultural assumptions by stressing that their use was not because lesbians need penises for sex (2.9). And, finally, the show strays from many other queer depictions in that it has shown relatively little homophobia or violence against its characters. The show depicts a somewhat utopian environment.

According to Joy Press of The Village Voice, “Everywhere they go resembles a hermetically sealed world of lesbian loveliness” (para. 7). While this has sometimes become a point of critique for the show, it also serves as a very necessary counterpoint to a wealth of other films and television programs dealing with serious, and often depressing, topics related to lesbian life. In other words, for viewers who deal with discrimination on a daily basis, sometimes it can be important to escape, and The L Word fulfills this need. For example, one fan explains in a letter reprinted from L-word.com in the “bonus features” section of the season two DVD set, “The show was my only source of comfort, an escape from my own reality” (Colenickel). Another fan clarifies,

“We [are] able to find women in a homonormative environment . . . if I wanted to see real life I would look in the mirror” (Angelak).

Similar to this concept of escapism is the necessity of community.

Performance artist Tim Miller and theater scholar David Roman discuss how queer performance is often written off by mainstream culture as “preaching to the converted” (172). In a predominantly homophobic culture that consistently discriminates against and further limits the rights and voices of its homosexual members, however, these performances can be important, if not critical, for the communities they represent (Miller and Roman 172). Miller and Roman describe the importance of queer performance spaces: lesbians and gay men interested in theatre that spoke explicitly about lesbian and gay issues now [post-Stonewall, as queer, community-based theaters developed] had a theatre within the public sphere where subcultural codes, vernaculars, and customs could be articulated and shared, negotiated and contested . . . Together these people forged energies to simulate and enact a sense of queer history and queer community . . . The idea of forging community, however tentative or utopian, rested on the assumptions that community is a political necessity and a viable possibility. (173–174) In other words, queer performance spaces become a safe venue for individuals to create a community, find support, make their voice be heard, and “be 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 140

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absorbed into a critical mass of subcultural resistance to the heteronormative muscle [they] must encounter continually in [their] daily lives” (Miller and Roman 176). The community of viewers that has developed around The L

Word is definitely reminiscent of Miller and Roman’s queer performance space. Fans on websites created around the show have developed friendships, shared coming out stories, traded fan fiction,1 and communicated advice and support for each other.

All of these aspects of The L Word and what it offers its audience should be commended, with the hope that they will break down stereotypes as part of what Chaiken describes as the “evolution of cultural attitudes” (quoted in

“Lesbian life, love on The L Word” para. 25). However, while the series may at times be the aforementioned “lesbian loveliness” (Press para. 7), the representations are not always “the way we live and love,” as the show’s theme song suggests (Betty).

Without a doubt, the most highly critiqued aspect of the show (by fans and critics alike) is the appearance of the main characters. Writer and actor Guinevere Turner explains:

One of the biggest complaints I hear from lesbians about the television show . . . is that the women on the show are all so girly and un-gay-looking.

“Where’s the big old truck-driving tattooed dyke?” one woman stood up and asked at a panel discussion with the creative team of the show. “I don’t know any women who look like those women!” (para. 2)

In early reviews of the show, journalists discussed the look of the women on the show as “cute and shiny” (Theobald 5), “beautiful” (Hensley 48), and

“smart, successful, impossibly thin women with perfect, choppy haircuts”

(Press para. 3). The women are all very thin, conventionally attractive, well groomed, heavily made up, and highly fashionable. In fact, more than one of the actors has spent some time in modeling; in the 1980s, Jennifer Beals (Bette) was rated the top “pin up” girl after her success in Flashdance, and Sarah Shahi (Carmen) is a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. In the lesbian community, these women would all be considered “femmes.”

A similar critique often leveled at the show regarding its representation of the lesbian community deals with its lack of racially and ethnically diverse characters. Almost all of the characters are white, with the exception of Bette, who is biracial, and Carmen, who is Latina. However, Carmen did not join the cast until the second season, after the show had received some of this criticism. Even more interesting, there is one core African American character on the show, Kit (Pam Grier); however, Kit is not a lesbian. She is one of the two main cast members who are straight (the other is male). Kit is also the only 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 141

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larger-bodied woman on the show. All of these things taken together create the impression that the show is equating very specific conceptions of beauty, race, and ethnicity with queerness.

During the first season and shortly afterward, the most common response to these early criticisms from those involved with the show is that the cast is realistic for L.A. “It’s just the way L.A. is” (Turner para. 3). Another popular response is that since the show is loosely based on Chaiken’s life, these people represent her personal experiences. One of The L Word’s director’s Rose Troche explains, “These characters are not every woman. They are not every lesbian. They’re a very real depiction of a group of L.A. lesbians based on Ilene’s own experiences” (quoted in Hensely 48). While both of these responses may be reasonable,2 what makes them particularly problematic for the represented community is that The L Word is the first show of its kind. As a result, it is painting one of the initial pictures of lesbian life for the rest of the world. In addition, it is feeding the needs of a represented community that has had very little previous television images of themselves.

Another aspect of the show that is problematic regarding representation is how it has dealt with transgender issues. Near the end of season one, the character Ivan (Kelly Lynch) was introduced as a love interest for Kit. It was suggested that Ivan identified as a man and he appeared to be placed in the show to represent and discuss issues of the transgender community’s intersection with the lesbian community. The show began to intelligently explore these issues through discussions between Bette and Kit, where Kit defends Ivan as being able to be who he wishes to be. Bette insists that he is a woman and that the heterosexual Kit should not get involved with him (2.1). However, shortly into the second season, Ivan is quickly removed from the plot. He gives Kit a key to his apartment and she arrives there at one point unannounced. Ivan is in the shower and Kit enters his bedroom.

She sees his strap-on dildo on the dresser and then witnesses him emerge from the bathroom nearly nude. Ivan does not speak except to shake his head and utter “no.” He then pushes Kit out of the room and yells at her to leave (2.1). Kit attempts to regain a relationship with Ivan throughout several more episodes, but he refuses and eventually disappears from the story line. Ivan does reappear in a later episode at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with Kit only to divulge that he apparently had a whole separate life while he was dating her (2.9). He then disappears for the remainder of the season.

Issues related to the intersections of the lesbian and transgender communities have been very controversial over the last several years.3 The L Word should be commended for its apparent attempt to address some of these issues; however, it also should be more careful in how it depicts them. These 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 142

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scenes between Kit and Ivan can be read as if Kit’s viewing of Ivan’s detached phallus and attached breasts suddenly made him an unacceptable character for Kit and the series. While other characters on the show are allowed to have such attributes, characters that have them and identify as male are rendered unacceptable. The writer’s uneven treatment of this story arc may reflect the difficult tensions within the lesbian community at this historical moment; however, the sudden dismissal of the character and the way in which this was executed treats transgender individuals as disposable and unworthy of the community.

Mediating Representation with The L Word Chaiken has often proclaimed that Showtime has little control over her creative process with the show. In fact, according to one interview, the network has made only one demand of her. Showtime required her to include a straight male character in season two (Fonseca 41). This character was intended to cater to the straight male audience of the show. As Showtime’s President of Entertainment Robert Greenblatt explains, “We thought it would be good for the male audience to have a guy they could relate to”

(quoted in Fonseca 41). However, it also seems possible that Showtime’s executives may have a bit more influence than simply this one character request.

In another interview, Greenblatt has stated, “[I]t must be liberating for Ilene to do a series about her own experiences, but ultimately, we want people everywhere to buy it. So yes, the women are all attractive and we make no apologies about that. It’s television. Who wants to watch unattractive people, gay, straight or whatever?” (quoted in Glock 38). Not only does this comment indicate an unaddressed level of control on the part of Showtime, but it also indicates that they appear to be designating what is to be considered

“attractive” for the rest of the world. Regardless of the fact that Greenblatt himself is a gay man, The L Word clearly appears to be under the same heteronormative conceptions of gender and beauty as most other aspects of popular culture.

These types of control are what Richard Dyer labels as power relations. He explains that they plague popular media representations because they “put the weight of control over representation on the side of the rich, the white, the male, [and] the heterosexual” ( The Matter of Images 2). Since media representations are so pervasive and have such a powerful cultural influence, the possibility of shifting the control of this media could be of great cultural importance. Or, as scholar Jennifer Pozner asserts in an article on feminist media, “Control of the media is the single most important issue of our time”

(37). What makes The L Word most interesting (and most applicable to this 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 143

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study) is that it does appear to have made an effort to respond to, or “converse with” its critics (fan and otherwise). In doing so, the creators have allowed the audience to think of the series’ representations as both “image[s] or likeness[es]” and “official delegate[s], agent[s], or spokes[people]” ( American Heritage Dictionary 1180). This has altered the dynamic of power relations and control described by Dyer.

Before discussing how the conversation between the audience and creators of The L Word has played out and impacted the show, it is critical to establish its actual existence. The easily ascertained side to the conversation is the audience. They are clearly communicating about the show with each other and with the intention of reaching the creators. As has already been mentioned, websites are filled with discussion boards, editorials, reviews, petitions, and blogs. One way in which it has been made evident that Showtime and Chaiken are interested in the input of this audience is that the show’s official website (www.sho.com) encourages these discussions by including the same types of material as the fan-based sites. Showtime’s website includes message boards, editorials, blogs, and fan fiction links specifically related to The L

Word. Showtime and the creators even held a web-based contest in 2006 for fan fiction writers to create their own episode of the series, which they called

“the fanisode.” Furthermore, Chaiken and the cast have made it abundantly clear through interviews that they are willing to hear from the audience on fan websites, as well.

In numerous interviews (some even with the developers of these types of sites), cast and crew members have mentioned reading, frequenting, and even being members of fan websites, such as www.l-word.com and www.

thelwordonline.com. For example, at an autograph signing with Chaiken and actor Pam Grier in Atlanta, GA, the two interviewed with the fan website www.l-word.com and both admitted in the interview that they frequent and enjoy the site. In fact, Grier stated, “Hey, I go to the site, too. I belong to the site” (Cole para. 2). At a fan convention interview in the United Kingdom, cast member Laurel Holloman (Tina) mentions both reading fan mail and visiting the fan websites. “I’ve been there [www.l-word.com]. It’s the biggest website we have . . . And I think the other girls visit it too. I know Leisha does and Kate [Moennig, who plays Shane] does” (Watson para. 62). Even actors who play more peripheral characters admit to reading the fan sites. In an interview with Meredith McGeachie (Tonya) by www.l-word.com, she confirms, “I think the website is fantastic. Erin [Daniels, who plays Dana]

told me at one point that there was a Tonya thing so just to go and look and I did and I was like, ‘wow’ ” (Watson para. 11).

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actual creative process. For that, we will turn once more to Chaiken: I try to strike a balance when I read the message boards, which I do occasionally, and when I hear from fans and viewers. I’m interested and enlightened and probably subconsciously influenced. I care a lot about what the show’s fans think. The writers and I ultimately will tell the stories that we believe are the right stories to tell, that are the truest stories, but it’s significant to us what the people who have been watching the show think about the characters and their lives. (Chaiken para. 6) It seems clear that not only is there an audience and creator interaction, but there is also openness for that interaction to impact the series and its representations.

As the series progressed into seasons two and three, it began to appear as if it was responding directly to some of the critiques leveled at its content. A wider variety of queer individuals began to appear in these seasons. Not only was Latina lesbian Carmen added to the main cast in season two, but there are also more women of color and gender-variant peripheral or supporting characters. An announcement was also made that another Latina character will be added to season four (“L Word ‘Shepherds’” para. 2).

In addition, season three addressed the tensions created among audience members over the poor representation and eventual loss of the character Ivan with the introduction of Moira (Daniela Sea). Moira became the first self-identifying and visibly “butch” character for the main cast of the show. Moira is a friend and love interest for Jenny (Mia Kirshner), who moves with Jenny from Illinois to L.A. Shortly after arriving, it is revealed that Moira actually wishes to become Max and he then begins to transition throughout the season.

Max’s transition became one of the main plotlines of the season, and is, therefore, given a significant amount of screentime and discussion. While some of the dialogue over Max’s story arc appeared forced and rudimentary, the show also appeared to have done at least some of its homework by addressing issues such as the financial difficulties of transitioning, social repercussions, violence, and the emotional strain sometimes felt by transitioning individuals.

Intersections between transgender and lesbian communities are also addressed in conversations that deal with difficult arguments about “giving up being a woman” or “losing all the strong butch warriors” (3.9). And tensions are depicted between a character who undergoes a mastectomy due to breast cancer and Max, who is anxious to undergo top surgery (3.8).

I feel it is important to point out that I am not, by any means, trying to say that these changes have made The L Word a perfect or even a great representation of lesbian life. Nor am I arguing that they do not bring up new 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 145

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difficulties and challenges for representation. For example, as of the end of season three, Carmen is still only one additional main cast member who is a woman of color, and the actor playing the character, Shahi, is actually of Spanish and Iranian decent, not Hispanic. Moira/Max is problematic because the show seems to be hoping to depict butch identity, transgender issues, and class struggle all through one character, which seems to be too much. As a result, not only do these attributes get forced into an equation with each other, but the character is also rather unlikable at times because he is representing so much. Instead, what I am arguing is that these instances are examples of how the interactions between audience and creators are impact-ing The L Word. Carmen is a step forward from having no diverse racial or ethnic representations, and Max, who has a voice and developed story line, is a tremendous step forward from Ivan.

The communicative approach taken by The L Word ’s audience members appears to have created a sense of responsibility on the part of its creators and enabled the series’ representations (images of ) to simultaneously be representatives (delegates or spokespeople) for the lesbian and queer community. And while creator Chaiken often tries to maintain that her main responsibility is to storytelling instead of that community, she also appears well aware of whose stories she is actually telling. “Representation is so important to people,” she explains. “Lesbians have never had a show of our own before, so I understand all of the fan ranting and raving out there about it. Even more so than with other shows, the fans own this show. It’s not my show; it’s theirs”

(quoted in Littleton 13).

Looking Forward

At a lecture given by Ilene Chaiken during a seminar on queer television, an unidentified audience member stood up with tears in her eyes to proclaim her gratitude to Chaiken. “I grew up in the 60s. When I was a teenager it was rough. You are doing something besides making entertainment. You are performing a public service. You’re not just creating television. You are saving lives” (quoted in Glock 26). I am alternately touched and concerned by this quote. On one hand, the heartfelt and painful honesty that this reveals regarding the importance of media representations for lesbian communities is moving. However, I am also profoundly troubled by the level of investment it indicates some viewers are experiencing for this television program. What is it about popular media representations that would lead an individual to this type of statement regarding a commodity of popular culture? I believe that this audience member’s investment is tied to queer culture’s long struggle with “the closet” and visibility.

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In her landmark work Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick states,

“Vibrantly resonant as the image of the closet is for many modern oppressions, it is indicative for homophobia in a way it cannot be for other oppressions. Racism, for instance, is based on a stigma that is visible in all but exceptional cases . . . so are the oppressions based on gender, age, size, physical handicap” (75). While some may argue that Sedgwick’s statement is a bit generalizing, I still wonder if this does not indicate something specific for queer communities and their relationship with representational visibility. For a group of individuals so indoctrinated by the concept of the closet, of hiding something significant to their beings, is it not possible that visibility is somehow more crucial? It is the “fundamental feature of social life” that the closet creates that I believe makes popular culture representations so critical to queer culture and the queer movement (Sedgwick 68). These images are long overdue representatives as well as representations.

The L Word has provided its audience the very critical validation through visibility it desires and even though the series is still struggling to achieve positive representations, it is crucial that the show exists and succeeds. After all, without The L Word ’s success, television executives, creators, and writers will not be interested in creating more shows like it. However, it is also critical that its audience continue to mediate how the term representation is thought of in popular culture. This mediated definition and conversational approach allows for the struggle over media representations to be both about the existence of images and the accuracy of those images when they do exist.

Notes

1. In an essay from The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, author Marianne MacDonald described fan fiction (or “fanfic”) as “fiction written by the fans of any popular narrative, be it a novel, a TV series, or a film” (28). These stories are published both online and within fan-based magazines. For further information on fan fiction see Henry Jenkins’s 1992 book Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture.

2. In the director commentary section for the lesbian film Mango Kiss, director Sascha Rice discusses a similar situation when she states that she could “not find a butch [actor] in L.A.” This film is set in San Francisco, but was cast in L.A.

3. It is very difficult to offer any quick explanation for the rather recent controversies between lesbian and transgender individuals. However, much of this conflict lies within the historical ideas of radical lesbian feminist politics, which often centered its ideas on women’s universal experiences. As Zachary I. Nataf states, “For cultural feminism the source of an authentic women’s consciousness had its roots in the female body as testament and ‘truth’” (441). Transgender politics has called this idea into question and sometimes resulted in confusion, mistrust, and exclusion of 9780230600805ts11.qxd 12-10-07 09:00 PM Page 147

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transgender individuals from lesbian and feminist communities. Transgender activist Susan Stryker believes that “the fight over transgender inclusion within feminism is not significantly different, in many respects, from other fights [over inclusion]. . . . Transgender phenomena challenge the unifying potential of the category ‘woman,’ and call for new analyses, new strategies and practices, for com-bating discrimination and injustice based on gender inequality” (Stryker 7). For a much more thorough investigation of these issues, please see the 2006 anthology The Transgender Studies Reader edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle.

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CHAPTER 10

“Everything Else Is the Same”:

Configurations of The L Word

M. Catherine Jonet and

Laura Anh Williams

It’s a series that addresses mainstream culture more so than people realize [. . .] We all know somebody in the family or a friend who is gay or lesbian. A few years ago, that fact was never discussed. But now with this show [ The L Word] and some of the others, people who wouldn’t normally go out of their way to find out more about gay or lesbian family members can have an inside glimpse. They see that they have the same issues we all have in raising a family and what it’s like to maintain a relationship. Their sexual orientation is different, but their life goals, their professional anxiety, everything else is the same.

—Rose Lam, producer of The L Word, in Bennett

“Producers Like Telling the Truth with

Showtime’s The L Word,” 14.

L is Maddening

In both U.S. film and television, the representation of lesbian desire has a long history of being a site of invisibility, tragedy, monstrosity, and of pornographic fantasy. Lesbian theorists such as Terry Castle in her classic text, The Apparitional Lesbian note, “When it comes to lesbians, [. . .] many people 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 150

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have trouble seeing what’s in front of them” (2). Queer theorists have also interrogated the displacing and attempted erasure of women’s same-sex desire in what Judith Butler has famously called a heterosexual matrix of power ( Gender Trouble 30). In The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick writes about the power of ignorance or “unknowing” in the regulation of difference and visibility. She refers to the power of unknowing “not as a vacuum or as the blank it can pretend to be but as a weighty and occupied and consequential epistemological space” (77). Similarly, in her discussion of Monique Wittig’s “The Straight Mind,” Butler writes, “Discourse becomes oppressive when it requires that the speaking subject, in order to speak, participate in the very terms of that oppression—that is, take for granted the speaking subject’s own impossibility or unintelligibility” ( Gender Trouble 147). Lesbians are under particular erasure, for within certain discourses, as Butler observes, “Lesbianism is not explicitly prohibited in part because it has not yet even made its way into the thinkable, the imaginable, that grid of cultural intelligibility that regulates the real and the nameable” (“Imitation” 312). Oppression through discourse functions, not only through overt prohibition, but also by constructing what Butler calls “viable subjects” of discourse, and also, through exclusion, the “unvi-able (un)subject” (312). As Judith Halberstam summarizes, “When Butler, and other queer theorists single out lesbianism for analytic scrutiny, they already break with a philosophical tradition that understands lesbianism as the hidden or occluded sexuality” (“Queer Lesbian Studies” 257). These conditions become particularly prevalent in the history of visual representations of lesbians in popular culture.

Visual representation of lesbians has often fallen back on convenient stereotyping. In her essay, “Lesbian Bodies,” Barbara Creed discusses the proliferation of stereotypes of lesbians in motion picture history. She elaborates: With the advent of the cinema, stereotypes of the lesbian, which draw so heavily on the visual, were represented in increasing variety. Here we find the lesbian in a range of guises: mannish imposter ( Walk on the Wild Side), fanged vampire ( The Hunger), virginal victim ( Vampire Lovers), predatory school teacher ( Vampire Lovers), man-eating monster ( Basic Instinct), child woman ( The Killing of Sister George), chic femme beauty ( Les Biches), narcissistic double ( Single White Female), prim professor ( Desert Hearts), sophisticated seducer ( Morocco), tomboy ( The Fox), frustrated nun ( Extramuros), depressed loner ( Rachel, Rachel), suicidal depressive ( The Children’s Hour). (87)

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hero. When it is visually represented, lesbian desire is often grounds for violence: Single White Female (1992) , Heavenly Creatures (1994) , Lost and Delirious (2001) , High Tension (2003) , My Summer of Love (2004); or else is a provisional desire to be returned to its rightful male recipient: Personal Best (1982) , Three of Hearts (1993) , Higher Learning (1995) , Showgirls (1995) , Kissing Jessica Stein (2001); and in some cases, both, as in Basic Instinct (1992) and Mulholland Drive (2001).1

The history of lesbian representation in television offers fewer, though no less problematic examples. Beginning in the 1980s, popular network series began incorporating story lines including lesbian characters. Marguerite J.

Moritz catalogues some of these in her article, “Old Strategies for New Texts: How American Television is Creating and Treating Lesbian Characters,”

“Golden Girls, Kate and Allie, L.A. Law, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, Hunter, and Hotel— some of the most popular shows on TV—all have had episodes (since 1985) with lesbian parts”(126). In these series, the narrative closure was often achieved through death or punishment of the lesbian body.

In others, she argues, “recuperation is achieved not through punishment or death but through the reaffirmation of patriarchy as it plays out in the lives of the other characters in the show” (130).

This narrative structure continues to play out as the trope of lesbianism is deployed in popular primetime network television shows including CSI, Law and Order (death and punishment), and Ally McBeal (return to compulsory heterosexuality). In 1997 ABC’s situational comedy Ellen featured performer Ellen DeGeneres, who, along with her character Ellen Morgan, came out as lesbian. But coming out did not guarantee opportunities for a break with her

“daffy, well-scrubbed, asexual” characterization (Bolonik). The show faced backlash with the advertisers pulling funds and the series’ eventual cancellation. Two of NBC’s Thursday night “must see TV” lineup— ER and Friends— at the height of their popularity featured recurring lesbian characters. However, the characterizations therein offer little in the way of visible lesbian desire, and as Sedgwick states, “Even the most interesting lesbian possibilities on recent TV have been neutered by lack of context—if not the active suppression of their context” (“The L Word” B10). As Kera Bolonik cites in her article “Not Your Mother’s Lesbians,” “We met Ross Geller’s (David Schwimmer) ex-wife Carol, a granola-head, and her stoic partner, Susan, in earlier seasons of Friends, and while it was conveyed that the two had a lot of sex early on in their relationship, they would seem to have settled into a cuddle groove before disappearing from the show altogether.” Ross’s lesbian ex-wife functions as a comic device, rather than an actual characterization, used to highlight Ross’s own insecurities or the absurdity of two women having a baby together or getting married.2 ER’s lesbian characters 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 152

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share similar fates of erasure. Sedgwick points out that the character Maggie Doyle (Jorja Fox) was introduced as the lesbian doctor, “but over the next three seasons her character withered for lack of attention” (B10). In the 2001

season, another major character, Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) maintained a major story line of falling in love with a woman psychiatrist, Dr. Kim Legaspi (Elizabeth Mitchell—who also costarred in HBO’s tragic lesbian themed film Gia) and coming out. However, as Sedgwick continues, “even now that she is out and has a lover and an ex, [. . .] the matrix of narrative support for her is so exiguous that her lesbian plot can be dropped for a season at a time without disturbing the show’s illusion of continuity”(B11).

Likewise, two popular HBO series, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City occasionally offered episodes with lesbian characters. In its penultimate season, Six Feet Under featured a plot in which art school student Clare Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) expresses erotic desire for performance poet Edie (Mena Suvari). However, in three short episodes, Clare is unable to consummate her lesbian relationship and immediately thereafter experiences her first orgasm with male classmate Jimmy (Peter Facinelli). On Sex and the City, lesbians were viewed as asexual foils to the heterosexual central characters as well as hypersexual trendsetters who only allow other “dykes” to mingle among their ranks.3

A handful of syndicated television series with cult fan bases have sustained lesbian characters over longer periods of time. Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s supporting character Willow Rosenberg (Alison Hannigan) came out as a lesbian during the fourth season. However, Willow and her girlfriend Tara share the narrative trajectory with the tradition of murderous lesbians. When Tara is killed in season six, Willow becomes a murderous, evil, “vengeance wreaking super-witch” (Beirne “Queering the Slayer-Text”).4 The “groundbreaking”

Showtime series Queer as Folk centers on a group of six “fabulous” gay men and two lesbian characters. However, the lesbian plotlines often exist at the periphery of the show, and more often than not, exist to contrast with the

“fabulousness” of the gay male narratives.5 Only the lesbian cult favorite series Xena: Warrior Princess sustained a lesbian relationship between central characters Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor), which moved from subtext to super-text over the course of the series’ six seasons and at fans’ insistence.

Rolling the Ls

From this history of lesbian representation emerges Showtime’s other

“groundbreaking” series, The L Word. Premiering in North America on January 18, 2004, the fictional series follows the lives of a group of women 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 153

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friends living in Los Angeles who, with the exception of a few characters, identify as lesbian/queer. Criticized and vaunted as well as loved and loathed, The L Word has emerged in the words of Candace Moore, as “a landmark in lesbian representation” (38). Whether or not The L Word proves to be a landmark once the “newness” wears off remains to be seen, but it will at least figure as a rest stop, a blip on the proverbial radar screen to be mapped, identified, commented on, derided, and possibly even handed far more definitional power than it would ever want to accept. The L Word is here, and it is now. The show, as Dan Bennett puts it in his article for Video Store Magazine is significant “as no television series had ever so completely delved into the lives and loves of an extended group of lesbians, their friends, and family members before The L Word” (14). On a closer examination, does this series delve “so completely” as Bennett notes? Is “everything else the same” as the show’s producer Rose Lam states in this chapter’s epigraph, suggesting the series differs from the rest of television only in its portrayal of sexual orientation (14)? Is Lam’s promise of an “inside glimpse” into the lives of queer women realized (14)?

In the same article in which Moore calls the series a landmark in lesbian representation, she characterizes the show in this way:

As to whether The L Word is politically positive, or just another queerly cloaked tentacle of conglomerate capitalism? (Showtime is owned by Viacom, after all.) Well, that’s another matter. . . . While The L Word isn’t perfect, the engrossing cable series is a sly critique of patriarchal, heterosexist society. The show offers multiple visions of what it means to be a queer woman, and its portrayals have become more varied and accurate as the show has had time to develop. (38)

Turning attention away from the program’s position within a massive capital-ist conglomerate, Moore instead focuses on the show’s “sly critique” and its

“varied and accurate” portrayals. However, her comment on the show’s “sly critique of patriarchal, heterosexist society” places the series in a different space than one of representation or “accuracy,” which is where discussions of the show, as Lam and Bennett’s comments attest, generally locate it. Perhaps The L Word is remarkable not because it is the first television series to focus almost exclusively on the lives of a group of queer women, but because it is a show that continually interrogates and critiques lesbian representation itself, in both mainstream and lesbian culture.

This chapter argues that The L Word is a “restive” text. Barbara Page in her 1996 essay, “Women Writers and the Restive Text: Feminism, Experimental Writing and Hypertext” maintains that the restive text is the product of 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 154

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contemporary experimental feminist writers, such as Carole Maso, whose

“restiveness” is more than a struggle with established forms or even conventions (para. 2). Restiveness is that sense of anxiety and unease brought about by restriction, by a feeling of impatience in the face of external coercion.

Restiveness is produced by the work of feminist writers who engage in normalized notions of theme, plot, literary form, and even language itself in order to rearrange them and relate to them differently from the gendered, racist, heterosexist, and classist norms of her society. Such writers, Page contends, as a rule, take for granted that language itself and much of canonical literature encode hierarchies of value that denigrate and subordinate women, and therefore they incorporate into their work a strategically critical or oppositional posture, as well as a search for alternative forms of composition. They do not accept the notion, however, that language is hopelessly inimical or alien to their interests, and so move beyond the call for some future reform of language to an intervention—exuberant or wary—in present discourses. (2)

The L Word, too, does not accept the notion that visual media is necessarily inimical to queer women, women of color, and/or working-class women. It searches for alternatives to the extant body of lesbian representation, while interrogating this representation. Page states that the aim of writers she terms restive “is to rend the surface of language and to reshape it into forms more hospitable to the historical lives of women and to an esthetic of the will and desire of a self-apprehended female body that is an end unto itself and not simply instrumental”(2). The L Word attempts to rend the surface of lesbian representation to reshape it to a form that is more hospitable to queer women, and it seeks to dislodge the usage of female same-sex sexuality as instrumental to heterosexuality.

Judith Roof in her text, A Lure of Knowledge, provides a useful framework for approaching lesbian representation. Roof employs the concept of “configurations” to describe how “lesbian sexuality occupies certain specific locations or positions” in discourses as wide ranging as cultural narrative, cinema, literature, and psychoanalysis (4). Roof conceives of configurations as “different from an analysis of lesbian images, a study of lesbian portrayal, or making any claims for lesbian women or lesbian sexuality per se” (5–6). She notes: Across these discourses, lesbian sexuality tends to be represented in the same range of configurations in similar rhetorical or argumentative positions. As titillating foreplay, simulated heterosexuality, exotic excess, knowing center, joking inauthenticity, artful compromise, and masculine 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 155

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mask, configurations of lesbian sexuality embody the conflicting impetuses of representational insufficiency and recuperation. (4–5) The conflicting impetuses of representational insufficiency and recuperation are part and parcel of The L Word’s restiveness. Its representation of lesbians and queer women will always be insufficient. It will never achieve the “truth,”

authenticity, or even the “inside glimpse” described by Lam. However, in interpreting it as supplement, it can get at such concepts, haunt them, and be haunted by them. It can upset the “phallocentric terms” in which lesbian representation is most often configured (Roof 74). In the end, as Roof argues about Diane Kurys’s film Entre Nous (1983, French title, Coup de Foudre), the series is not about the voyeuristic pleasure of consuming queer female sexuality. The series becomes “a play on voyeurism that nonetheless exceeds that play and does become something else” (Roof 82). Play, as Jacques Derrida puts it in “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”

is the “disruption of presence” (292). The L Word disrupts the queer female subject’s presence in a text that would seem to be structured around her appearance, but it does so in a way to make commentary on her absence and the manifestations of her presence as it exists in discourse. The “something else” The L Word becomes is a productive rather than prohibitive site to interrogate, and possibly even repudiate the heterosexual matrix of power by decentering its privileging of itself in discourse. The L Word attempts to rend the surface of lesbian representation to reshape it to a form that is more hospitable to queer women, and it seeks to dislodge the usage of female same-sex sexuality as instrumental to heterosexuality.

Sexing the Ls

The L Word’s first representation of lesbian sexuality works to directly confront the voyeuristic tradition of lesbian representation in straight male pornography. Early in the pilot episode Jenny (Mia Kirshner) is shown spying on two women having sex in the swimming pool next door. Jenny crouches behind the fence to observe the scene, and the voyeuristic quality of her and the camera’s gaze is reinforced by the partial visual barrier of the fence. There are two fleeting aerial shots of the women’s activities in the pool, but the focus of the scene is Jenny’s view through the fence and her intrigued reaction.

Even though this first representation of lesbian desire in the series could be described as voyeuristic, as it entails superfluous sex acts being witnessed by Jenny, the titillated third party, her titillation and fascination transforms into desire. The female spectator’s desire, then, functions to dislodge the centrality of a heterosexualizing gaze. Jenny’s witnessing of the events is not for the sake of 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 156

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titillation. It is an early step toward her self-recognition of her desire for women. In fact, shortly thereafter, Jenny describes what she has witnessed to boyfriend Tim (Eric Mabius) during the couple’s foreplay. While this, at first sight, appears to be the standard stuff of heterosexual male pornography, the show instead turns this kind of convention on its head in order to make this scene one of Jenny’s first experiences of lesbian sexuality. This moment constructs the heterosexual couple’s desire as contingent on the lesbians’ lovemaking. It is, as Halberstam says of James Bond’s masculinity in Female Masculinities, “prosthetic,” in that it has “little if anything to do with biological maleness and signifies more often as a technical special effect” (3). Jenny and Tim’s heterosexual desire has little to do with “natural” heterosexuality, but signifies a prosthetic effect. As the straight couple’s foreplay is built upon Jenny’s detailed description of the lesbian sex, they, as Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner argue, become displaced and are “no longer the referent or the privileged example of sexual culture” (355). Unlike the pornographic heteronormative configuration of lesbian sexuality as preliminary to legitimate heterosexuality (the opening act to the main event), the centrality of straight sex is destabilized when Jenny says “and then she begins to fuck her,” and Tim, referring to his own sex acts asks, “Like this?” In this moment, lesbian sexuality, rather than serving as erotic foreplay for the heterosexual couple, becomes a central model to emulate. Tim virtually offers himself to Jenny as a lesbian. His ultimate obliviousness to Jenny’s lesbian desire, captured here, is repeated several times, before Tim walks in on Jenny acting upon her lesbian desire with Marina (Karina Lombard; “Lawfully” 1.5).

This capacity for lesbian desire to displace heterosexuality continues in

“Let’s Do It” (1.2), when, after Marina leaves Tim and Jenny’s dinner party, their remaining guests continue to discuss her appeal. Tim’s coworker Randy (Kwesi Ameyaw) states, “Wow. Just one question, who is in love with that woman?” Randy’s wife Carol (Jennifer Copping) immediately responds,

“Count me in,” before asking Jenny, “Don’t you have just a little crush on her?” Carol, Randy, and Tim are again, as Tim was earlier, repositioned as lesbians, and, while Jenny firmly replies after pausing, “No,” she does so in order to shield her feelings for Marina, with whom she is already having an affair.

Lesbian desire also reconfigures heteronormative spaces, such as public restrooms. Jenny and Marina’s first encounter takes place in Bette and Tina’s restroom during a party. Another intimate encounter in the same episode takes place in a restaurant bathroom. And an early sexual encounter occurs in a bathroom stall at The Planet (“Lies, Lies, Lies” 1.4). In later episodes, the restroom becomes the setting for covert sexual liaisons between Alice and Dana (“Life, Loss, Leaving” 2.1), as well as Jenny and Carmen (“Late, Later, Latent” 2.9). The women’s restroom, as well as women’s locker rooms for both 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 157

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Dana (with Lara) and Tina (with her spinning instructor) and its equestrian counterpart, the stable (for Dana’s mother as seen in “Listen Up” 1.8), and tennis summer camp (for Dana in “Looking Back” 1.11 and “Last Dance”

3.11) are unfixed as sites of homosocial primping or bonding. They are revealed to be sites where homosexual desire may emerge. Lesbian desire works to disorganize and disorient heteronormative space, privilege, and centrality.

Decentering the Ls

Beyond the series’ deployment of lesbian sexuality to destabilize heterosexuality, the show also seems to overtly complicate narrative desires to discover what lesbians are really like. This critique occurs significantly in the second season story line centering on the male filmmaker’s project to chronicle his lesbian roommates’ lives via cameras hidden throughout the house. From the outset of Mark’s (Eric Lively) attempts at voyeuristically consuming his lesbian roommates (Jenny and Shane) by secretly installing nine “strategically and respectfully placed” cameras throughout their house, he overtly acknowledges the gap between straight male fantasy and reality, and articulates a desire to bridge this gap. During a take for the introduction of the video he wants to produce about Jenny and Shane, which purports to be a documentary exploration of lesbians and not simply pornography, he tells the camera: “My name is Mark Wayland and I live in a house with two lesbians. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking.

You’re wondering if I’ve hit it yet. Well, the thing is they’re two real lesbians.

Or else I would have. But don’t worry, I’m still going to try” (“Labyrinth”

2.5). In the project’s initial stages he pitches his idea to his roommates in a way that emphasizes his own centrality, “I’m about to show the girls that this is mainly about me.” Describing his videos to them as a “journal of my life with the two of you guys,” he establishes this centrality in terms of their financial dependence on him. He states, “If I could just get some footage, which [. . .] I know that I could get this [project] financed and then we can all get paid, which is something I know you both need” (emphasis added).

When he is met with resistance, he attempts to appeal earnestly in terms of value. He elaborates on the edifying quality of their involvement, “Plus, honestly, think about how educational this is going to be for people who don’t know anything about people like you,” and “Think about how much you’re going to be helping out some poor, little lonely lez . . . stuck out in the Midwest without a role model in sight.”

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work as a security guard, using surveillance cameras in a stairwell to zoom in on a sexual tryst. From its conception, Mark’s film project teeters between his stated intention to document the lives of his lesbian roommates and Gomey’s blatantly exploitative attitude toward the women. In fact, in “Lynch Pin”

(2.4), the episode when Mark is first introduced and moves in with Jenny and Shane, he and Gomey observe Shane making out with another woman and then skinny dipping with a group of women in Bette and Tina’s pool next door, and Gomey states, “Man, you so fucking scored.” This voyeuristic and intrusive pornographic gaze is presumably what inspires Mark’s documentary project. It is not only Gomey’s influence that persuades Mark to install the hidden cameras, but also the women’s refusal to comply or to satisfactorily answer his desire to know what lesbians do in bed.

Mark’s increasingly bewildered and obsessive gaze gradually directed at Shane is connected to Tim’s gaze in season one. In two particular instances when Tim accidentally witnesses Jenny having sex with another woman, he appears astounded, as if the act he observes in no way coalesces with cultural fantasies of same-sex sexual relationships between women, which he has internalized to be under his male jurisdiction in one sense, and unthreatening, even impossible in another. Moreover, he does not find himself as a straight, white man being addressed by this act. He is not hailed to dominate or even enjoy it as the cultural fantasy of lesbian sexuality addressing straight men would suggest. In the first instance, peering through a door window, Tim views Marina performing cunnilingus on Jenny (“Lawfully” 1.5). He appears to be more startled by Jenny’s reception of the pleasure than by her infidelity. In “Losing It” (1.6), he confronts Marina and demands, “What is it you do? You girls? Should I even care? Does it even count”? Marina’s reply,

“You were there. You saw how much it counts” enrages Tim. In the second instance, after his breakup with Jenny, he views her and another woman through the same door window, and is once again startled by the two women fucking (“Limb from Limb” 1.13). In a sense, Tim and Mark are both horrified by the women’s lack of lack. They are both horrified and filled with a sense of dread that the male presence is not missed or wished for in the women’s lovemaking. In the case of Mark, the fact that lesbians do not need him to legitimize, define, or to produce knowledge about them through filmic representation is confounding.

In “Luminous” (2.7), Jenny confronts a male classmate in her creative writing class after he reads a Henry Miller-esque short story that includes such sentences as: “Watch my cock, Madelaine. Watch me beat it again while Miss Jasmine fathoms your pussy for the twenty-seventh time this morning.”

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to male heterosexuality. However, Jenny retorts:

Your main character, Jasmine, she opens up Madelaine’s world by giving her the best fucking orgasm she’s ever had, which I don’t know if you know this, is the primary sex act that two women can actually have, and then you go ahead and you belittle it by turning it into pornography and I think that the reason why you’re doing this is because men can’t handle the fact these women can have this amazing, fucking, beautiful, mind-blowing orgasm without a fucking cock!

This speech hearkens back to Mark’s initial on-camera interview with Jenny and Shane in which he inquires about the “primary lesbian sex act,” that would approximate “that one, ultimate, foregone conclusion” for heterosexual couples—“fucking”—referring exclusively to vaginal penetration by a penis, and the climaxing of the sex act brought about through male orgasm.

Just as in Jenny’s response to her classmate, the series does not locate or assume “one act,” but instead places value on female orgasms. For example, in a conversation between Lara and Dana during the second season, Lara asks Dana “What do you think counts as sex?” (“L’Ennui” 1.7). Dana responds,

“Having an orgasm.” Lara uncategorically states, “Well, if that was the case, that would mean thousands of women who are married with children have never had sex.”

To L and Back Again

Decentering continues as a strategy in the third season; however, it now extends itself to the main characters, and the class and seemingly normative gender privilege they inhabit. Even though Shane comes from a working-class background and is androgynously masculine to the extent that her own gender identity is at times indeterminate, her free spiritedness as well as her trendsetting ways somehow insulate her from occupying a space of inscrutable difference. But Jenny’s love interest Moira (Daniela Sea), a masculine, working-class woman from the Midwest who transitions from female to male, stands in contrast to the hyper-feminine main characters in such a way that she becomes an object of scrutiny, ridicule, embarrassment, and shame.

With the exception of Moira, female genderqueer masculinity has been limited to the androgyny of Shane, and to the transgendered leanings of Ivan the drag king, as well as various masculine women who appear as extras in the series in what Marga Gomez refers to as “dyke feng shui”(quoted in Halberstam, “I Love The L Word Not” 41). Lesbian and queer masculinity have been hot topics since the show’s debut. Halberstam, 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 160

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the theorist most associated with the concept, regards the limited representation of masculine queer women on the series as one of its greatest weaknesses. Halberstam argues in “The I Word: ‘I’ for Invisible, as in Real-World Lesbians on TV” that the show adheres to “the unwritten rules for lesbian TV,” which include that none of the characters be “too butch” (18).

More recently Halberstam has stated, “I am really irritated by the show’s deliberate erasure of genderqueer sex and genderqueer characters” (“I Love The L Word Not” 41). Moira’s arrival within the L Word universe seems to address this criticism directly, even poking fun at it while complicating the limits of “butch.” As Carmen offers to help Moira unload luggage from the truck, Moira tells her, “You girls just relax and let us butches unload the truck. Come on, Shane.” A bemused Carmen encourages Shane to help, suggesting “Big butch. Go unload the truck.” And a comic moment is shared when Moira tosses Shane a bag that overwhelms her (“Lobster” 3.3).

But, the show has received much criticism for the ultimate failure of Moira/Max’s characterization. And, to be sure, Max is a negative representation of a transgender character. As soon as Moira begins transitioning to Max, the character’s supposed testosterone-induced tantrums, his desire to pass as a “real man” to gain access to male privilege, and his increasing investment in and assimilation to heteronormativity could certainly be read as a negative stereotypical representation of a transgender character. The character’s transition opens a space for the other major characters to work through conversations about gender and transgenderism. Max’s desire to remove his breasts gets juxtaposed with another major character’s breast cancer. Max’s gender identity is validated as a matter of life and death for him. Another way to view the show’s handling of Max is that, as Malinda Lo states in an early critique of the series, the show is not about gender but sexuality (“Does The L Word Represent?”). More specifically, the show is about female queer sexuality. From this perspective, it is possible to argue that the show is not trans-phobic as much as it is critical of heteronormativity. In the final episode of the third season, Jenny begins an affair with another woman, Claude (Élodie Bouchez), with Max’s full knowledge. In one scene Max attempts to prevent Jenny and Claude from slow dancing in a ballroom filled with straight couples. When Max suggests their presence would make others feel uncomfortable, Claude critiques Max’s normative aspirations:

Claude: Then they deserve to feel uncomfortable, don’t you think?

Max: No. I don’t think anyone deserves to feel uncomfortable.

Claude: Max, I don’t understand why you want to be like these people. You seem so much more interesting as who you are.

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Claude’s critique of Max, echoing Jenny’s comments throughout the season, does not focus on his transgender status, but on his desire to assimilate, to join the heteronormative majority of the ballroom who would exclude the queer female couple in order to feel more “comfortable.” Moreover, it is also quite possible that this series, which has invested a great deal of its narrative energies into threatening and troubling male privilege, is threatened and troubled by the prospect of a Female-to-Male (FTM) trans subject possibly gaining or having access to male privilege.

L’Enfin

Whether The L Word is the landmark in lesbian representation that Moore speaks of or the setback that Halberstam claims remains to be determined. In fact, Halberstam has gone so far as to say, “[L]esbians on TV now are no better off than in the 1970s when Police Woman aired an episode in which murderous lesbians were accused of butchering retirement home residents” (18).

This chapter posits that the series occupies another space than the “I Love The L Word”/“I Love The L Word Not” polarization Moore and Halberstam represent. This essay argues that The L Word is a restive text that recasts not only the history of lesbian representation, but also attempts to disrupt identitarian notions of queer women. Call it furtive or surreptitious, The L Word attempts to exist without a center, and it is through its decenteredness that the series rears up to destabilize lesbian representation, displace heteronormativity, and to threaten male privilege.

Notes

1. There are, of course exceptions, as in Bound and Fire, where both the lesbians and their relationships survive. They are, however, rare. The tradition of diluting or erasing lesbian desire also exists in film, as in the adaptations of Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), and The Color Purple (1985).

2. In the episode in which Susan and Carol get married, Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) is possessed by the spirit of a deceased woman who refuses to move on until she has experienced everything. Attending the lesbians’ wedding, the woman blurts out,

“Well, now I’ve seen everything” and leaves Phoebe’s body.

3. All four of the main characters have interactions with lesbianism. In one episode, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), playing spin the bottle, French kisses Alanis Morissette (3.4). In another, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is mistaken for a half of a lesbian couple by her boss, plays along for the sake of professional advancement (her boss wants to “add a lesbian couple” to their circle of friends), tries kissing the other woman, but ultimately gives up the act (1.3). Hypersexual Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has a brief affair with a woman, but rejects her because the 9780230600805ts12.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 162

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relationship had “too much talking, not enough sex” (4.3–5). In another example, notoriously prudish Charlotte (Kristen Davis) falls in with a group of “power lesbians.” When she apologetically “comes out” as straight, describing how she feels drawn to them and enjoys their company, the queen bee of the group ejects her from their circle saying, “That’s all very nice sweetie. But if you don’t eat pussy, you’re not a dyke” (2.6).

4. We are indebted to Rebecca Beirne’s reading of the series in “Queering the Slayer-Text: Reading Possibilities in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

5. The fourth season ends with two of the male characters, Michael and Ben (Hal Sparks and Robert Gant) getting married in Canada, all of the male principles participating in a gay charity benefit/ bicycle trek from Toronto to Pittsburgh, while the lesbian couple is threatened as Lindsay (Thea Gill) cheats on her pregnant partner Melanie (Michelle Clunie) with a man (4.10–13).

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CHAPTER 11

“Shades of Grey”:

Articulations of Bisexuality

in The L Word

Jennifer Moorman

Aperusal of the history of American television reveals only a handful of regular or recurring characters whose behavior could be described as bisexual. Rarer still are those who give this behavior a name. As Wayne M. Bryant suggests in regard to world cinema:

The invisibility of bisexual characters in film is compounded by the dearth of writing on the topic. While there are a number of books on homosexuality in the cinema, there has never been anything written—until now—

about bisexual characters in film. (xi)

In this regard, not much has changed since his book was published in 1997.

So far, not a single monograph or anthology has broached the topic of bisexuality on television. In their seminal books on queerness in television, Steven Capsuto, Stephen Tropiano, and Larry Gross all mention bisexuality in a cursory fashion; only in Gross’s book is the word “bisexuality” in the index, and only then with the qualifier: “on talk shows” (187). These omissions occur with good reason. While the newest of these books was published in 2003, the Showtime network’s hour-long drama The L Word, which premiered in 2004, provides the first instance of an American fictional television program to 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 164

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depict both multiple characters who exhibit bisexual behavior, and one character, Alice (Leisha Hailey), who openly identifies as bisexual beginning with the pilot episode and explores and elaborates on her sexual identity throughout the first two seasons.

Much of the debate that has surrounded The L Word since its inception has focused either on its (in)ability to represent an underrepresented community, or on the nature of its intended audience. Some argue that, with its high concentration of “girl-on-girl action,” it appeals mainly to a straight male audience, with the inference that this constitutes a betrayal and an exploitation of the lesbian community. Others claim that the show offers a sympathetic representation of a lesbian community, and as such appeals to a lesbian audience seeking an articulation of their own experiences. A stated aim of Ilene Chaiken, the show’s creator, is to give voice to and to normalize the experience of queer women, for the benefit of all potential audiences (Chaiken in Brown-Bowers D05). Bisexual characters can play a unique role in helping to fulfill the creator’s stated intent of demystifying queerness for a general (read: heterosexual) audience, even as they open up a space for the questioning and subversion of dominant conceptions of the nature of sexual identification. The extent to which the characters of Alice and Jenny (Mia Kirshner) do either is, however, compromised by the show’s overall ambivalence in regard to bisexual representation.

Toward a Theory of Bisexual

Representation

As suggested earlier, the issue of bisexual representation has occasionally been addressed by film theorists, but has yet to be taken up in any depth in the context of television studies. One of the barriers to any such analysis is the confusion as to what exactly constitutes bisexuality. “Bisexuality has been variously defined as behavior, as identity, and as anti-identity. It has been seen as essential and, at the same time, as socially constructed” (Esterberg

“The Bisexual Menace” 216). In response to centuries of heterosexist oppression, the gay liberation movement adopted a predominantly essentialist mode of representation in the early 1970s and into the 1980s, for specific political motivations. If sexual orientation is not a “choice,” but rather an inherent trait like ethnicity, then one cannot be condemned as sinful simply for being oriented in a certain way. Bisexuality was, in this context, considered alternately nonexistent or irrelevant. From the perspective of “lesbian feminism,”1 however, sexuality was reconfigured as a choice.

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alone (and primarily lesbian feminists) are seen as standing firm against patriarchy” (Esterberg 216).

Meanwhile, even among those who identify as bisexual, there is no consensus as to how the term should be defined. The anthology Bi Any Other Name, for instance, includes people who acknowledge desire for both men and women, but do not intend to act on all of these desires, such as the twenty-three-year-old woman who is married to a man, but insists,

“I have never slept with a woman, nor do I expect to. Yet, I am a bisexual”

(Reichler 77). It also includes men and women who consider themselves to be gender-blind; as Jane Litwoman puts it: “Gender is just not what I care about or even really notice in a sexual partner” (in Hutchins and Kaahumanu 5).

Then again, there are those for whom being with a man is quantifiably different from being with a woman, and they simply enjoy both. And then there is Pat Califia, who describes herself2 as lesbian, although she occasionally enjoys having sex with gay men, and insists that “It is very odd that sexual orientation is defined solely in terms of the sex of one’s partners” (195).

Bisexuals have been discussed at different times and in different circles variously as traitors, as a menace, as a myth, as sexually indiscriminate and irresponsible, as hopelessly confused, as bottomless pits of desire with a lust unsated by man or woman alone, and perhaps most commonly, not at all. It is, therefore, no surprise that bisexual characters appear so infrequently in American cinema, and even less often in the explicitly commercial-driven medium of television. The greatest barrier to increased bisexual visibility seems to be that of the crisis of signification. Pat Califia’s observation, in regard to the world of our experience, applies equally well to the realm of representation, if not more so: practically speaking, if a character is in a monogamous relationship, his or her sexual orientation is conventionally determined according to the sex of his or her partner—unless explicitly stated otherwise. And perhaps the only characters less likely to appear on television than bisexuals are those who practice alternatives to monogamy.

Maria Pramaggiore suggests that the notion of temporality is central to any discussion of bisexual representation based on behavior. In order for a character to exhibit bisexual behavior, she/he must appear long enough to have relations with or express desires for both a man and a woman. Triangle situations allow for a compression of such temporality. She focuses her argument on a discussion of films involving romantic triangles, as “such triangles can remain unresolved when the films’ conclusions offer open-ended possibilities for erotic desires” (279). Although a character need not be involved in a romantic triangle to be described as bisexual, the issue of ultimate coupling, a narrative tradition that remains particularly strong in Hollywood narrative cinema, certainly complicates any attempt to identify a character as bisexual.

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Pramaggiore argues as follows:

Romantic coupling and temporal closure are related narrative structures affecting the possibility of representing desires which are not restricted to “one” sexual object or one “type” of sexual object. Coupling signifies completion, wholeness and stasis and usually suggests a diachronically stable object choice. Temporality is critical. In order to use a visual medium to render “same” and “opposite” sex desires that are not mutually exclusive, two conditions must obtain: either the film must depict multiple, variously sexed partners in particular scenes, or it must suggest an “oscillation” between partners of both sexes. (277)

The tendency of viewers and critics to designate a character’s sexual orientation according to the gender of whomever that character is coupled with by the film’s end is reinforced by widely held stereotypes about bisexuality, most prominent among them the idea that bisexuality is not a sexual identity in its own right, but merely a “phase” along the way to the adoption of either a hetero- or homosexual identity. It would seem that, in order to ensure that a character is truly represented as bisexual, the character must either explicitly identify as such (and, ideally, continue to reiterate this identification even after the final coupling) and/or continue to have intimate relations with both men and women—to “oscillate” between the two, as Pramaggiore suggests—and/or not be engaged in a monogamous relationship at the film’s end.

A Brief History of Representations of

Bisexual Women on Television

Due to the primary role of temporality or duration in theories of bisexuality, one could argue that the episodic nature of serial television programming is ideally suited for both the representation of bisexual characters and the practice of bisexual spectatorship. For practical reasons, serial television programming can allow for greater focus on character development, as opposed to the more plot-driven storytelling typical of narrative cinema. This is not to exaggerate differences between film and television based on essentialist terms opposing “the drama of character to the drama of plot.”3 In The L Word, for example, viewers have been able to watch the characters of Alice and Jenny developing relationships with both men and women over the course of two seasons’ worth of programming. The show simply has significantly more time to devote to the depiction of these relationships and development of the characters than would a feature-length film on the same subject.

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Nonetheless, despite the rise in queer representations on American television in the last few decades, bisexual characters have remained all but nonexistent.

The general consensus among historians of queer TV posits C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) of CBS’s L.A. Law in 1991 as the first regular or recurring female character to be portrayed as bisexual on a fictional television show (Capsuto 273).4 Despite the uproar created by the “first lesbian kiss on network television,” which was in fact a kiss between a bisexual woman, C.J., and a straight woman, Abby (Michele Green), the character was not allowed to develop a meaningful relationship with a woman during her time on the show. “The bisexual C.J. was given a lesbian former lover in one fall 1991 episode, but at the end of the spring season she was embarking on an affair with a straight man.

After the season ended, she too left the show” (Gross 87–88).

The only regular or recurring bisexual female character to appear on American television between 1992 and 2002 was Nancy on Roseanne.

According to Sarah Warn, writing on AfterEllen.com, “it wasn’t until 2000

that we saw another bisexual woman on network TV—Sophie (Brittany Daniels) on the Fox sitcom That 80s Show—but her bisexuality was mostly used as a running gag, and the series didn’t last long” (“The O.C. ’s Alex”).

During this time period, HBO’s Sex and the City also occasionally referred to the concept of bisexuality in a flippant, ironic sort of way. In episode 3.4, for instance, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) dates a bisexual man (Donovan Leitch), but suggests that she’s “not even sure bisexuality exists.” Samantha (Kim Cattrall) suggests that bisexuality is merely a fad: “That generation is all about experimentation. All the kids are going bi.” In the same episode, Carrie attends a “bisexual party,” during which she kisses another woman (Alanis Morissette). Her voice-over narration indicates that in this moment she “was in Alice in Confused Sexual Orientation Land.”

Beginning in 2002, a handful of shows include at least one regular or recurring bisexual female character: All My Children (ABC, 2002), Two and a Half Men (CBS, 2003), and Coupling (NBC, 2003). After or concurrent with The L Word, the following shows also introduce bisexual female characters in 2004: Six Feet Under (HBO), North Shore (FOX), Rescue Me (FX), One Tree Hill (WB), The O.C. (FOX), and Starved (FX).5 Unlike The L Word, none of these shows also include regular lesbian characters; apparently, one type of queer woman is as much as any one show can handle. These lists, however, must be problematized, as their industrial and production contexts vary widely and a concept that would be condemned as too radical on network television could be capitalized on, overtly and vocally, as cutting edge in the context of a premium cable channel.

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of how to define “bisexual.” As mentioned earlier, bisexuality has typically been defined either according to a behavioral model or through explicit identification. This issue has been addressed in psychological studies and in the social sciences, but it poses particular problems for representation. Should all characters who have desires for or sexual contact with both men and women be defined as bisexual? If so, then how would one describe, say, a character who had been in a heterosexual marriage, and left her husband for another woman, at which point she describes herself as lesbian? Should her behavior take precedence over her explicit sexual identification?

In the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB, 1997–2003), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) has sexual and romantic relations with a man and subsequently also women, but her character is depicted as progressing from heterosexual to lesbian. Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, has argued that “it would be disingenuous for us to make her bisexual . . . and that would be a real betrayal to the gay community, particularly since we killed off her lover. So yes, she’s gay to stay; she’s here, she’s queer; get used to it” (Naughton 28). Thus a relationship that spanned more than two seasons—that between Willow and her boyfriend Oz (Seth Green)—becomes invalidated. While his dedication to serving the interests of queer fans of the show is admirable, for Whedon bisexuality apparently is not queer enough; he does not allow Willow to identify as bisexual, despite the fact that her behavior could certainly be described as such. Many of the characters on The L Word manifest a similar disconnect between behavior and identification: Marina (Karina Lombard), who is revealed to have a husband in Italy, despite her polyamorous relationships with women; Tina, who was in a relationship with a man before meeting and subsequently entering into a domestic partnership with Bette; and Jenny, who was engaged to Tim (Eric Mabius) even as she had an adulterous affair with Marina, and would later date both men and women.

The B Word?: Bisexuality in The L Word

While each of the characters mentioned earlier on The L Word exhibits what could be termed bisexual behavior, only Alice explicitly identifies as bisexual.

Jenny has yet to define her sexual orientation, but both her behavior and her (rather vague) articulation of her desires suggest that she too could be described as “genuinely” bisexual, that is, in more than a purely behavioral sense. Both Alice’s and Jenny’s dialogue, character development, and interactions with other characters allow for a continuing discussion about the nature of sexual identity, even as they—in their dualistic desires—embody a mainstream-palatable segue into the lesbian world of the show by (theoretically) appealing to both lesbian and straight male audiences. In the first two 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 169

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seasons, these characters repeatedly rearticulate and/or rework their sexual identities—sometimes agonizingly or uncomfortably—and as such their sexualities stand in contrast to the monosexual identities of the other characters on The L Word, and indeed also to mainstream conceptions of sexual identity in American society at large.

Alice’s sexuality is initially constructed through responses to other characters’ questioning of and occasional hostility toward her sexual orientation. Dana’s character remains closeted and anxious about her sexual identity until the end of the first season, which could account for some of the hostility she exhibits toward her friend’s unashamed identification. In the context of the second season, in which Alice and Dana become a couple, it appears as though Dana has been criticizing Alice out of a combination of jealousy and insecurity, both in regard to Alice’s confident self-identification and her (un)availability to Dana. Esterberg suggests the following:

Bisexuality raises the issue of sexual jealousy among straights and gays alike. Even if a bisexual is involved in a monogamous relationship with a nonbisexual, holding bisexual identity continually brings to the fore the lover’s potential inadequacy. (“The Bisexual Menace” 224) Indeed, once Dana and Alice become a couple, Dana continues to question Alice’s identity. When, for instance, Alice suggests that they use a strap-on dildo (2.9), Dana quips, “Is this a bisexual thing?” Dana will not agree to try strap-on sex until Alice has convinced her that “many bona-fide lesbians do it.” In this case, Dana seems to be reacting to the fear that a bisexual woman’s relationship with her could constitute “just a phase,” and that Alice could, therefore, leave her for a man.

Significantly, the only man we see Alice become involved with for any length of time is Lisa (Devon Gummersall), a “lesbian-identified man.”6 In a scene that works to contain notions of sexual difference, Lisa and Alice consummate their relationship (1.8). The scene begins in a cabin on a yacht, during a party attended by all of Alice’s friends, with a medium shot of Alice sitting on a bed, with Lisa kneeling behind her, holding his hands beside her temples. Alice’s eyes are closed, until he says, “I’m working telepathically on your glutes”—at which point Alice opens her eyes and begins to look every which way, as if searching for what on earth he could be talking about. This exemplifies the primary way in which The L Word ultimately depicts Lisa, and by extension the whole concept of a “lesbian-identified man,” as ridiculous. The viewer is encouraged, along with Alice, to read Lisa as a confused, New Age-y weirdo. As Lisa begins to move his hands along Alice’s body, 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 170

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however, she closes her eyes once again and her face takes on an expression of sexual desire.

Alice and Lisa then begin to kiss passionately, removing most of their clothing. From a close shot of their faces, the camera pans across the length of their bodies to show Alice’s hand reaching into Lisa’s boxer briefs. Lisa grabs Alice’s hand and says, “Wait,” as the camera pans back up to their faces.

He pulls out a dildo and runs it along her body, until a cut to Alice’s exasperated face as she asks, “You’re kidding, right?” This exchange follows: Alice: You’re a man! You’ve got the real thing.

Lisa: That’s not how I want to make love to you.

Alice: That’s how I want you to, okay?

Lisa: It goes against who I am.

Alice: You’re a man. You’re a man named Lisa, but you’re definitely a man.

Lisa: I’m a lesbian . . . man.

As Lisa speaks this last line, the camera pans to follow Alice as she moves down the length of his body to perform oral sex. A cut to Lisa’s face shows him opening his mouth and sighing in ecstasy, despite his protestations. The implication follows that she coerces him into performing a sex act he is uncomfortable with: heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Her unwillingness to accept his sexual identity on his terms naturally raises questions about her own identity; all the more so when one considers the ways in which her desires change throughout the series (in this case, she has chosen to become involved with Lisa after swearing off women for a while), and the fact that she must repeatedly defend her identity to her lesbian friends, who frequently question and/or tease her about being bisexual, and urge her, essentially, to choose a “side.”

In the cabin, we have a woman embodying desires for both men and women—but, as she reveals in this scene, not for both in the same person—

and a man embodying both masculinity and femininity. Two phalluses in one room proves one too many for Alice; a shorthand indicating too much sex and gender subversion for one TV show. Alice’s refusal to make love to Lisa on his terms works against the potentially destabilizing effects of depicting a character whose sexuality defies mainstream categorization more blatantly than does her own bisexuality. In Lisa’s subsequent appearances on the show, he becomes increasingly clingy and whiny and Alice becomes less and less inclined to tolerate his behavior. This works to define Alice against Lisa; her bisexuality can be read as less strange or threatening, by comparison with the absurdity of a “lesbian-identified man.”

Ultimately, Alice insists that when she wants to be with a man, she wants a lover who is 100 percent male. While some bisexual individuals insist that 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 171

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gender is irrelevant, that, as Alice puts it (1.1), they “look for the same things in a man as [they] do in a woman,” others feel that there “are things [that are]

fundamentally different with men and women” (Klassen 332). Despite Alice’s initial claim to be gender-blind, before meeting Lisa she has insisted on wanting to be exclusively with men for a while. As Shane explains to Lisa in season one, episode five, “She doesn’t want to be a lesbian anymore.” Shane’s use of the word “lesbian” here provides the first, but not the last, instance of a character referring to Alice as “lesbian” or “gay” despite her explicit identification as bisexual. In this context, it means that Alice is entering a phase during which she does not want to be with women. After Lisa, Alice briefly feels even more vehement in this regard. She seems to be rejecting her bisexuality.

In episode ten of the first season, Alice rescues Dana from a blind date with a man, by approaching him and questioning him about his sexual preferences.

When he insists that he is completely straight, she says dreamily, “So, no shades of grey or anything? . . . Wow.”

Soon after all of this, Alice begins dating women once again. In the first episode of season two, Alice again claims that “There is no difference between men and women.” If that were so, then why is she happy to use a dildo with Dana, but not with Lisa? This statement of course also calls into question her earlier desire to be exclusively with men. Perhaps she has merely changed her mind; but this depiction does little to challenge common stereotypes about bisexuality: “Bisexuals are seen as hopelessly confused: as fence sitters, unable to make up their mind about what they ‘really’ are” (Esterberg “The Bisexual Menace” 216). In the absence of different representations of bisexuality, and alongside Jenny, who remains overwhelmingly confused about her sexuality throughout most of the first two seasons, Alice’s confusion in fact seems to perpetuate these stereotypes. The show, via Alice’s dialogue, keeps telling us that bisexuality is normal and valid, but its actual depiction of bisexuality remains unstable and conflicted.

The fluidity of Alice’s sexual identity nonetheless remains more palatable than Lisa’s fluid gender identity. Julie D’Acci suggests, in an analysis of Cagney and Lacey, that

The television industry works to pin down meaning in particular and often predictable ways. This involves, among other things, attending to the ways in which the industry continues to depict women on the basis of its own institutional and advertising-based exigencies. (193) This observation applies at least as well to depictions of queerness on television. The producers of television shows, guided by network policy, often walk the fine line between seeking to exploit topical subjects in order to secure 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 172

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ratings, and working not to offend or deter sponsors with controversial material. Premium cable networks such as Showtime manage to avoid this to some extent, being bound neither to the FCC-enforced content restrictions (e.g., in regard to obscenity) on broadcast television nor to the more indirect restrictions enacted through broadcast television’s relationship to corporate sponsors.

In order to distinguish themselves from the broadcast networks, and thereby to attract subscribers, cable channels have placed significant emphasis on their ability to create taboo programming. Much as Six Feet Under (HBO) has broken the network taboo of dealing directly with death and The Sopranos (HBO) has taken abundant advantage of its ability to depict graphic violence, The L

Word distinguishes itself by dealing overtly and directly with lesbian and bisexual womens’ sexuality. Showtime has taken great pains to brand itself the “No Limits” channel, but there remain nonetheless boundaries that even cable programming seems unwilling to cross.7

In her discussion of Cagney and Lacey, D’Acci suggests that when television representations “deviated too much from the acceptable conventions of the industry, they were quickly brought back in line” (193). In the commercially driven medium of television, any program dealing with controversial material must be careful not to alienate too many viewers through its attempts to break new ground. In the case of The L Word, this manifests itself in an unwillingness to fairly examine or attempt to understand certain types of sexual “deviance.” Thus Lisa must become the Other against which Alice’s bisexuality and the other characters’ lesbianism are defined and normalized.

Similarly, when Dana and Alice make a foray into a BDSM club, they immediately become uncomfortable and make a beeline for the exit (2.11). The episode depicts the BDSM enthusiasts in a stereotypical fashion, as Othered, inscrutable, exoticized; the viewer is encouraged, like Dana and Alice, to turn away, and to deem them too strange or scary to be sympathetic.

Although Ilene Chaiken, the show’s creator, has repeatedly insisted that she will introduce more sex-radical elements as the series progresses, after two seasons The L Word has yet to feature that staple of so many lesbian communities, butch women. This may seem strange, considering that the show has depicted both a lesbian-identified man and a (rather feminine) drag king.

Anne Kelly-Saxenmeyer quotes Ilene Chaiken responding to a question about her hopes for gay characters on television:

We have so many more stories to tell . . . There are still so many constraints, and we’re in kind of a dark and oppressive time right now.

We’ve actually gone backwards in a lot of ways in the media. So my hope would be that we simply get to go on telling our stories and telling them in expanded venues. (1)

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Chaiken acknowledges the need for a multiplicity of representations of queerness, and implicitly acknowledges the limitations that any one show invariably encounters in attempting to depict a queer community. With “so many stories to tell,” The L Word cannot hope to portray them all.

Additionally, she suggests that the show’s creators must work within the restrictions set by the Showtime network, viewer response, and the ever-looming specter of precedent—and still the show cannot hope to reach as wide an audience as does broadcast network programming. She might justifiably argue, how many barriers can one show be expected to tear down?

These considerations certainly influence the depiction of bisexuality on a show that was created, first and foremost, for lesbians. That we do not see Alice in the course of two seasons date a “real” man—that is, one who does not call himself a lesbian—for any significant length of time is perhaps indicative of a desire on the part of the show’s creators not to alienate the queer community by depicting too much straight sex. As one viewer complained of season one, episode four, in which Jenny has sex with both Tim and Marina, “There was more straight sex in that episode than gay sex. I remember actually the first time I saw that episode—I was like, ‘Aw, that sucks. There was too much straight sex’” (Brown-Bowers D05). At the start of the series, Jenny is introduced as the girlfriend of Tim, who lives next door to Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman). Jenny has just moved in with Tim, and on her first day in Los Angeles, she sees Shane making love to a woman in Bette and Tina’s pool. She is aroused by this, and tells Tim about it later. As she describes the scene, Tim takes off her clothes and they too have sex. In later scenes, after having met and developed a strong attraction to Marina, Jenny will again fantasize about lesbian sex while having sex with Tim. After Jenny and Marina have surreptitiously indulged in sexual encounters, Jenny repeatedly envisions her female lover, Marina, while engaging in heterosexual intercourse with her boyfriend, Tim.

In one such instance, she actually sees Marina’s face superimposed over Tim’s; she is in effect participating in a ménage-a-trois. Marina has become the

“third term”—what Maria Pramaggiore describes as the “agent of structural instability in heterosexual relations”—between Jenny and Tim. Indeed it is the triangularity of Jenny’s desires that indicate her bisexuality; however, unlike Alice, throughout her personal odyssey of sexual identity Jenny never once uses the word “bisexual” to describe herself. After the affair with Marina has destroyed Jenny’s relationship with Tim, she discovers that Marina is in an open relationship with another woman (278). To Jenny’s shock and pain, Marina responds: “You’ll find that your life is richer, more full of possibilities and choices . . . I opened up your world.” This seemingly optimistic articulation of her seduction of Jenny in fact embodies one of the classic fears at the 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 174

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root of homophobia: the idea that a lesbian or gay man can “turn” a straight person gay. One almost expects Melissa Etheridge to show up bearing a toaster oven.8 Viewed from this angle, Marina’s words become sinister, pathologized. In a sense, it delegitimizes Jenny’s bisexual identity, by suggesting that it was manipulated into being by an outside agent (namely, Marina); yet, at the same time, it functions to affirm the fluidity of sexuality. The suggestion that sexuality can change and develop in new ways remains subversive and largely underrepresented in American television.

After Marina, Jenny briefly dates a man, Gene (Tygh Runyan), and a woman, Robin (Anne Ramsey), concurrently. In season one, episode thirteen, she brings Gene home, only to find Robin waiting for her. As the three listen to a message from Marina left on Jenny’s answering machine, her dates become uncomfortable, and each offers to leave. Jenny replies, “No, no . . . I don’t want either of you to leave.” This constitutes the most explicit articulation of Jenny’s bisexuality of any point during the first two seasons. As the episode ends, we watch through the window as the three play a board game, and later, Jenny sits awake, seemingly pondering her sexual identity, as the other two lay asleep on separate beds. Both of these triangles in which Jenny participates function to illustrate the fluidity of Jenny’s sexuality. At the start of the show, she identified as heterosexual; and she was initially surprised and disturbed by Marina’s attempt to seduce her. By the end of season one, she clearly feels confused, but also intrigued by the idea of exploring her options. At the start of season two, she will refuse a lesbian identity (2.1), but will soon adopt the term.

In episode 2.5, Mark (Eric Lively) asks his new roommates, Shane (Katherine Moennig) and Jenny, if he can conduct a video interview with them for a “project” that he is working on. It turns out that this “project” involves candidly filming the two women in their most personal moments, including those that occur in their bedrooms. In a reflexive move that subtly acknowledges the stated intent of the show’s creator Ilene Chaiken to present the world of lesbianism to a straight audience (quoted in Kelly-Saxenmeyer 6), Mark encourages the women:

“Just think about how you’re helping some lonely little lez out in the Midwest without a role model in sight.” At this point, they are unaware of his ulterior motives and reluctantly agree to being interviewed. He immediately begins to interrogate them about lesbian sexuality. He refers to Jenny always as lesbian, and she does not contradict him—despite her past and current attractions to men. Their first interview leads to the following exchange: Mark: What is the primary lesbian sex act? . . . For straight people it’s fucking, right? I mean, everything we do, the kissing, fondling, foreplay . . . All of it leads up that one, ultimate, foregone conclusion.

Jenny: And what makes you think lesbians don’t fuck?

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Mark: It’s not possible . . . Unless we’re talkin’ dildos, which is cool, but it’s not the same.

It is telling that none of the characters think to question Mark’s definition of straight sex. Just as Alice could not imagine sex with a man without penis-vagina penetration, these characters cannot imagine heterosexual sex without the presumed “main event” of vaginal intercourse. This constitutes another way in which the show works to contain the type of difference comprised of alternative or marginalized sexualities. The unchallenged assumption throughout the first two seasons of The L Word is that heterosexual sex is exclusively defined as penis-vagina intercourse. This proves problematic for a number of reasons. In addition to reinforcing misguided beliefs about the primacy of vaginal intercourse, it reinforces a behavioral model of sexuality.

Sex between a man and a woman in this context is read simply as heterosexual sex, despite the identification(s) of the participants. What, in this model, would bisexual sex look like?

Furthermore, this scene neglects to problematize the fact that Jenny acts as the representative of “lesbian sex” to the straight world. The fact that her responses are being filmed perhaps suggests the impossibility of this sort of metonymy; in other words, the viewer is encouraged to think about the ways in which the act of filming positions a subject as “The Representative” of whatever s/he is positioned to represent. By extension, the series reflexively acknowledges that the viewer should question its ability to portray the incredible range of human sexual experience. Like Mark, the creators of The L Word must work within the confines of their distinct limitations. In this case, with the knowledge that Jenny has only recently begun to sleep with women and has not yet fully articulated her own sexual identity, the viewer should question her ability to take on the role of the lesbian for the sake of both straight men (represented by Mark) and the hypothetical “lonely little lez in the Midwest” merely by step-ping in front of a camera and speaking to it. Indeed, in an earlier episode, Gene suggests that Jenny is a lesbian, to which she responds, “I don’t think that’s for you to say” (2.1). The show thereby affirms the power of identification; it is Jenny’s exclusive right to define her own sexuality.

The series further acknowledges the difficulties inherent in any attempt to represent a marginalized group in a scene from season two, episode nine, in which the porn producer to whom Mark attempts to sell his (at this point, rather tame) tapes of Jenny and Shane insists: “We want hot, lesbian sex and we want it now.” Mark responds, “This isn’t just about sex.” This line could be speaking directly to the supposed 62 percent of the show’s audience comprised of straight males, ironically both warning them that the sex scenes should not be read as gratuitous and that the show’s intent is not to sensationalize, and 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 176

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acknowledging the impossibility of avoiding sensationalized receptions of the show (statistic from Brown-Bowers D02). Characters such as Jenny and Alice can be read as intermediaries between the presumably disparate worlds of straight male and lesbian viewers. Just as in mainstream pornography marketed to straight males, these women love women, but they love men too—and are thus presumably less threatening to the fragile, collective straight male pride. This idea caters to yet another stereotype accorded to bisexual women—that they are in effect consorting with the enemy. If both Jenny and Alice seem to be moving toward being romantically involved exclusively with women, it could arguably be for this reason—to ward off accusations that they exist to cater to straight male fantasies.

Perhaps it is more than that. Bisexual behavior per se does not prove particularly threatening to the binary oppositions required by dominant conceptions of sexuality. Regarding a bisexual female character, sex with a man can be described as heterosexual, and sex with a woman as lesbian sex.

Bisexual identification, however, does undermine these mainstream behavioral frameworks of sexual representation. That which is not named—a character’s oscillation between male and female lovers, ultimately coupling with one or the other—allows for the perception that such behavior constitutes a phase, in line with liberal models of “progress.” Alice’s insistence, however, that she is bisexual even when she is in love with Dana, in the final episode of season two constitutes a radical act; one that is practically unheard of in the history of American fictional television programming.

At the close of season two, Alice goes so far as to romanticize her bisexuality, “I follow the heart and not the anatomy” (2.13). At this point, it seems as though the serial nature of the show, and the writers’ willingness to explore issues of sexual identity in depth allow for Alice’s sexuality to be depicted ultimately not as confused but rather as fluid. Like many people, she has moments of self-doubt, and like many bisexuals, she has moments of feeling more attracted to one gender than to another. Her character emerges from the first two seasons as complex and well rounded, rather than simply (and stereotypically) confused. Jenny, on the other hand, certainly does seem confused. As she is not the only character to exhibit bisexual tendencies, this confusion does not, finally, render her character hopelessly clichéd. She too has complex desires and motivations, and the direction her character will take in terms of sexual identity in the upcoming seasons remains ambiguous.

Ultimately, The L Word attempts to alleviate the anxieties associated with bisexual identification, through both its tendency toward the stabilizing of identities and its willingness to embrace sexual difference and to depict sexuality as open and fluid. This attempt is compromised both by the very nature of bisexuality, its polysemy and its fluidity, and by the series’ apparent 9780230600805ts13.qxd 12-10-07 08:59 PM Page 177

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desire not to alienate its core lesbian audience through the depiction of “too much straight sex”—even when at least one of the people engaging in said sex does not identify as straight. A sexual identity with so many different meanings and such varied manifestations cannot be done justice through one, or even two or three, representations. In the context of an utter dearth of such representations, each one bears the burden of embodying The (monolithic) Representation. And, as such, each inevitably falls short. I maintain that serial television programming, among other audiovisual media, may allow for more variegated, complex representations of bisexuality, and of sexuality in general.

The L Word’s examination of sexuality comprises the most complex treatment of female bisexuality to date, but there is still much to be accomplished in the ongoing struggle for representations of sexual diversity.

Notes

1. Here I refer not to lesbian feminists in general but to the historical movement.

2. Pat(rick) Califia now identifies as male, but at the time of this quote identified as lesbian.

3. This phrase is William Boddy’s, from Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics.

4. A bisexual woman was also featured in the made-for-TV movie My Two Loves (ABC, April 1986); this is, however, beyond the scope of my discussion, as the character cannot be described as “regular or recurring.”

5. I am indebted to www.AfterEllen.com for its timeline of lesbian and bisexual female characters on television.

6. She does date one other man while with Lisa, and she continues to have sexual relations with him after she has broken up with Lisa. She mentions her interactions with this man to her friends, but after their first date we never actually see them together.

7. To differentiate itself from HBO and other channels, Showtime initiated the “No Limits” ad campaign. As Goodman puts it, Showtime “became known as a network that took chances, embraced the ostracized and had, as its longtime slogan stated, ‘No Limits.’ ” (“Showtime’s hour (finally) has arrived”). He further explains that “ ‘The L Word’ could be seen as Showtime’s further exploration of niche dramas (it has an African American series in ‘Soul Food’ and had a Latino drama in

‘Resurrection Blvd.,’ which led at the time to assumptions the channel, in keeping with its ‘No Limits’ slogan, was merely offering up programs no one else was doing and therefore making a cottage industry out of being different)” (“Showtime’s

‘The L Word’” ).

8. This reference is to “The Puppy Episode” of Ellen, in which Susan (Laura Dern) facetiously suggests to Ellen Morgan (Ellen Degeneres) that lesbians who reach their quota of having “turned” other women gay win a toaster oven. In the (rather surreal) ending, Melissa Etheridge arrives on the scene, to present a toaster oven to Susan after Ellen has come out.

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CHAPTER 12

Paradigmatically Oppositional

Representations: Gender and

Sexual Identity in The L Word

Faye Davies

Lesbian representation appears to have become more prevalent in U.S.

mainstream media outlets as we have moved through the 1990s and into the new millennium. Such representations have moved out of the queer film arena and, in particular, onto TV screens. The L Word, Showtime’s lesbian drama series can be considered as typical of this movement. The show represents and constructs various “types” of sexual identity, which I believe can be both liberating and restrictive in terms of meaning related to both sexuality and gender. In terms of sexuality this analysis focuses upon lesbian identity and bisexual identity, rather than exploring the traditional hetero/homo opposition; the lesbian/bi debate being as valid for considering power relations with regard to this particular cultural group. Lesbian sexual identity is represented as settled and stable in The L Word and this representation runs through both domestic and professional identities in relation to the characters. None of the asserted lesbian characters appear to struggle with their identity; only those who are bisexual appear to encounter any identity issue. The intention of this analysis is to uncover and explain the order of discourse1 in The L Word, which prioritizes one form of sexual identity and gender over another, thus reflecting wider ideological power relations and normalized practices in both straight and lesbian cultures.

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The notion of lesbian identity is clearly represented within the first few scenes of The L Word (1.1), and is both verbally and visually presented as a solid and accepted identity by the lesbian characters. The viewer is initially presented with two key characters, Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals) and Tina Kennard (Laurel Holloman). In the opening scenes, the viewer is offered panning shots of Los Angeles and then a suburban area, which has indexical and symbolic connotations of the middle class and is often seen in other visual productions as a typical “family” area. The visual language borrows from previous discourses of American life to construct meaning, and is using a “grammatical” structure to reiterate such a meaning against images of the city. Later in the episode this is referred to verbally as a “traditional” area in a conversation between Jenny (Mia Kirshner) and Tim (Eric Mabius). The visual representation is reasserted as traditional as Tim claims that the area may not be as traditional as it “seems.”

The pans are swiftly followed by an overhead shot of Bette and Tina asleep in bed, Bette’s arm draped across her partner in the symbolic casualness of a long-term relationship and in vast opposition to historical media representations of lesbians as overtly sexual. This is not portrayed as a relationship that is secretive or deviant during the opening scenes. There are distinct connotations of a comfortable relationship for the two characters in the placement of this scene next to the panning shots of suburban Los Angeles. As the narrative unfolds between the two characters we see that any problems they have are based on commitment issues, rather than any underlying issue with sexual identity.

Although one character, Jenny Schecter (Mia Kirshner), argubly does struggle with her lesbian identity this is mainly within the context of her bisexual relationships and developing lesbianism, which will be discussed in further detail later. The only issue with lesbian sexual identity clearly asserted at the beginning of the season one narrative is for the character of Dana Fairbanks (Erin Daniels); a closeted international tennis player. Dana’s fear of being outed is explained by her need for corporate sponsorship in tennis, not by shame of her sexuality. Her lesbian identity as acceptable and affirmed is still reinforced by the order of scenes.

An example of such a scene comes after a discussion of Dana’s fear of being publicly outed. In a scene set in “The Planet” (1.1) Dana spots new and attractive character, Jenny, as she passes by. She registers her interest with a comedic British upper-class accent, “Hello . . . !”. The other characters Tina, Marina (Karina Lombard), and Alice (Leisha Hailey) all then assert that Dana is, “. . . so gay . . . so, so gay”. This selection and combination of discursive practice diffuses any tension from the discussion of the problems of lesbian identity in an economic context (sponsorship) and the verbal reiterations 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 181

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reassert Dana’s personal acceptance and comfort with who she is. Dana later also affirms herself as an “out” lesbian icon through a Subaru advertising campaign, entitled “Get Out and Stay Out!” (1.8), casting aside her previous doubts about coming out. Linguistically this asserts a strong lesbian identity; as the phrase that guides the campaign is arranged quite forcefully and appears commanding, offering support for being both lesbian and publicly identifiable as such.

When there are such public assertions of lesbian identity in The L Word, there is also positivity symbolized for the characters. Lesbian identity is shown as a status that can be liberating and positive. As discussed earlier this is constructed from both visual and verbal information, which places lesbianism highly in what could be termed a hierarchy of ideological discourses related to sexuality. This produces an ideologically preferential identity that moves away from the tormented and angst-ridden lesbians of previous televisual and filmic discourses. When we further consider the representation of bisexuality in The L Word, this hierarchy can be said to be further strengthened.

The show’s main bisexual character, Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey), has her sexual identity constructed as unstable. Early in season one there is the following exchange between Dana and Alice:

Dana: Christ Alice, when will you make up your mind between dick and pussy? And spare us the gory bisexual details?

Alice: Well, for your information Dana, I’m looking for the same qualities in a man as I am in a woman.

Dana: (to Tina, making hand gestures and smiling) Big tits.

Through the use of both verbal and visual language we can see that Dana is disgusted (she recoils at Alice’s discussion of a sexual encounter with a man before this conversation commences) at the thought that Alice has not “made up her mind” about her sexual identity. This infers that there is a distinct choice to be made; that bisexuality is, in itself, “gory”. The sexual language used is also connotative of a purely sexual attraction or impulse on Alice’s part and infers that Alice is being somewhat greedy in her sexual liaisons. When Alice tries to justify her identity, this action is treated with contempt and humor by Dana in an exchange with lesbian-identified character Tina, symbolizing a lack of acceptance of bisexual identity.

Another example that reinforces this ideology is a scene where the characters are at a party comparing the length of their index fingers in relation to their sexual identity (in response to a press article). Alice is told that she makes “the team . . . but just barely” (1.1). We see a medium close-up on Alice’s face that connotes disappointment at such a comment. She does not respond verbally 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 182

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and this makes for an awkward silence, allowing a reflection on this matter for the audience. Alice’s reaction is then the main focus during the silence. Her bisexuality is reasserted as alternative in this situation and this places her outside the stable lesbian or heterosexual identity being reinforced by all those around her. Indeed, in this scene lesbians are referred to as a “team,” borrowing from previous verbal discourses that relate to support and identification.

Furthermore, Jenny Schecter’s character is initially portrayed as heterosexual, then exploring bisexuality before embracing a lesbian identity in season two. Initially unable to decide upon a distinct lesbian identity she is shown as isolated and undecided. This character moves between relationships with Tim (her fiancé) and Marina, characters with clearly asserted heterosexual and lesbian identities, respectively. When her infidelity, and arguably her potential bisexuality, is discovered she is portrayed as unstable. As Jenny discusses the discovery of her and Marina’s affair by Tim, we see Marina standing above the Jenny character, looking down, symbolizing the domination of Marina’s position in terms of identity awareness and stability. Jenny has a tear-streaked face and her quiet wavering voice connotes a distinct childish-ness and unawareness of her situation, asking “Am I just a coward . . . And a liar . . . And a cheater?” (1.7). Linguistically, these are all terms that have a distinct relation to weakness and instability.

To these questions Marina gives no response, which offers a condemning judgment. It seems, Jenny is not part of the “team” that Alice was also marginalized from earlier in season one. In season two we see a turning point when Jenny accepts her lesbian identity, which is overtly symbolized when, upon Jenny’s request, lesbian-identified Shane (Katherine Moennig) cuts her hair short (2.4). Jenny sheds a symbolic tear as her “transformation” through bisexuality is complete. She then becomes an integral part of the “team” and for the remainder of season two she is involved only in lesbian relationships.

We see no more of Jenny’s last boyfriend Gene Fienberg (Tygh Runyan); instead, Jenny dates Shane’s ex-girlfriend.

Jenny’s transformation is also clearly exemplified when we see her acknowledge her lesbianism explicitly the day after her symbolic haircut (2.5), something also clearly asserted by boyfriend Gene Fienberg in a previous episode (2.1). In total opposition to the crying (symbolic of both relief and sadness) we see as her hair falls to the floor, she is walking along the street, verbally acknowledging being “checked out” by another woman and embracing Shane in symbolic celebration. Here we see a move up the hierarchical discourse of sexuality to a more settled identity than that of the bisexual through the use of oppositional paradigms of visual language.

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also the everyday. As previously discussed, various characters’ actions symbolically link to an acceptance of their identity in lesbian culture. However, the placement of bisexuality as an undecided and unstable sexual identity seems problematic. It appears that the paradigmatically oppositional representations and action of such characters as Dana and Alice, and Shane and Jenny lead to an order of discourse that places bisexuality as a transitional stage into/from homosexuality or heterosexuality. This stage is constructed as a space where bisexuals are in denial about their stable identity. The symbolic actions we see carried out by bisexual characters are ideologically important as “language connects with the social through being the primary domain of ideology, and through being both a site of, and a stake in, struggles for power”

(Fairclough, Language and Power 15). These actions are representative of wider power struggles in society and they give a useful insight into contemporary lesbian culture.

Within this textual lesbian culture bisexuality is allowable but not totally accepted as a distinct sexual identity that allows full participation within lesbian culture, a culture that is expressed distinctly as a “team” or community.

Here, by utilizing Richard Dyer’s ideas on typification ( The Matter of Images 30), it seems that the discourses of heterosexuality and homosexuality cross over to such a degree in bisexual identity that no positive assertive discourse can be produced from a bisexual position within lesbian or even heterosexual culture. This identity cannot be typified as stable as bisexuality draws on both orders of discourse. Such an identity has political and cultural implications that are uncomfortable for both sexualities as it questions the ideological foundations of their stable identities. This is due to the paradoxical nature of bisexuality as an identity in the contemporary age. As Paula C. Rust explains, this is routed in the development of a distinct lesbian identity as far back as the nineteenth century when she claimed that such an identity, produced the belief that sexual attraction must be directed toward either men or women. If men and women are “opposite” genders then attractions toward women and men must also be opposite attractions that cannot coexist simultaneously within a single individual. . . . One of the greatest challenges facing bisexual women in contemporary Western culture is the belief that bisexuality does not exist. Women who are bisexual are often told they are “denying” their true sexuality, which must be either lesbian or heterosexual. (Rust 206–207)

The hierarchy of discourse produced within The L Word reflects this type of position; for instance, when Alice is told to “make up [her] mind” (1.1), this demand reflecting a notion that only one identity is acceptable. Such cultural 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 184

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antagonism toward bisexuals from the lesbian community has been outlined by such theorists as Kristin G. Esterberg ( Lesbian and Bisexual Identities). It appears that due to the discursive construction of lesbian identity as the

“other” to heterosexual identity and vice versa, bisexual identity has nowhere to go. Characters such as Alice and Jenny cannot join either given “team”

until they alter their practices and actions to that encapsulated by lesbian or heterosexual culture. Here bisexuality is the ultimate “other,” impossible to achieve at any given moment due to the constrictions of society’s current understanding of sexual identity and attraction.

Overall, this ultimate discursive “otherness” in such a media text gives credence and stability to asserted lesbian identities that are no longer angst ridden, but instead are comfortable and further reinforced by positive lesbian characters. This reiterates the problem that the lesbian culture represented here has with the notion of a fluid sexual identity. This notion of bisexuality encapsulates the postmodern position that identity is not fixed, but is fluid and interchangeable; a position that could be seen as invalidating the identity of lesbians and leaving them no degree of subjectivity from which to overcome their social and political oppression.

Lesbian identity in The L Word is shown as an identity that is stable once achieved and accepted, a discursive practice that many lesbians and gay men find themselves practicing and, eventually, being congruent with (Cass 219–235; Coleman 31–43). For instance, Dana’s worry about being outed is not about shame but her economic concerns (which take ideological priority in today’s society). She agrees and acknowledges that she is, “. . . so gay,” and otherwise happy with such an identity (1.1).

Bisexuality is certainly in a less powerful position as an asserted identity. In this sense the order of discourse could be suggested to be working as a form of lesbian culture “governmentality” (Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge 57), where power (through self-governance) is dependant on the social relations and the social acceptability of specific discourses at a specific historical moment. Here lesbian discursive practice is asserted as more powerful, dominant, and socially acceptable than bisexual practice through its stability. This could possibly be seen as offering ideological encouragement to achieve a more settled and stable sexual identity for participants within a lesbian culture, potentially represented by the audience. This positive identification achieves some sense of social and political identity.

Another paradigmatically oppositional discursive practice is set up in terms of gender, and is constructed through sexual practice. The various representations of sexual acts in The L Word can be considered as part of lesbian culture. An analysis of these actions can be used to locate these practices in relation to various orders of discourse from mainstream society that are 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 185

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utilized in the creation of meaning. This is especially pertinent as (lesbian) sexual practice in the context of everyday life has been underrepresented until recently. The representation within the show offers an institutionalized form of gender representation, and this is prevalent throughout both seasons.

Again, an order of discourse is constructed, which is developed hierarchically to foreground a particular position on gender, but rather than only being based upon aesthetic or career expectations as in previous orders of discourse around gender (Wodak 1–20), this particular discourse is constructed mainly through the sexual practices and emotional involvement in relationships in which the characters partake.

These sexual acts are linked to the notions of “butch/femme” discussed by Sally R. Munt ( Butch/Femme 1), among others, or, alternatively, this could be considered as “borrowing” dominant understandings of masculinity and femininity. These representations provide ideological guidelines for emotional and sexual behavior based on a butch or femme subjectivity for lesbian culture. There is also an interlinked hierarchy of ideology produced about sexual activity and “lesbian spaces,” dependant on them being public (in the lesbian community, on the lesbian scene) or private (the home).

The majority of lesbian characters within The L Word are symbolically feminine and stereotypically attractive. In terms of an acceptable dominant ideology of gender, what is presented to the viewer is the traditionally constructed idea of femininity. The main characters in the first season have long hair and all wear makeup to accentuate their feminine features (cheekbones, lips) and the majority wear clothing that also accentuates the hips and breasts, highlighting their femininity.

The shooting of sex scenes involving “feminine” characters from season one of The L Word appears to embrace an ideologically traditional expectation of female sexual and emotional behavior within the context of a relationship.

The emotional investment that women are traditionally expected to make with regard to commitment and sexual practices are clearly displayed with regard to “committed” couples in the show. All sexual practices, apart from those of the character Shane (who will be analyzed later) occur as part of a relationship, or developing relationship, between two women. Bette and Tina’s sexual relationship is portrayed on few occasions in the first season of The L Word: on the occasion that it is, sex takes place in their home and bed (symbolic of commitment) and in the context of a relationship that is set up throughout the first episode (1.1/1.2). Within the opening season sexual practice is framed as an integral part of their commitment to have a baby (eventually through a “romantic” evening that entails Bette’s insemination of Tina with donor sperm). The representations of Bette and Tina’s relationship offer the construction of a comfortable and emotional discourse in relation to 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 186

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sexual practice that takes place in the confines of a relationship. This draws upon previously existing Westernized dominant discourses of family and responsibility (Bradbury 362–383), where relationships, and the traditional female role, are seen as ideologically central to socialization and the foundations of a stable society.

These ideological actions are also repeated for characters Jenny and Marina; their sexual encounters are placed within the development of an emotional relationship. Shots during sex scenes between Jenny and Marina are close-ups that show emotion and intimacy. This reinforces a discourse of femininity that is emotional in terms of sexual practices; sexual acts within a relationship are distinctly connected to those characters that have clear feminine attributes through their own displays of gender. This in turn connects sexual commitment and emotion to femininity within lesbian culture.

Oppositional paradigms are used for the series’ only butch lesbian (note here that the butch-ness is only asserted in comparison with the feminized characters and is still removed from the traditional butch masculinized lesbian). Only one of the characters in the first two seasons, Shane McCutcheon, can be considered as having both visual attributes and also emotional and sexual practices that challenge a traditional feminine discourse. This is a matter that becomes more pronounced as the character continues from season one into season two.

Shane’s unkempt hair, thin androgynous body, and clothing make her symbolically masculinized in opposition to the other characters. Shane wears more masculine clothes such as shirts and school ties and her feminine attributes are not foregrounded by costume. She is symbolically and physically

“boyish” in nature, the visual meaning constructed further supported by the fact that actress Katherine Moennig portrayed a male-identified-female, Jake Pratt, in the television series Young Americans (2000). Shane is also the most sexually active character, promiscuous in her behavior throughout the show.

She even claims that this need for sex and her lack of ability to commit is so ingrained in her nature she finds it difficult to escape and remain faithful to a partner (3.6). Whilst this draws on a preexisting discourse of gender to assert a kind of masculinity or “butch-ness,” it also draws on discourses of sexual practice to assert a distinct butch sexual identity for Shane. The actions of Shane equate with promiscuity and emotional detachment. In season two she states she does not like “sleepovers” (2.1), and, therefore, avoids the actions which may be symbolic of the emotional and feminine.

She is also graphically represented as a hub of all sexual activity in Alice’s chart of lesbian sexual partners. In season one the character of Shane is introduced and asserted quickly. She is briefly shown in “The Planet,” and is asserted as an attractive character drawing flirtatious attention from another female customer (1.1). Here Shane seems to appreciate the sexual advances; she is 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 187

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even referred to by Marina as, “Don Juan,” drawing on a preexisting discourse of masculinity and sexual prowess. The next scene Shane appears in shows her taking an unidentified woman to Bette and Tina’s swimming pool during the day; there follows a brief, narratively inconsequential discussion between the two (which is barely audible) before they have sex in the pool.

This is viewed through a long shot that minimizes any considerations of closeness, intimacy, or emotions on the part of the characters. They both face away from the camera so that their facial expressions are not seen; this again is in opposition to how the feminized sexual acts are traditionally constructed.

The woman is never identified. This discourse of promiscuity as sexual practice is also constructed for us in the first meaningful exchange between Shane and a previous one-night stand (1.1):

Bette: (to Alice) Have you noticed that every time Shane walks into a room, someone leaves crying?

Bette and Alice then watch as a young woman approaches Shane.

Lacey: Hey, how come you didn’t call me the other night? I left five messages.

Shane: Oh . . . well . . . . I haven’t had my cell phone, so . . . when I go get my cell phone and check my messages, I will call you . . . It was good to see you though, take care.

Shane turns away.

Lacey runs to front door and opens it to find Tim and Jenny Lacey: (almost in tears) It’s just wrong; you can’t treat people like that. You have to tell Shane that that’s just not right (leaves).

Shane is symbolically detached from any notion of a relationship; the verbal choices here outline she causes upset to others by her approach, which stands out for the other characters (and, therefore, the audience) as distinct behavior.

Her actions in the swimming pool are purely sexual in nature, not expressive of any commitment or emotion. Shane is then merely friendly toward her admirer at the party, utilizing verbal language that is vague and conversational rather than expressive and emotional. The description of her by Bette connotes that Shane cares little for the emotions of the other participants in her (many) sexual liaisons, and that this is not anything new for the character.

These qualities could be considered as discursively gendered as male or butch lesbian. Shane is successfully and aggressively pursuing sex, not emotional commitment, within the lesbian community and this is in distinct opposition to the “femme” lesbian outlined earlier. This tends to isolate her from the dominant discourse within this particular textual instance of lesbian culture, with the majority of characters taking part in representational 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 188

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practices that are portrayed as more fulfilling in terms of developing relationships. This particular sexual practice can be seen as a reassertion of the ideological framing of the idealized heterosexual relationship, whose practices reiterate commitment and responsibility; here we see a hierarchical order of discourse reappropriated to lesbian culture. Committed sexual relationships are foregrounded over and above pure lesbian desire.

Much of Shane’s sexual practice is connected distinctly to the lesbian

“scene” and she is the “hub” of sexual practice. For Shane, sex is emotionless and her butch practice within lesbian culture is distinctly connected to an overt representation of her sexuality, which is unashamed, purely sexual, and public in nature (taking place on the lesbian scene). This draws on a previous order of discourse within lesbian culture that encouraged the explicit identification of oneself as lesbian to achieve identity, visibility, and political status, rightfully portrayed as an important element of lesbian culture.

Whilst the sexual, butch side of lesbian culture is acknowledged in The L Word, it is discursively confined by the representation of the committed long-term lesbian relationships and “femme-ness” discussed earlier. The oppositional practices appear to reinforce social roles along the lines of gender, although in the current sociocultural context of lesbian culture this discursive practice may not be for the purposes of maintaining the institutionalization of gender, but instead intended to represent a lesbian culture that appears to be ideologically “normal” in terms of relationships. There is no doubt that this borrows from a previously existing order of discourse about the family, social roles and social responsibility that belong to mainstream culture. This creates an ideology that lesbian culture can exist within the normalizing confines of the mainstream but only if partially adhering to preexisting gendered power relations and ideologies. This is also backed by “evidence” of gendered relationship practices and ideologies of the family being at the heart of contemporary debates surrounding gay rights, civil partnerships, and gay adoption issues (McKee), furthering the ideological normality of lesbian relationships.

In The L Word there is a subjective supremacy of gender created through sexual practice. Shane reinforces this as she has a distinct sexual subjectivity that places her as the opposite to what could be considered the dominant and prevalent discourse in a developing contemporary lesbian culture which is seemingly hegemonically integrating, in some part, with mainstream society and its orders of discourse. This does not discount Shane’s way of life and still places it securely within lesbian culture and the lesbian scene in particular, but this butch discourse is now lower in the hierarchy of lesbian cultural discourse and she is constructed as a rather isolated subject. This is reflective of the small amount of acceptance (through integration rather than visual and 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 189

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political difference) of lesbians in society but reflects that social acceptance is still subject to some sort of adherence to dominant ideology.

This analysis of Shane allows us to explore a distinct cultural problem within lesbian culture. Kristina Jalas claims that the problem of the butch within lesbian culture is that butchness is seen as a “failure of masculinity”

(52) and this appears to be true in the discourses produced in The L Word.

Shane’s lesbian identity is solid, but her isolation stems from an inability to open up to feminine emotions and social responsibilities and she is anchored by her ideologically masculinized sexual desire. Even when on the verge of the show’s only potential gay marriage, Shane cannot commit herself; she first cheats on (3.5) then leaves Carmen de la Pica Morales (Sarah Shahi) waiting for her at the altar on their wedding day (3.12). Shane’s masculine practices are shown as failing her and are portrayed as problematic; she visually and verbally does not take part in the practice of relationships that are borrowed from other preexisting (normalized) repertoires. Overall, this behavior isolates Shane’s discursive position and perhaps the political potential of identifying distinctly as a “dyke,” butch or overt lesbian. But, again, this is reflective of a contemporary dichotomy in lesbian culture that wishes to be perceived as “normal” and able to participate in the preexisting structures of dominant discourse in heteronormative society, but still due to political and social inequality has a requirement to be politically assertive.

Shane then, serves a dual role in constructing a discourse about the butch, and, in this case, sexually active lesbian. She reiterates a dominant ideology, and operation of power, which sees this position as threatening to the order of social and gender roles and perhaps lesbian “integration.” A more challenging representation may have been ideologically unpalatable for mainstream audiences as it could be perceived as a threat to heteronormative gender binaries. To the detriment of lesbian culture (in the eyes of a mainstream culture) it would also have produced a discourse that lesbian culture is deviant and overtly sexual in nature; unable to partake in the ideologies of mainstream society.

It is most interesting and perhaps ideologically unsurprising that the

“player” of this lesbian culture is masculinized, as the butch identity has been attacked from both inside and outside the lesbian community as problematic (Halberstam, “F2M” 210–228). On another level the butch is perhaps the most useful example of the primary, explicitly secure lesbian identity. Her discursive practice is sexually autonomous; she is an active lesbian who is depicted as participating in the lesbian “scene” and has no subjective problems with her identity.

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purpose in terms of mainstream cultural integration through her reiteration of norms of gendered power relations based on both her appearance and her sexual practice. Her sexual acts, behavior in relationships, and way of dressing encapsulate the tensions of power in a lesbian culture attempting to integrate as “normal” into mainstream society.

In terms of contextualizing the aforementioned representations and finding reasoning for their appearance, we can turn to the production context of The L Word. Particular discourses are produced by the, “discourse processes” (Fairclough, Media Discourse 59) of the institutions in which they find their foundation. The institution of commercial television production in the United States is influenced greatly by the commercial market. This prioritizes representations in media texts that fulfill and satisfy the requirements of such a market. It is, therefore, pertinent to explore how the pressures of economy that frame the production of The L Word influence representations of lesbian culture.

Drama production in the U.S. mass media is governed by a need for the attraction/maintenance of a proportion of the audience, so that consumers can be delivered to potential advertisers. The result of this is that social categories within the genre of drama must appeal to as wide a market as possible. The consequence of this imperative has a profound effect upon any production. This means that the representations subsequently produced must appeal to, essentially, the widest market possible in a market dominated by narrowcasting.

Firstly, it is evident that overt and significant gay representations were only likely once series that focused on homosexual characters, such as Will and Grace (1998–2006), showed a potential for success. Michelle Kort outlines Ilene Chaiken’s experience of pitching the original idea in U.S. gay/lesbian magazine The Advocate,

“It was a radical idea, it was absurd,” she admits. But after penning a 5,000-word piece for Los Angeles magazine in 1999 on the gay baby boom, she put together a treatment for a lesbian ensemble drama. Shortly thereafter, she says, “I put it aside because it was clear there was no receptivity whatsoever.” Then Will & Grace took off. Queer as Folk became a big hit for Showtime. Chaiken reworked her pitch and presented it to a high-ranking Showtime exec, and he said, “We’ve got to do this.” (Kort,

“Welcome Back to L World” 43)

These progressive shows and representations of homosexuality have had to develop in the market-oriented framework of the U.S. television market. It was only when the commercialized “water had been tested” that such shows 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 191

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found commissions. This appears to adhere to the viewpoint of the free-market conservatives or pluralists who claim a U.S. commercial system provides whatever a market requires or demands. The appearance of such shows could be framed in a social context of gay rights and further legislative integration, but it has been argued that the main reasoning for inclusion in U.S. network schedules is the need to respond to an economic context, that of narrowcasting. This has meant a focus upon drawing distinct “quality” audiences. Ron Becker states that

recent programming trends could be particularly effective at appealing to a highly lucrative segment of the quality audience, specifically, upscale gay and lesbian viewers. . . . Narrowcasting often encourages a network to discover markets currently being underserved by other outlets . . . the dissolution of television’s so called mass audience and the segmentation of viewership have reduced the risk networks face by airing gay material.

(Becker 393)

This raises a distinct area for concern that should be considered when analyzing representations in context. If commissions and subsequent program content are more concerned with providing audiences (and thus capital) rather than politically useful representations, commerciality must be a key impact on the developments of such representations. Thus a key area for exploration of any televisual lesbian representation is whether the lesbian cultural discourses produced are founded in commerciality rather than in political citizenship or discourses of equality.

What we can assert, is that although lesbian and gay audiences have become an economic consideration, the widest possible audience is still one that embraces mainstream culture and ideologies. A fulfillment of elements of both social discourses can mean that The L Word has the potential to succeed with both gay (alternative) and straight (ideologically mainstream) audiences, and, therefore, the producers and backers have a better chance of fulfilling the commercial imperative, although this may minimize the politically and ideologically challenging potential of the text.

We see this exemplified when we consider the feminized lesbian in The L

Word, which was discussed earlier; here we see no distinct challenge to the heterosexualized notion of femininity as something to be subject to the male gaze (Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures 27) from an aesthetic point of view.

It can perhaps be argued that the privileging of femininity (again aesthetically through “emotionalized” sexual practice) in the lesbian gender order of discourse allows for the utilization of a fantasy (lesbian) character that is presumably desired by a male part of the mainstream target audience.

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For the first time in the drama genre there is a text that represents many elements of lesbian culture and life, but the majority of participants in this culture are feminized to a greater degree than participation in actual lesbian culture would suggest. This position adheres to the traditional notion of gender seen throughout the genre of soap and drama in the U.S. mass media. The repetition of this representation ensures some stability in the format and, therefore, the delivery of a mainstream (male and female) audience to advertisers (Stempel-Mumford 43). The discursive and generic elements of The L Word appear to be anchored in drama/soap rather than social realism and perhaps this explains a discursive hierarchy that is anchored in the feminized lesbian.

This generic style of representation is also reflective of similar generic qualities related to femininity found in such shows as Sex and the City (keeping in mind that The L Word’s season one promotional tagline is “Same Sex, Different City”). This style, coupled with the portrayal of similarly ideologically acceptable practices designed respectively for male and female members of a mainstream audience, can only be anchored by the opinion outlined by Showtime President Bob Greenblatt who is trying to attract a broader audience, particularly straight women (Goodridge 48).

But Shane’s character and her linked ideological meaning also fulfill a distinct purpose for the commercial imperative. This is not only to sit in opposition to or reiterate the order of gender through sexual practice. Being further down the prevalent order of discourse does not mean that this representation is in anyway constructed as “wrong” for a lesbian audience, it is merely the case of normalization being privileged over an alternative representation. Shane’s behavior and meaning offers an unambiguous site for the lesbian part of the television market to identify with. She provides a link to distinct lesbian spaces through visual language and anchors them distinctly as lesbian through her actions and visual codes. This means that two alternative discourses of lesbian sexual practice and butch-ness are produced to enable a reflection and targeting of a wider market than merely and singularly “lesbian” or “mainstream.” Shane is rather like an instant shortcut to quickly identifiable aspects of lesbian culture (she is clearly a lesbian/dyke stereotype), whilst other “lesbian” aspects may be more hidden behind normative discourse practices (as outlined earlier) for the lesbian market to discover as each season continues, thereby maintaining the attention of such an audience in spite of more traditional forms of discourse.

Overall, these particular discourses are strongly linked to the commerciality to which the producers must adhere for success. Depictions of feminine lesbians are displayed in opposition to Shane’s masculinized lesbian and provide a palatable and relatively normalized representation; meanwhile, Shane 9780230600805ts14.qxd 12-10-07 08:58 PM Page 193

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allows an explicit stereotype and point of identification for the lesbian community.

It can be claimed that because of this some of the lesbian filmmakers, writers, directors, and producers involved in The L Word (some of whom initially emerged from the New Queer Cinema movement) are still restricted.

They have moved away from a political movement where there was little point in asserting a distinct lesbian identity, as queer politics posits that sexuality is entirely fluid and this detracts from a single identity position (Butler, Gender Trouble 25). Instead they have now situated themselves in a position in the market where, although lesbian identity can be clearly asserted to a wider audience than ever, this is not necessarily in such a fashion that diversely represents all aspects of a lesbian culture. The new discursive practices that control and restrict the potential for alternative representations and meanings are commercial in foundation but reach into other discursive and generic repertoires that reinforce and appeal to a majority mainstream audience in the first instance and the lesbian audience in the second.

What we see with The L Word are new types of lesbian cultural representation introduced into a mainstream media text; here there is certainly a distinct lesbian cultural discourse, challenging that which went before.

However, hegemonically naturalized discourses and power positions such as heterosexuality remain stable and unchallenged as the dominant cultural identity; even elements of heterosexual gender relations are the foundation of discursive repertories to be drawn upon in terms of emotion, relationships, gender, and social responsibility. Generic repertoires are also raided, as the traditional feminine aesthetic and emotional discourse appears to be central to broad success. Although the plurality of the market has acknowledged that there is a place for lesbian representation and culture, the range of discursive practice is defined by the need for a broad audience (within a narrowcasting context) and the resultant range of advertisers. These representational selections may enable alternative discourses, but not necessarily ideologically resistive discourses in terms of political identity and power relations.

Note

1. Fairclough refers to such “orders of discourse” as being related to society’s ideological hierarchies where certain viewpoints/ideologies take preference other others, thus aiding in the reassertion of dominant ideological relations ( Media Discourse 60).

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CHAPTER 13

Pink Heels, Dildos, and Erotic Play:

The (Re)Making of

Fem(me)ininity in Showtime’s

The L Word

Erin Douglas

Instead, femme might be described as “femininity gone wrong”—

bitch, slut, nag, whore, cougar, dyke, or brazen hussy. Femme is the trappings of femininity gone awry, gone to town, gone to the dogs.

Femininity is a demand placed on female bodies and femme is the danger of a body read female or inappropriately feminine. We are not good girls—perhaps we are not girls at all.

—Chloë Brushwood Rose and Anna Camilleri,

Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity, 13

Fem(me)inine lesbian representations pervade popular culture; they can be found in television, film, and magazine advertisements.1 In February 2004 as The L Word premiered, a Bud Light advertisement in Curve—a lesbian magazine—pictured two amorous brazen femmes. One femme has a tattoo on the back of her right shoulder and the other femme wears a black lace low-cut shirt with her cleavage as a focus. The advertisement reads “be yourself ” (“Bud Light” 5). Both women are very fem(me)inine in appearance, demonstrating that for some lesbians to “be yourself ” is to perform fem(me)ininity. Although the advertisement emphasizes “being 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 196

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yourself,” it is also a space where we can read fem(me)ininity queerly. As Rose and Camilleri might argue, these two femmes suggest a “danger” of being read as “inappropriately feminine” because this brazen look of black lace and tattooed body parts is coupled with feminine markers (Camilleri and Rose 13). My theorization of fem(me)ininity in The L Word connects to Rose and Camilleri’s theories of brazen femininity, though the focus shifts from being femme to reading femme. Fem(me)ininity is the intersection of queer gender and sexuality. Not only is this Bud Light advertisement queered as Bud Light has historically appealed to the male heterosexual demographic, this issue of Curve also contains advertisements for The L Word. The advertisement slogan reads “Finally, a full season of lesbian drama—one episode and you’re hooked” (“The L Word” 1). While some viewers were indeed “hooked,”

others remained discontent.

As soon as The L Word aired, I was enamored of the series, sometimes caught up in steamy sex scenes, fem(me)inine fashion, and almost inevitably conversing or arguing with colleagues and friends about representations of femininity in the series. These conversations usually occur when I am most femmed up; people approach me suggesting that The L Word perpetuates a heterosexual male gaze and does not represent “real” lesbians because the actresses who play these parts are just too feminine. Picture me within this scene, noticing the underlying anxieties over authenticity, and tapping one of my black stiletto boots on the ground, wondering whether my own femininity is read as queer, beset by my own anxieties and paranoia about fem(me)inine performance and the misreading of my queer fem(me)ininity.

Rather than continue the debate over femininity’s place within or disruption of a heterosexual male gaze, I instead focus on queering femininity.

Countering the view that The L Word only shows traditional femininity, I point to different moments in the series that show queer femininity, demonstrating that femininity does not signify normativity. My goal is to offer a new way to read femininity, rather than theorizing femme invisibility.1 By analyzing scripts of queer fem(me)ininity in The L Word this chapter demonstrates: the importance of reading fem(me)ininity queerly in this televisual space; the complexities of femininity; how queer sex complicates discourses of femininity; what televisual fem(me)ininity offers; and the continual remaking of fem(me)ininity within television.

Trauma and Fem(me)inine Disidentification

Raped as a young girl, the character Jenny Schecter (Mia Kirshner) negotiates this experience with certain performances of fem(me)ininity that respond to trauma through disidentification. For example, after Jenny finds Mark’s (Eric Lively) 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 197

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cameras, with which he has been taping Jenny and Shane without their knowledge, Jenny strips and writes on her body, “Is this what you want?”

(2.10).2 Jenny performs her femininity, with particular emphasis on her female body, to rebel against and complicate a heterosexual male gaze’s construction of femininity that Jenny refers to as Mark’s “rapie cameras” (2.10).3

The importance is not merely Jenny’s female body, rather how her body and her femininity are read and are connected within normative discourses of gender and sexuality. This resistance forces Mark to question his own relation to his

“rapie cameras.” Jenny’s writing on her naked body “is this what you want?”

disidentifies with and subverts Mark’s construction of femininity on female bodies by throwing the question of how femininity has been and is currently constructed back onto Mark and, in turn, onto audience members.

My reading of Jenny’s fem(me)inine disidentification is informed by both José Esteban Muñoz’s theories of disidentification and Ann Cvetkovich’s theories of queer responses to trauma. For Muñoz, disidentification works as “the third mode of dealing with dominant ideology, one that neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it; rather, disidentification is a strategy that works on and against dominant ideology” ( Disidentifications 11).

Disidentification does not abandon identifications, but rather “work[s] on and against” these identifications. As in the performance described earlier, Jenny’s fem(me)inine performances “work on and against” normative scripts of femininity, throwing back at audience members images and performances of fem(me)ininity that may enable us to read femininity as a disidentificatory form of resistance. Muñoz further theorizes:

Disidentification is about recycling and rethinking encoded meaning. The process of disidentification scrambles and reconstructs the encoded message of a cultural text in a fashion that both exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recircuits its workings to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications. Thus, disidentification is a step further than cracking open the code of the majority; it proceeds to use this code as raw material for representing a disempowered politics or positionality that has been rendered unthinkable by the dominant culture. ( Disidentifications 31) Specifically, Jenny uses different body parts and objects that have been “culturally invested” with feminine meaning and “recycles” them to “work on and against” normative constructions of both femininity and femininity’s connection to female bodies. Jenny’s use of pink high heels in the stripping scene, described later, work as “cultural texts,” which are “encoded” with Jenny’s readings of traditional femininity. Both high heels and the color pink work as 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 198

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signifiers of dominant discourses of femininity.4 Jenny’s performance of disidentification with the pink high heels causes the televisual audience to question the problematic articulations of traumatically attaching “the code of the majority” femininity to female bodies.

Within the series, we see the development of how Jenny represents her intertwined traumas with her performances of fem(me)ininity. When Jenny interviews at the strip club, she is said to be a “very sick girl” (2.12), and this comment is intended to show the audience how Jenny will utilize stripping as a way to respond to trauma and as a queer performance of femininity. Right after this scene, Jenny looks at and draws her intertwined traumas in her book of pictures. The camera work intercuts Jenny’s drawings of Jewish concentration camp victims, a swastika, and the male audience members yelling at Jenny as she strips. Soon, these angry male faces become integrated into Jenny’s drawings as men who scream at Jewish concentration camp victims. The final drawing is of Jenny as a child naked except for underwear with wide scared eyes. All the while Jenny speaks and sings in Yiddish, verbally and pictorially representing the layers of how she experiences and responds to her traumas. This picture book shows audience members what Jenny responds to as she strips, and this stripping scene constructs a queer disidentificatory fem(me)ininity.

Both the book of pictures and the stripping scene are texts/performances that Jenny creates to respond to her trauma. We as televisual viewers enter Jenny’s performance at the strip club, where she begins by throwing a pair of pink high heels and what appears to be a little girl’s pink frilly top onto the stage: the music is the same that plays as she writes her fiction, indicating that this performance is also a fiction she creates with her body, gender, and sexuality. The use of pink heels and the little girl’s top connects femininity with trauma and the menacing gaze at the strip club. Jenny is aware of her disidentificatory performance of femininity, which is contrasted with the pink heels that “both exposes the encoded message’s universalizing and exclusionary machinations and recircuits its workings to account for, include, and empower minority identities and identifications” (Muñoz, Disidentifications 31). The combination of the use of the pink heels with the rest of Jenny’s stripping performance both “exposes” dominant scripts of femininity and remakes fem(me)ininity, thereby offering different queer fem(me)inine scripts and identifications. Jenny’s throwing of the pink heels onto the stage at the audience performs a type of feminine disavowal from the female body.

At first this act seems like counteridentification—Jenny asserting through this action, “this femininity is not me.” As we see the rest of her performance the fem(me)inine disidentification is made distinct.

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masculine and feminine. Jenny’s clothing is almost masculine—a pair of baggy jeans with a large black top. The only pieces of feminine attire the audience sees initially are fishnets worn underneath her jeans only visible by a camera shot of her feet as she walks up and down the stage. Then, as she strips the audience sees her black fem(me)inine bra, which she throws off violently as she strips. Both the fishnets and black bra depict a type of brazen fem(me)ininity that works as “ ‘femininity gone wrong’ . . . whore, cougar, dyke, or brazen hussy” (Rose and Camilleri 13). Jenny’s fem(me)inine disidentification is achieved through the dialogue between this brazen performance and the pink heels. The pink heels work as throwing an “appropriate” femininity onto the stage and then Jenny enters with her performance of

“inappropriate” fem(me)ininity (Rose and Camilleri 13).

Throughout Jenny’s entire performance she stares blankly at the male audience who yell at her and become visibly angry at Jenny’s disidentificatory performance of fem(me)ininity. Jenny’s final pose is with her arms lifted at her sides and her pants pulled down but not completely off. This moment of disidentification lacks the seductive quality of the prior performance and is hard, unemotional, and attempts to subvert. This scene also connects Jenny’s traumas of anti-Semitism and rape by juxtaposing her stripping and her speaking in Yiddish. Both traumas work as part of Jenny’s past and memory.

The trauma of rape is one trauma that she directly experiences whereas the trauma of the Holocaust is part of her ancestors’ past. Both past traumas merge within Jenny’s memory as she attempts to negotiate her subjectivity and fem(me)ininity. Jenny shows that the “Femme is the blade—fatally sharp; a mirror reflecting back fatal illusions” (Camilleri and Rose 12). The pink heels “reflect back fatal illusions” of femininity as the pink heels reflect traditional constructions of femininity. Jenny’s “fatally sharp” performance enacts femininity as a response to traumas of sexual abuse and anti-Semitism.

For many, sexual trauma and anti-Semitic trauma are two distinct forms of trauma, but Jenny negotiates both together in her re-creation of past memories and her response to both experiences.

The L Word’s representation of Jenny’s intertwined traumas gestures to how we can read Jenny’s traumas and fem(me)ininity queerly. My use of Jenny’s fem(me)inine disidentification works directly with Ann Cvetkovich’s theorization of “the creative ways in which people respond to [trauma]” (48).

Cvetkovich’s theories of how queer sex can be used as a response to sexual trauma inform a reading of Jenny’s intertwined traumas: “the body also serves as the materialization of social processes. Being made to feel . . . is a rich locus of social meaning, and the physical and sexual are linked not just to the emotional but to conceptions of gender, sexuality, race, and nationality” (70–71).

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sexuality, and religion. As the series progresses, we see how the cultural constructions of Jenny’s femininity, sexual abuse, and anti-Semitism collide as a singular trauma that cannot be separated into different distinct traumas.

Sexual trauma and anti-Semitism shape how Jenny lives and experiences her fem(me)ininity in this televisual space. Jenny’s disidentificatory fem(me)ininity queers femininity, shows how femininity can be read queerly illustrating the disconnect of femininity from female bodies, remakes fem(me)ininity, and invites audience members to question their own constructions and readings of femininity.

Intersectional Fem(me)ininity: Queer Erotic Play

of Constructions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality

Just as season two shows the intertwining of Jenny’s fem(me)ininity with trauma, season one of The L Word introduces the character Bette, struggling to define herself even as she is defined by her performances of race, gender, and sexuality. Bette occupies an interesting location because she grapples with both her performance of fem(me)ininity and blackness within the series as a whole and in her interracial relationship with her partner Tina. The interaction between Bette and Tina attempts to posit Tina as more feminine, aligned with the traditionally feminine roles of motherhood and taking care of the home, whereas Bette is the wage earner (although this juxtaposition shifts in season three). In Bette’s relationship with Tina, she is figured as possibly masculine, but within her sexual relationship with Candace, Bette can be read as fem(me)inine. It is through Bette’s vacillation between masculinity and femininity, between toppness and bottomness, and between blackness and whiteness, that she becomes an intriguing figure of fem(me)ininity to analyze.

Bette’s representation shows that these intertwined performances of gender, race, and sexuality point to the problematics of normative binary scripts that at times only analyze femininity through discourses of whiteness.

Theories of femininity’s relation to an intersectional analysis offer a productive way to read The L Word. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick discusses how the show constructs Bette’s character:

Bette, however, like [Jennifer] Beals, is of partly African-American descent, and the show’s early episodes begin to ramify the implications of that in her relationships with Tina, with their prospective child and the choice of its sperm donor, with her partly alienated half-sister Kit [Pam Grier], and with the inflexible father (Ossie Davis) whose approval she continues to need. It’s too early to tell how revealingly these issues may reach into Bette’s otherwise all-white lesbian community. What is clear 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 201

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already, though, is the difference made by the show’s generous contextualization of its characters’ intertwined lives, where no single character, relationship, or issue need be “the lesbian one” or the “other-than-white one.”

(xxiii–xxiv)

Sedgwick’s positive portrayal of the series relies on the fact that there is no singular race and/or lesbian issue. Sedgwick motions toward the potential future development of race and sexuality in the series and hopes that Bette’s private or individual struggles with race will become public or communal—in other words, Sedgwick hopes Bette’s community of color within the show has the potential to become a (televisual) community of color. Muñoz posits as follows: In The L Word, for instance, the racial particularity of Bette and her half-sister Kit seems initially to be light multicultural window dressing, although that proves not to be the case, insofar as the narrative does not try to contain or manage race. The race plots that these characters generate keep The L Word from slipping into a mode of neoliberalism in which race is sidelined. Indeed, the show often becomes “the R word,” and that is when it gets good and many queers, of color and not of color, are sutured. (“Queer Minstrels” 102)

Both Muñoz and Sedgwick see the possibilities The L Word represents for queers of color in television. The series “does not try to contain or manage race” because of the focus on intersectionality. Also, the series does not reflect multiculturalism, but rather a complex interrogation of race. Race and queerness are “sutured” provided, as both Muñoz and Sedgwick reference, that there is not one character who represents what black queerness “is” or exists as a token queer of color on the series; rather The L Word shows that there is not one discourse or “authentic” identity position that informs subjectivity but an intertwining of numerous intersectional discourses of race, gender, and sexuality (“Queer Minstrels” 102).5 Bette’s racial performance is intricately tied to her fem(me)ininity because she negotiates both her performance of blackness and fem(me)ininity with her desire for and participation in queer sex, which reflect her intersectional performances. This televisual representation of the connection of blackness and fem(me)ininity provides a space where audience members can read fem(me)ininity intersectionally.

The representation of Bette’s blackness and fem(me)ininity intersect within her relationship with Candace. The racial relationship between Candace and Bette is very complex because at the same time that Bette identifies with Candace (Candace is multiracial), she also sees her interaction with Candace as authenticating her own performance of blackness. In “Eating the 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 202

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Other: Desire and Resistance,” bell hooks notes, “Encounters with Otherness are clearly marked as more exciting, more intense, and more threatening. The lure is the combination of pleasure and danger” (26). Although hooks refers to white culture consuming racialized “others,” we can apply her insight to Bette’s desire to consume Candace or rather their mutual desire to consume one another through their fierce kissing scenes that combine lips, tongues, and teeth vis-à-vis their carnal kissing and biting of each other’s lips. hook’s theory of consumption of race can take on new meanings when used as a tool to read queer sex. Bette clearly experiences sex with Candace as “more exciting, more intense, and more threatening” than sex with Tina. We see Bette move toward a sexual relationship with Candace as she starts to explore the connections among her blackness, queer sex, and fem(me)ininity. Bette attempts to reject being read as white or black, masculine or feminine. Because of Tina’s constant misreadings and misunderstandings of the complexities of Bette’s racial performance, Bette moves into a relationship with Candace.6 With Candace, Bette can explore both the complexities of her racial and gender performances without having to define herself or be forced to be read as either/or. The “pleasure and danger” aspect of Bette and Candace’s sexual performance is tied to Bette’s fem(me)inine desires (hooks 26).

The L Word vacillates in its portrayal of butch/femme relationships and desires—at times it portrays butch/femme as a queer erotic play of desire and gender and at others it depicts a conservative second-wave lesbian feminist representation of butch/femme imaginings.7 Candace is visually coded as butch in the masculine way she carries her body and is clothed. Also, the series represents Candace’s butch performance as connected to sexually being a top, just as in a similar manner, the show depicts fem(me)ininity as bottoming. Interestingly though, the power relations between top and bottom are represented as a fluid erotic exchange that lacks cohesive definitions. For example, before Bette and Candace have sex, Bette is in control of what does or does not happen sexually between them. But then, the first time Bette and Candace have sex, Candace pushes Bette onto the bed and holds her arms down, saying “You can’t always be in control” (1.14). Within this scene the audience can read that Candace has named Bette’s desire—the desire not to be in control or at least not to be the person penetrating. This loss of control is Bette’s shifting from a top to a bottom performance of sexuality.8 In this queer sex act, Bette performs a type of bottom fem(me)ininity. This sexualized fem(me)ininity is linked with being penetrated and having one’s vagina consumed. Thus, Bette becomes hooks’s “racialized other,” who is literally consumed by Candace and metaphorically by the viewing audiences.9 Bette and Candace’s televised queer sex demonstrates the constant movement between the two characters desiring to consume each other’s racial and 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 203

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gender performances—it is these intersectional performances that lack cohesive definitions that attract them to each other. Before the televised queer sex scenes, Bette’s desires are represented by both the desire to consume and be consumed by Candace’s performances of race and queer masculinity. Bette’s attraction to Candace seems precisely because Candace does not read Bette’s racial, gender, or sexuality as unified, rather as a desire among queer masculinity and fem(me)ininity, blackness and whiteness, and toppness and bottomness.

It is through queer sex that audience members see the mobility of Bette’s intersectional performances. I use queer sex rather than lesbian sex to emphasize the complex use of power in these sexual exchanges and to signal a shift from identity to performance. Queer sex is not about defining who is a top and who is a bottom; instead, it focuses on how this binary relation ceases to work because of the complex negotiation of power within different sexual performances. Through these queer sex acts, Bette is able to experience the collision of her blackness, fem(me)ininity, and bottomness, which is represented as pleasurable, erotic, and very queer. The series does not equate Bette’s blackness or fem(me)ininity to her bottomness; rather these distinct performances intersect as she negotiates her black queer fem(me)ininity.

Bette’s continual negotiation and fluctuation of her fem(me)ininity and blackness teaches audience members how to read femininity queerly as the continual back and forth points to the constant motion of intersectional gender, sexuality, and racial performances and discourses.

Fem(me)ininity and Pleasure: Queer Fem(me)ininity

and Femme Dom Bottom Performance10

The past three decades of feminist theory have opened up conversations of how femininity is figured within a heterosexual male gaze and pornography.11 Not surprisingly, numerous conversations about femininity and a male gaze have been discussed with regard to The L Word. Rather than entering into this debate,12 I instead question what happens to femininity within representations of queer sex on television. As Jean Bobby Noble articulates:

“In the case of fem(me)ininity, what one sees is not at all what one gets. The trick, for subjects of fem(me)ininity, is how to stage the gaze as a scene of that knowledge within an economy that simultaneously interpellates and discursively binds in the same looking relations. How, in other words, can fem(me)ininity resist precisely what femininity is articulated through and contained by?” (106). Noble questions how fem(me)ininity is not

“contained” by or “articulated through” the interpellation of the structure of a male gaze. As scholars of queer fem(me)ininity, we must not “bind”

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fem(me)ininity to discourses of a male gaze because fem(me)ininity “tricks”

and resists such articulations.

Too often in feminist scholarship and in popular culture, lesbian sexual performances are perceived as existing as porn for straight male viewers. Tavia Nyong’o complicates the idea that The L Word and Queer as Folk are porn for straight viewers by questioning how we look at pornography: The predictable right-wing accusations of homosexual recruitment leveled at queer TV mask an even more pervasive fear that the sex on these shows destabilizes the homo/hetero dyad—that, to put it succinctly, chicks dig the gay sex on Queer as Folk, and guys might also relish the girl-on-girl action on The L Word. . . . Extending into the visual the logical incoherence of the word homosexual, which conflates women’s desires for women with men’s desire for men, it is not easy to say what homosexual pornography would look like. (103–104)

Nyong’o’s clever take on the porn critique figures desire differently. Desire should be taken out of the “homo/hetero dyad” to complicate how we define fem(me)ininity within televised sex. Fem(me)ininity breaks the “homo/

hetero” dyad because it refigures not only queer sex acts, but also how we figure erotic power relations of penetration.13

Alice’s performance of queer fem(me)ininity represents such a moment of resignification of femininity in The L Word. Very femme in her performance of gender, Alice performs a type of brazen fem(me)ininity through her fem(me)inine hard edge and her remaking of fem(me)ininity. Alice has a tattoo around her bicep, which contributes to her hard-edged look. Alice’s performance of fem(me)ininity includes her appearance and her desire for and participation in queer sex. As Lorna Wheeler and Laura Raven Wheeler note, the second season of The L Word takes “a more contemporary and lively queer approach” by incorporating “as many so-called radical practices as it can” (99). This shift comes from representing lesbian sex in season one as mainly oral sex and clitoral stimulation with a few scenes of fingered penetration to season two representing different types of queer sex. Queer sex is figured as a disruption of binary identity configurations because of the sexual performance of “mobile” “interplay[s]” of “power” (Foucault 94).14 For example, in the second season, we see more queer sex acts as Alice and Dana reference tops and bottoms as a complex relation of power in their sexual play. After Alice and Dana become partners, they reference S/M through bruises and sex toys like nipple clips. Alice is also the character who articulates her thoughts about sex toys and her desire for Dana to penetrate her with a strap-on. This articulation of queer sex is framed not only by what the strap-on offers to 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 205

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Dana’s butch performance but also by Alice’s fem(me)inine pleasure.15 Sex toys help to open up Dana and Alice’s sexual play, and the audience sees Dana with a strap-on dildo. Then, Dana penetrates Alice with the strap-on that Alice so desires to be penetrated with. The two characters role-play another element of their nonnormative desires. It is on Alice’s urging that we see Dana expand her ideas of sexual play. Through The L Word’s framing of role-playing, S/M, and dildos in terms of Alice’s fem(me)inine pleasure, we can read how fem(me)ininity disrupts binary definitions of sexuality, desire, and pleasure demonstrating the “mobile” power relations in erotic play (Foucault 94).

Alice can be read as a femme dom bottom and this performance resignifies femininity, receptivity, bodies, and pleasures.16 The femme dom bottom sets the scene, and her desires shape the sexual play, and she shows the mobility of top/bottom and dom/sub power relations. Even though she is not the one strapping on the dildo or penetrating, she controls when and how they have sex. The femme dom bottom’s sounds and movements cause her partner to experience pleasure in a way that redefines bodies and pleasures because pleasure and orgasms can be achieved for her top outside of genital contact.

Cvetkovich theorizes that in the performance of fem(me)ininity, “femmes also provide a range of ways of being open without being passive or stig-matized, rewriting the meanings of vulnerability and receptivity” (81).

Cvetkovich complicates the active/passive binary: “receptive” is a way to queer fem(me)inine sexual performance and the act of penetration. Being penetrated is a “vulnerable” act; yet femmes “rewrite” this sexual act so that their sexual performance is not linked with “vulnerability.” Not only is Dana, doing the “fucking,” active, but also Alice, being “fucked,” is active and

“receptive.” As a result, both performances disrupt binary constructions of sexual relations as Cvetkovich notes, “The discourse of femmes undoes assumptions about any simple relation or analogy between binarisms such as

‘butch/femme,’ ‘top/bottom,’ ‘fucking/being fucked,’ and ‘penetrating/being penetrated,’ and makes it difficult to reduce them to any single master binarism, such as ‘masculine/feminine’ or ‘active/passive’” (59–60). Alice is actively “receptive,” and scripts her brazen femme desires in her relationship with Dana, making new forms of pleasure possible. Alice’s dom femme bottom performance shows how “pillow queen[s],” too, change and complicate gender and sexual play (2.8).

Three episodes in particular indicate Alice’s femme dom bottom performance in season two. While Alice and Dana are in the sex toy store in the Late, Later, Latent episode, Alice is comfortable touching and playing with sex toys, whereas Dana looks noticeably uncomfortable, even putting on her sunglasses at one point. Alice has no problem shopping for her pleasures and expressing her desire to be “fucked” by consumable products—products that 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 206

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are able to resignify the body and desire. The two leave, and it is Dana who comes back to purchase the strap-on. As Dana walks into the bedroom and asks Alice not to laugh at her, Alice looks at the strap-on and says “Who’s laughing?” with a look of desire in her eyes (2.9). The smile on Alice’s lips indicates that the desires she has scripted are soon to be played out in the bedroom, and through the televisual medium that represents her desires and prowess to the public, thus providing a point where audience members can read femininity queerly.

In the Land Ahoy and Loud & Proud episodes, Alice scripts her desires and her fem(me)ininity in terms of role-playing. As the group of friends enters the cruise ship, Alice asks the captain for uniforms because she knows that Dana has a crush on Julie from The Love Boat. Alice tells Dana to put on the captain’s uniform, and Alice goes into the bathroom to become Julie. She comes out appearing to be Julie’s queer ( re)vision and thus fulfills her own sexual desires through the gendered performance of role-playing. Thereafter, Alice and Dana role-play with other characters, but Alice always performs versions of femininity. Role-playing offers Alice not only a place to explore her queer desires and pleasures, but also gives Alice a tool to parody different scripts of femininity. In addition to the everyday parodic performances of femininity that Alice enacts throughout the series, Alice’s playful parody as Julie and a French maid is blatant and exaggerated with not only her costumes, but also her excessively feminine bodily gestures and melodramatic dialogue. In one such scene, there is a slippage in the role-playing: when as Alice/a French maid says that she loves Dana/an employer, Alice has to discriminate between one performance and another: “No, this is me talking. I love you” (2.11 my emphasis added). At this moment there is a slippage in gender performances indicating the “undoing” and “redoing” of gender in this space of role-playing. Alice remakes queer versions of femininity in these different televisual scenes. We are left wondering where the version of femininity Alice plays as herself ends and the other versions she plays begin.

The “doing” and “undoing” of gender in this space of role-playing calls into question the binary configuration of Alice’s momentary slippage as she motions to an “authentic self ” rather than the other scripts she enacts in these role-playing scenes. Our understanding of Alice’s playing with her fem(me)ininity can be informed by Judith Butler’s theories of “doing” and

“undoing” gender: “If gender is a kind of a doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without one’s knowing and without one’s willing, it is not for that reason automatic or mechanical. On the contrary, it is a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint. Moreover, one does not ‘do’ one’s gender alone. One is always ‘doing’ with or for another, even if the other is only imaginary” (1). In queer television, the audience is both imaginary and 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 207

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material. Alice’s “doing” and “undoing” of gender queers fem(me)ininity through “doing” multiple forms of fem(me)ininity, indicating that gender is

“done” and “undone.” Sexual role-playing does not figure gender as merely costumes that can be put on and taken off, but rather as a complex interrogation of how gender is figured and refigured. It is Alice’s performance with Dana and with the televisual viewers that queer femininity. Televised queer sex demonstrates the possibilities of “doing” and “undoing” femininity, thus motioning to how to read femininity queerly.

Alice, Jenny, and Bette “redo” different types of fem(me)ininity and

“undo” traditional constructions of femininity. An interesting moment in Butler’s articulations of undoing gender is her emphasis on “constraint” (1).

Constraint takes on multiple articulations through Jenny, Bette, and Alice’s

“doing” and “undoing” of femininity. Jenny illustrates traumatic constraints and the constraint of a male gaze but then undoes conventional constructions of femininity through her fem(me)inine disidentification. Bette shows the constraints of binary figurations of race and gender, and the pleasured constraints of sexual power play. And, finally, Alice demonstrates the fun and playful side of the word constraint in terms of S/M, top/bottom, and the parody of femininity in role-playing. All three characters offer moments of reading how their queer performances undo normative scripts of femininity and do multiple queer fem(me)ininities. Thus, Alice, Jenny, and Bette are, as Halberstam notes about transgenderism in A Queer Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, “queer performers who destabilize the normative values that make everyone else feel safe and secure” (Halberstam 10). Alice, Jenny, and Bette’s queer performances cause discomfort and uncertainty; they complicate and remake fem(me)ininity. Alice, Jenny, and Bette represent

“ ‘femininity gone wrong’” with the performance of their excessively queer fem(me)inine desires (Camilleri and Rose 13). In these televisual spaces, fem(me)ininity exists in a place where it desires to be penetrated, refigures penetration by constructing the scene, responds to trauma, subverts the male gaze, and shows fem(me)ininity as a complex negotiation of race, gender, and sexuality.

Queer fem(me)inine reading is a focus of this chapter and thus brings us back to the advertisement that I began this essay with. The advertisement focuses on fem(me)ininity in terms of “be[ing] yourself ” ( Curve 5), and this queer fem(me)inine self is directly related to The L Word’s parody of how cultural markers of femininity are not read as queer in straight and in some lesbian subcultures. However problematic the concept of “being oneself ” may be, its continuing cultural power suggests precisely why queer readings of femininity are necessary. Once we as viewers and readers of femininity can read fem(me)ininity queerly, the focus can shift from issues of visibility and 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 208

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authenticity, or “being oneself,” where femininity is read and connected to female bodies, into other directions, (re)makings, and (re)stylings of fem(me)ininity.

Notes

I thank Madelyn Detloff, Mary Jean Corbett, Katie Johnson, Lisa Weems, Piya Pal Lapinski, Rebecca Beirne, Susan Pelle, Zach Weir, Jamie Calhoun, Lynn Hall, Jenise Bauman, and Jen Cellio for commenting on drafts of this essay and for their continuing conversations that help me to articulate my theories of queer fem(me)ininity. A special thanks to Madelyn and Susan for enduring my incessant conversations about The L Word and commenting on numerous drafts of this essay through its many stages—without you both helping me to ask different questions, this essay would not have been possible.

1. I use the term fem(me)ininities, used by Melanie Maltry and Kristin Tucker, who define it as a subversive feminine gender performance enacted by femme lesbians (89–102). My use of the concept of femme positioned in the middle of fem(me)ininity, disrupts, deconstructs, and (re)signifies traditional constructions of femininity in television. Lisa Duggan and Kathleen McHugh coin the term in

“The Fem(me)inist Manifesto” (109). My exploration is not naming femme lesbian representations, rather it is theorizing the performance and performativity of fem(me)ininity.

2. One of the story lines in season two of The L Word is that Mark, Jenny, and Shane’s new roommate, is a voyeur of lesbianism. He produces films and subsequently asks Jenny and Shane whether he can make a “supposed” documentary of their lesbianism.

3. Jenny’s character illustrates what Boyarin, Itzkovitz, and Pellegrini describe as the interconnectedness of Jewish and queer identities and histories in the introduction to Queer Theory and the Jewish Question (1).

4. An implication of disidentification is our awareness of the traumatic affects of recycling “toxic” identifications in dominant ideology (see Muñoz Disidentifications 185). Jenny’s use of fem(me)inine disidentification as a response to trauma references how she uses toxic feminine images, imaginings, and traumatic experiences to respond to trauma and show audience members the effects of trauma.

5. Jennifer DeVere Brody theorizes the intersectionality and “interrelatedness” of discourses of gender, sexuality, and race (see Brody 94–95).

6. Within season one of The L Word, Tina is resistant to having a black sperm donor because she says that she does not know what it means to be black, to which Bette responds, “I think I can make a contribution in that department” (1.1–1.2). Tina misreads Bette’s racial performance as only white, and the complexities of Bette’s blackness are invisible. Also, Bette tells Yolanda, a black lesbian, that she does not define herself as exclusively white or black. And then the two characters argue that 9780230600805ts15.qxd 12-10-07 08:57 PM Page 209

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Bette did not “come out” as black and Yolanda did not “come out” as lesbian (1.8–1.9). The juxtaposition of these two characters and their similar struggles with the negotiations of their race, gender, and sexuality show audience members the problematic constructions of dominant binary discourses.

7. Lorna Wheeler and Lara Raven Wheeler note that the “shift” to queer sex in season two of The L Word suggests “a change from a relatively conservative, second-wave feminist identity politics to a more contemporary and lively queer approach” (99).

8. The L Word represents both dominant and submissive forms of bottom fem(me)ininity. My use of loss of control is not about a passive construction of sub-bottom fem(me)ininity, but rather as an erotic queer play of desire.

9. In the first sex scene between Candace and Bette we can interpret Candace penetrating Bette, and in season two Candace performs oral sex. But like most of the sex in the series, we cannot see exactly what happens.

10. I use “femme dom bottom” to refer to femme dominatrix bottoms, femmes who like to be fucked/penetrated but are the ones who shape the scene. Sometimes femme bottoms are linked with being submissive, but I complicate this view through reading Alice’s aggressive representation of her own desire and pleasure of dom bottom femininity. This definition takes off from Cvetkovich’s theories of femme receptivity—look to Cvetkovich’s chapter titled “Trauma and Touch: Butch-Femme Sexualities” in An Archive of Feelings (49–82).

11. See Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and Mary Ann Doane “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator” for two sources of scholarship on the theorization of femininity and the male gaze.

12. These debates suggest that femininity exists to please a male gaze in The L Word because the series contains feminine women having sex with each other, which is what men desire to see. Also, such debates focus on very feminine women not being “real” lesbians. For a few examples of these debates, see Hayes, Martel, Nathan, and Stanley.

13. Also, look to Anna McCarthy’s “Crab People from the Center of the Earth.”

14. The queer top/bottom relations in The L Word can be understood through Foucault’s notion that “pleasure and power do not cancel or turn back against one another; they seek out, overlap, and reinforce one another” ( The History of Sexuality 48).

15. Season three contains exploration of what the use of the strap-on does for both butch (Shane) and FTM (Max) performances of queer masculinity as well as fem(me)inine pleasure.

16. By my use of “bodies and pleasures,” I refer to Foucault’s formulations thereof in The History of Sexuality: Volume I (see Foucault 157–159).

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CHAPTER 14

There’s Something Queer

Going On in Orange County:

The Representation of Queer

Women’s Sexuality in The O.C.

Allison Burgess

The media hype around the introduction of a lesbian story line into the second season of the television show The O.C. in 2004–2005 suggested that this would be yet another overly simplistic and unrealistic representation of queer identities in mainstream media and a stunt for a ratings boost during February sweeps week. The lesbian story line began in episode 2.9 (“The Ex-Factor”), which aired in North America on January 20, 2005, and ran through to the end of episode 2.16 (“The Blaze of Glory”) on March 17, 2005. I expected that this story line would be caught up in the teen drama series’ usual overly dramatic sagas, its extra-heightened moments of teenaged sexual tension, and the exploitation of newly “chic” queer characters. To my surprise, however, the representation of queer women’s sexuality on The O.C. was much more realistic and respectfully portrayed than the media hype at its outset intimated. The first five episodes of the eight-episode plotline depicted a genuine story line that was potentially “one of network TV’s best portrayal[s] of a lesbian relationship in several years” (Warn, “A Disappointing” para. 3). Indeed, I argue that this lesbian relationship began as something new and exciting, representing a nuanced and fluid understanding of women’s sexuality on prime-time television. Disappointingly, in 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 212

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the last three of the eight episodes, the writers of The O.C. negated the earlier promising portrayals, and by episode 2.16, the creators of The O.C. reified the dominance of homophobic and heteronormative discourses in popular culture.

Queer Visibility on Television

Queer visibility in mainstream media has increased significantly in recent years. Gay and lesbian characters, who were once virtually invisible from popular culture, are beginning to make more appearances in film and television. Often these appearances have consisted of unidimensional stereotypes or comic relief, and the number of gay characters in mainstream media, particularly the number of queer women characters, has been so minimal that a short list of their appearances can quickly be accumulated. The website www.AfterEllen.com, which keeps a comprehensive database of all of the appearances of lesbians and bisexual women on U.S. television, lists the appearance of only eleven lesbian or bisexual characters (who appeared in at least three episodes of a show), six of which were appearances in movies on television, between 1976 and 1991 (“Timeline”).

Noteworthy lesbian and bisexual television moments include L.A. Law (1991), Roseanne (1992–1997), and the subtextual lesbianism in Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001). Perhaps the most famous of all lesbian moments on television was in 1997, when Ellen Degeneres’s character Ellen Morgan came out on her network sitcom Ellen. The show became the first sitcom to revolve around a gay character and the first show to discuss lesbian sex explicitly on a prime-time television series (1997–1998) (“Timeline”).

Many lesbian characters since the 1990s have become fuller and more realistic representations that go beyond the usual tragic stereotypes to represent much more genuine understandings of lesbian sexuality. Particularly notable was the two-and-a-half-year relationship from 2000 to 2003 between the witches Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson) on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has been credited by many as one of the best representations of a lesbian relationship on television, as well as the 2004 introduction of The L Word, the first dramatic series featuring a cast of lesbian, bisexual, and queer women characters.

Gays and lesbians share a common history of having been rendered invisible in popular culture. Larry Gross argues that “our vulnerability to media stereotyping and political attack derives in large part from our isolation and pervasive invisibility” (15). Gay and lesbian visibility are often referred to simultaneously, but the differences between the histories of the politics in gay and lesbian communities mean that their representations in mainstream 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 213

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media are also significantly different. Gay men’s representation in the media began primarily with the popularity of “camp,” a gay male strategy of subversion (Gross 18), which functioned to suggest queer interpretations of mainstream straight culture (Creekmur and Doty 2–3). Lesbians have had a far less visible or active role in the history of popular culture. Creekmur and Doty suggest that

lesbians seemed less invested than gay men in popular culture production and criticism before the 1970s, perhaps because achieving positions of power and control within popular culture industries has always been difficult for women (whether lesbian or not), whereas closeted gay men . . . often achieved prominence and power in the popular culture mainstream. (5)

Thus Creekmur and Doty recognize that beyond the homophobic repression experienced by lesbians and gays, lesbians are further subjected to sexism.

They argue that closeted men still have access to the same kinds of power that (presumably white) heterosexual men have access to, whereas lesbians are othered by both their gender and their sexuality (along with other interlocking systems of oppression1).

The 1990s were accompanied by a surge in queer content, and no longer were gay and lesbian characters invisible in mainstream media. While there was and is still much to be critical of in the representations of many of the queer characters and queer sexualities on television, invisibility of queer sexualities is no longer the core critique made of popular culture by queer scholars and activists. With the quick change in visible representations of diverse sexualities in mainstream media, it becomes important to consider the kinds of implications this change has on queer politics in popular culture.

Joshua Gamson asks the pointed questions, “if the invisibility party is over, new questions are still circulating about the new visibility party that has taken its place: who is invited, and by whom, and at what price, and with what political and social consequences” (340). There are certainly some representations of queer sexualities that are much more popular than others (e.g., gay white men Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes) on Will and Grace (1998–2006)). It is also clear that simply increasing the visibility of queer sexualities does not necessarily equate with decreas-ing discrimination or oppression. Critiques arise particularly around the increased acceptance of gays and lesbians who are more interested in becoming a part of the heteronormative mainstream than in challenging assimilation.

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political tension between those advocating assimilation and normalization as routes to social progress and those pursuing a ‘queer’ challenge to norms as a social change strategy” (349).

So no longer is the queer critique of mainstream media about invisibility.

Suzanna Dunata Walters asks us to consider how

this new visibility creates new forms of homophobia . . . and lends itself to a false and dangerous substitution of cultural visibility for inclusive citizenship. In many ways, this moment provides us with a picture of a society readily embracing the images of gay life but still all too reluctant to embrace the realities of gay identities and practices in all their messy and challenging confusion. (10)

If there is something commercial about gay or queer, it is the heteronormal-izing and mainstreaming of these identities and sexualities. Thus, anyone who exists beyond this heteronormative definition of sexuality is denied representation and visibility and is subjected to continued marginalization.

The O.C.

As explained on the Fox Broadcasting Company’s homepage for the show, The O.C. “is a story of fathers and sons, husbands and wives and the relationships between a group of teens in Southern California” (“The O.C.”).

Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) is from Chino, the “tough” working-class neighborhood on the “wrong” side of the tracks. Ryan is kicked out of his house but soon after is adopted by the Cohen family in the rich and elite Newport Beach in Orange County, California. The Cohens’ son, Seth (Adam Brody), and Ryan, now brothers, are best friends and a dynamic duo as the

“geeky misfit” and the tough and brooding outsider. Ryan’s constant love interest is Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), while Seth’s is Summer Roberts (Rachel Bilson) and each couple are repeatedly in and out of love throughout the series. Summer and Marissa are also best friends. While other teen characters are introduced periodically throughout, Ryan, Seth, Marissa, and Summer are a tight-knit foursome around which the majority of the show’s teen drama is focused. It is during season two, between episodes 2.9 through 2.16, that a queer plotline was introduced for Marissa, who began to explore her sexuality and entered into a relationship with another woman.

While The O.C. is certainly not a realistic representation of teenaged life (nor does it claim to be), a cultural critique is certainly still significant. bell hooks reminds us that it is important to be critically engaged in the world in which we live, including being critically engaged in popular culture ( bell 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 215

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hooks). Thus, it is important to consider how queer sexualities are represented and embodied in mainstream media because of their inevitable connections and relations to circulating discourses of sexuality.

Queering The O.C.

During the second season of The O.C. , Seth dates Alex Kelly (Olivia Wilde).

In episode 2.9 (“The Ex-Factor”), Alex announces to Seth that her ex is coming to town and that she needs some space from him while she deals with her ex, with whom she has not yet broken up. Seth gets jealous, and it is Ryan who first “discovers” that Alex’s ex is a woman (Jodie, played by Emmanuelle Chriqui), and after much pestering from Seth, Ryan reveals Alex’s ex’s gender to him.

While the male characters support Seth who is consumed with his girlfriend’s other relationship, a separate plot develops in which Marissa independently finds herself attracted to Alex. Expectedly, the developing relationship between Marissa and Alex is overly dramatic and somewhat predictable. The first major hint that Marissa is romantically interested in Alex (aside from the mass media hype surrounding the relationship) is at the end of episode 2.9, when Marissa sleeps over at Alex’s place and during a shared look it becomes clear to the viewing audience that Alex intrigues Marissa.

The two characters begin spending all of their time together. Marissa skips school to spend her days with Alex, and Alex’s nights are filled working as a bartender at “The Bait Shop,” the local club. The tension builds when Marissa wants to spend yet another day with Alex, who asks her “Aren’t you sick of me yet? We’ve hung out every day this week!” (“The Accomplice”

2.10). Before Alex and Marissa hook up, the sexual tension between the two mounts quickly, and after a number of cues, Marissa begins to flirt more directly with Alex. In both episodes 2.10 and 2.11 (“The Second Chance”), Marissa pulls her shirt off in front of Alex, both times catching Alex’s attention. Marissa is attracted to Alex, and her coy flirtation with Alex is also a coy flirtation with queer sexuality.

There are three particularly formative moments in the relationship between Alex and Marissa, which are both sexually progressive and queer-positive, and which suggest that The O.C. attempted to create one of the better representations of queer women on television. The first of these moments is at the end of episode 2.11. The mutual attraction between Marissa and Alex has become obvious to them both, but Marissa is nervous and uncertain. At the end of the episode, Marissa enters The Bait Shop, walks over, and slips her hand into Alex’s. Surprised, Alex looks to Marissa, and they share a smile and squeeze their hands tighter. This is significant because in this 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 216

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moment, Marissa has boldly made a physical connection to show her emotional willingness toward Alex. Rather than suffering through internalized homophobia and hatred toward herself and her flirtation with queer sexuality, Marissa is open and receptive to exploring her sexuality and to a relationship with Alex. The show’s creator Josh Schwartz explains that Marissa is at a point in her life where she’s trying to find herself and her true identity. There’s another character who she really connects with. It’s a girl, which is not something Marissa may have anticipated. But she’s willing and game to explore and experiment with that. (quoted in Warn,

“Marissa Gets” para. 6)

This moment is both honest and nervous. It is also particularly formative because it is public. Despite the fact that Marissa is still closeted and has not told her friends about Alex, she also performs this gesture in the public space of The Bait Shop, which is regularly frequented by all of her friends and peers. While none of the other main characters are there that night, she has no way of ensuring that this moment will happen in secret.

The second formative queer-positive moment occurs at the end of episode 2.12 (“The Lonely Hearts Club”) in which Alex and Marissa have an unplanned date on the beach at the end of the night on Valentine’s Day.

The two characters sit on the beach waiting for the tide to turn, and when it does, Alex leans in and kisses Marissa. The kiss is romantic and the camera pans away while a slow ballad plays in the background, and the viewer watches the two women kissing on the beach from a distance. Rather than creating an exploitative or oversexed moment, the writers of The O.C.

instead present a romantic and tender moment between the two characters.

Writing just after episode 2.12 aired, Malinda Lo suggests that “so far, Shwartz is actually following through on his promise to deliver a ‘resonant’

relationship. . . . Despite the fact that all of this is conveniently occurring during February sweeps . . . the Alex-Marissa relationship is the best representation of lesbianism on network television since Buffy” (Lo, “Taking Stock” para. 2–3). It is worth noting again that this moment occurs in public. While the beach is empty for this first kiss and the two seem to be alone together, the same beach is often the site where characters assume the privacy of the beach but are “caught” or “spotted” in the open public space by others from the pier. Indeed, these two formative moments were an early suggestion that The O.C. would treat the lesbian queer subjectivity respectfully and positively.

A third important queer-positive moment in the development of the Marissa and Alex relationship is at the end of episode 2.13 (“The Father 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 217

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Knows Best”) during which Marissa confesses that her anxiety and reluctance to come out to Summer was partly rooted in her own anxieties about not being ready for her relationship with Alex. Alex assumes Marissa’s hesitation means that they will break up, but Marissa decides to come out to Summer and consequently feels happier about being with Alex. While coming-out stories are often full of anxiety and stress, it was relieving to watch an alternative telling of a coming-out story: one that realistically considered the difficulties of coming out, but which portrayed an alternative to a painfully belabored process.

The portrayal of Alex on The O.C. is also considered one of the better representations of bisexuality on television. Sara Warn argues that Alex is one of the most realistic bisexual characters on prime-time TV: Beyond the initial surprise factor, her bisexuality and her (past) relationships with women are for the most part treated fairly matter-of-factly by the writers. So far, at least, the writers have avoided saddling her with the usual promiscuous and non-monogamous stereotypes that afflict most bisexual women on TV. (Warn, “The O.C.’s Alex” para. 11) Like the lesbian story line, this remains true until the last few episodes, in which Alex’s character has a total personality change, becomes jealous and territorial over Marissa, and physically threatens Ryan.

Discourses of Heterosexual Masculinity

There are simultaneous discourses of masculinity that are competing throughout this story arc. In just a few conversations, Seth, Ryan, and their friend Zach Stevens (Michael Cassidy) reveal these discourses of heterosexual masculinity in response to queer women’s sexuality. In episode 2.9, the three are in a car driving to The Bait Shop so that Seth can confront Alex about her relationship with Jodie, and reveal three discourses therein: Ryan: So Alex hooked up with a girl. It’s not a big deal, Seth.

Seth: Ryan. My girlfriend dated a girl. It’s a very big deal. There’s only one thing I can do to make it okay.

Zach: You’re going to hook up with a guy?

(Awkward silence and shifty eyes between Ryan and Seth.)

Seth: I repeat. There’s only one thing I can do to make it okay. I need to see this girl. Because right now, my imagination is just running wild.

Zach: Dude, so’s mine. (To Ryan) She’s hot, right?

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Seth: Listen. I know I’m supposed to be attracted, okay? And I’m supposed to be turned on. I’ve read Maxim, I’ve read Stuff, but you know what?

All it’s making me feel is that Alex is even more out of my league.

Ryan: Maybe you should just wait to talk to her until you calm down a little bit.

Seth: Nope. I’ve got a lot of testosterone pumping right now, Ryan.

Testosterone being the key ingredient that’s missing from Alex’s last relationship. I just need to remind her of that.

First and most obvious is Zach’s embodiment of the stereotypical heterosexual male’s response to lesbian sexuality. In this scene and in future ones, he jokes about the lesbian fantasies he is having, inspired by Alex and Jodie.

Never are his reactions to their relationship any more complex than the homophobic eroticization of the two women together.

Ryan’s reaction, however, contrasts significantly with Zach’s. Throughout the series, Ryan’s character embodies the ultimate macho masculinity. While he is sensitive and caring, he is known to get into physical fights and is over-protective of the people in his life. Throughout the queer story line, Ryan is the most open-minded to the lesbian relationships. In this scene, he is not concerned with the topic of lesbianism, nor does he seem to have a problem with lesbian relationships; instead, he looks out for Seth’s well-being and tries to convince him to avoid confrontation.

Seth’s reactions to queer women’s relationships, however, are particularly interesting. In this scene, he is jealous and insecure about the fact that his girlfriend is dating someone else while she is dating him, and his feelings are heightened by the fact that his girlfriend’s other relationship is with a woman.

He admits that while he knows that he is supposed to be turned on and recognizes how society has socialized him in a particular way as a heterosexual male to react to lesbians by fantasizing about them, he feels like Alex is out of his league because she is now more experienced than him. Here, queer is the new “chic,” and Seth cannot keep up. As Walters writes about the development of gays and lesbians on television, by the mid-1990s, “gayness wasn’t just a verboten titillation anymore. Suddenly, gayness was cool” (96). This is clearly evidenced by Seth’s intimidation by his “chic” queer girlfriend. Seth also relies on homophobic discourses of “the problem with lesbian sexuality”

to prove that he is Alex’s rightful (heterosexual) partner by explaining that what is missing from Alex and Jodie’s relationship is testosterone. This falls directly in line with homophobic discourses in response to lesbianism, in which a lesbian just needs to have sex with a man to confirm her heterosexuality and to realize “what she really wants.”

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In another scene between these three male characters, Ryan, Seth, and Zach are walking on the boardwalk in the opening of episode 2.10, discussing the situation between Seth and Alex:

Seth: What do I do?

Zach: What do you want to do?

Seth: What I want to do is just drive over to her apartment and ask her flat out: are we in a relationship or are we not?

Zach: Good, man, you should do it.

Ryan: He’s not doing it.

Seth: Ryan, it’s been almost a week, okay? And I still don’t know where Alex stands. Is she back together with her lesbian ex? And if so, are they open to some sort of ménage á three-way, as in the film Summer Loves?

Zach: Ohhhh. . . . I didn’t even think of that!

Seth: Yeah, well I did. Quite a bit, actually.

Ryan: If you have to wonder about it, it’s probably not going to happen.

Seth: Which part? The threesome or the relationship?

Here, again, Zach expresses a homophobic eroticism by fantasizing about a three-way relationship with two women. Consistently, Ryan is not concerned with Alex’s queer identity, but is instead focused on Seth’s well-being by dis-couraging Seth from confronting Alex about their relationship status. He also shuts down Seth and Zach’s fantasies about the three-way by suggesting that they are not grounded in reality.

It is Seth’s character who makes the most interesting change at this point.

Initially, Seth claimed to not be excited about the prospect of Alex’s queer sexuality and was revealed as anxious and vulnerable. However, in this scene, he has had more time to think about it and to regain some control. He relies on the available and accessible homophobic discourses of heterosexual male sexuality and wonders about a three way. However, while initially his inquiry at the beginning of the conversation leads the viewer to think that he wants to get back together with Alex, he only suggests here that either Alex will be with her girlfriend or that the three of them will be in a relationship together and does not present the possibility that he and Alex will get back together. While in the earlier scene he suggested that all that Alex needed was his testosterone to make her see what was missing from her relationship with Jodie, here he seems resigned to the fact that Alex’s queer sexuality is going to take precedence. Thus, the creators of The O.C. simultaneously tackle three stereotypical reactions to 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 220

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queerness through the representation of these discourses of masculinity: homophobic eroticization (Zach), acceptance through heterosexual male approval (Ryan), and vulnerability, which turns into a homophobic eroticization (Seth).

Coming Out in Orange County

Marissa experiences the angst of coming out when, in episode 2.13, after twice avoiding it, she confides in her best friend, Summer. She interrupts their conversation and announces:

Marissa: I’ve been dating Alex.

Summer: What?

Marissa: I mean, Alex and I. We’ve been dating.

Summer: W-W-W-What? (Confused head shake)

Marissa: Just for a couple of weeks.

Summer: Alex. Seth’s Alex?

Marissa: Mm hmm.

Summer: Girl Alex?

Marissa: Yeah.

Summer: Huh. Well, who knows?

Marissa: Uh, just you.

Summer: Uh huh. So, are you . . . are you like a . . .

Marissa: No! No, I don’t know. I just . . . I really like her.

Summer: Well, she is pretty hot. (Confused head shake) Marissa: Hey look, you don’t have to say anything. I just, I really needed to tell you. (Summer nods) We’re still friends, right?

Summer: Of course we are. Come here. (Hug) Ohhhh. This isn’t turning you on, right? (Both giggle, Marissa playfully pushes Summer away.) This conversation between Marissa and Summer is particularly interesting for two main reasons. First, it is important to note that while Summer is surprised to hear that Marissa is in a relationship with another woman, she is not disgusted or mad. Marissa is worried that this new relationship with Alex will have a negative affect on her friendship with Summer, but Summer reassures her. Second, this scene simultaneously exemplifies contemporary open-mindedness toward queer sexualities as well as contemporary forms of subtle homophobia as Summer “jokes” that Marissa might be turned on by their hug. This is a common reaction embedded in homophobic discourse in which it is assumed that queer people are overly sexual and are attracted to all members of the same gender. Marissa generally has the support of Summer in 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 221

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her relationship with Alex, but this scene is an example of how subtle forms of homophobia are acceptable and are intricately embedded in cultural representations of queer sexuality.

“It’s Just a Phase”: Lesbianism as Teenage Rebellion

As argued earlier, visibility is no longer the only focus of queer representation on television. However, while there are more lesbian, bisexual, and queer women characters, the majority of queer coming-out stories on television do not end well (Lo, “Taking Stock” para. 9). For example, Ellen DeGeneres’s character came out on Ellen in 1997 and her show was canceled after the next season; Bianca was raped and her lover left the country after she came out on All My Children in 2000; and in Dr. Kerry Weaver’s coming-out story on ER, her girlfriend was killed in the line of duty (in 2004) and she suffered through a vicious custody battle for their child (Lo, “Taking Stock” para. 9). On The O.C. , the relationship between Marissa and Alex began as a queer-positive one, but ended in such a way that confirmed homophobic discourses in popular culture. Warn argues that

few viewers were expecting Alex and Marissa to ride off in the sunset together. But the fact that Alex and Marissa’s relationship was destined to end didn’t have to mean it couldn’t be a great storyline . . . But the way the writers ended Alex and Marissa’s relationship on last week’s episode

[episode 2.16] undid virtually all of the achievements by Schwartz and company in this area. (“A Disappointing” para. 5–6)

The undoing of their relationship in fact begins before the breakup (2.14

‘The Rainy Day Women’) when it becomes clear that Marissa’s involvement with Alex is mostly a form of rebellion against her mother.

Episodes 2.14–2.16 introduce a different narration about Marissa’s sexuality. Unlike the queer-positive representations previously portrayed, Marissa’s sexuality became less about her attraction to Alex, and more about her teenage rebellion. Set at Marissa’s house in episode 2.14, Marissa’s mother, Julie Cooper-Nickel (Melinda Clarke), is in the kitchen making breakfast. Marissa and Alex enter and Alex is introduced to Julie. When Julie’s back is turned, the two begin making out. As she turns back, they stop before they are seen, and Alex leaves:

Julie: She seems nice! And you know, I have no problem if you want to have a friend stay over, it’s just if you could let me know beforehand.

Marissa: (sarcastically) Oh, you didn’t get the memo?

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Julie: Ah-ha. You know, Marissa, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to know what’s going on underneath my roof. That’s all.

Marissa: Oh, you want to know what’s going on with me? I’m here to tell you the truth. No screaming, no crying, just the truth.

Julie: You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that.

Marissa: Hold that thought. Alex is my girlfriend.

Julie: I know, and I’m so happy that you’ve made a new friend, although I hope you keep seeing Summer.

Marissa: No, mom, not my friend who’s a girl. My girlfriend. (Julie stares, stunned.) Yeah.

Later, Marissa arrives at Alex’s apartment:

Marissa: I can’t believe it, but I did it!

Alex: You, uh . . . you told her.

Marissa: Woah. I thought you’d be happy.

Alex: No, I . . . uh. It just depends. Did you tell her to piss her off?

Marissa: Hey, look, I told her so this could be real. For us.

Alex: Wow! So, what happens now?

Marissa: She’s probably having a meltdown as we speak, so I can’t go home.

Alex: So stay here.

Marissa: Are you sure?

Alex: Yeah! (They kiss.) But first, let’s get you out of these wet clothes.

Warn (“A Disappointing”) suggests that when Marissa comes out to her mother she is not doing it to upset her mother, but believes Marissa when she suggests that it is about making her relationship with Alex more real. However, distinct from her coming-out experience with Summer, her coming-out experience with her mother is about rebelling against her. Alex’s tentative response to Marissa is rooted in her prediction that Marissa is really just trying to make her mother angry. Marissa assumes that her mother will be upset with her when she comes out to her, but this does not happen. While Julie invokes homophobia in a later reaction (she writes Marissa’s relationship off to the common “it’s just a phase” discourse), her concern for Marissa is for her well-being.

At the end of episode 2.14, there is more evidence that Marissa’s involvement with Alex is a form of rebellion rather than curiosity or queer sexuality. Marissa has now moved in with Alex (which echoes the discourse perpetuated through the “joke” that a lesbian brings a U-Haul to her second date), and Alex reminds her that the garbage needs to go out and that rent is due. Marissa looks unimpressed, and in this moment she realizes how her immediate reality involves bills and chores. At this point, she begins to reject 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 223

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Alex and her queer sexuality. This is re-echoed at the beginning of the following episode (“The Mallpisode” 2.15), when Marissa fails at laundry by turning all of their clothes pink. She tells Alex that she just wants to have fun, but Alex reminds her that she has to go to work. The realities of living on her own beyond the comforts of her home, her parents, and her affluent way of life have set in.

The early signs that Marissa is beginning to reject Alex and queer sexuality seem to simultaneously be about her return to heterosexuality and to the upper class. In a conversation with Summer in episode 2.16, after Alex and Marissa have had a fight, Summer says:

Summer: I don’t know, Coop. Sounds like a pretty bad fight. I mean, maybe you should just move home.

Marissa: I can’t.

Summer: Because you love Alex, and wherever she is, that’s your home?

Marissa: Because it would make my mom too happy.

So if it has not yet already been confirmed, here Marissa has had a total personality change in which she is no longer interested in Alex, but is instead more interested in rebelling against her mother.

That Marissa is “really heterosexual after all” is also couched in the homophobia expressed by Kirsten Cohen (Kelly Rowan), Seth’s mother, who is friends with Julie. Julie and Kirsten are comparing notes about the sordid details of their lives. When Julie tells Kirsten that Marissa is a lesbian, Kirsten replies, Kirsten: Marissa? Well, I’m sure it’s just a phase!

Julie: It was for me!

Thus, they rearticulate the notion that teenaged lesbian experiences can be nothing more than a phase of sexual exploration. The overtones in this scene deny the possibility that Marissa is queer (or lesbian or bisexual) and the interaction is deeply couched in homophobic rhetoric, thus denying the possibility for fluid sexuality.

Reconfirming Heterosexuality: Queer Might

Be “Chic,” but It Does Not Seem to Last

In episode 2.15, Ryan overhears a conversation between Summer and Marissa. Summer says that for better or for worse, she is really happy to be with Seth, indicating the stability of her own heterosexual relationship. She 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 224

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then asks whether Marissa’s feelings toward Alex are the same as her own toward Seth (and here Ryan is referred to as “him”):

Marissa: Well, truthfully, I think the only person I’ve felt that way with is . . .

Summer: Yeah. I mean, is it weird being here with him? I mean, me, Cohen . . .

Marissa: No, it’s fine.

Summer: Good. Because I know you’re like, into chicks now and everything, but do you ever think about getting back together with him?

I mean, Lyndsay’s [Ryan’s ex-girlfriend] gone now . . .

Marissa: Yeah, Lyndsay’s gone. And he’s heartbroken.

Summer: Do you miss him?

Marissa: Everyday. (Shrugs shoulders.)

What is implied here is that Marissa is just waiting to get back together with Ryan. What is stopping her is not her relationship with Alex, but Ryan’s unavailability because of his own recent breakup. Ultimately, then, Marissa reiterates the notion that her lesbianism is just a phase. While she never says this explicitly, and her actions could be interpreted as an embrace of fluid sexuality in which the gender of her sexual attractions is unimportant, it seems unlikely given that she does not spend any further time exploring this possibility, nor is the demise of her relationship with Alex connected to any discussions about the implications of the relationship on Marissa’s sexual identity. Marissa’s character instead embodies Walters’s critique of queer visibility in popular culture: that images of queer lives are available, but there is still a reluctance “to embrace the realities of gay identities and practices” (10).

While Marissa never speaks of regretting her relationship with Alex, once the two characters break up, there are no references to Alex on any future episodes, and only once in season three is there a joke made in reference to Marissa’s queer relationship. It was predictable that Marissa and Ryan would end up back together, as their relationship is one of the television series’ main premises and story lines. In her article on January 17, 2005, Sarah Warn predicted that

given Marissa’s predominantly heterosexual past, the huge fan support for the Marissa and Ryan pairing, and the controversy The O.C. would court by making one of its principal characters bisexual, it’s likely that her “real feelings” for Alex will only last a few episodes. (“The O.C. ’s Alex” para. 12)

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While the creators of The O.C. began this story line by suggesting a discourse of fluid sexuality, they rejected this with its conclusion. Lo writes that “if Marissa quickly forgets about Alex and starts dating boys right away, all of Schwartz’s gay-positive press will be revealed as merely spin”

(“Taking Stock” para. 14). She argues that Alex’s departure should have serious consequences on Marissa. At the very least, the relationship would likely have some kind of an affect on friends and family. Instead, after the breakup, Marissa literally returns to Ryan’s embrace and happily rejoins her life at school. When Alex and Marissa break up at the end of episode 2.16, they have the following conversation:

Marissa: Well this is my life. [Points at the bonfire pep rally which she has organized.] Okay? That’s it. So what do you think?

Alex: I think . . . I think this is your life and I don’t fit in. Pep rallies, cheerleaders, boys . . .

Marissa: Nothing happened with Ryan.

Alex: Yeah, not yet, but what do you give it? A week? A month?

Marissa: (Looks down. Both are crying.) I really wanted this to work between us.

Alex here confirms that Marissa is really only interested in a relationship with Ryan and a rich, white, upper-class Newport Beach teen lifestyle. This is not a denial of her potential to have a fluid sexuality, but the constant refrain that Marissa and Ryan are meant for each other reconfirms that for Marissa, queer is just a phase. Immediately after Alex leaves, Ryan is Marissa’s comfort. With his arm around her, he offers to take her home. In this moment, he is taking her home to her mother and she is thereby returning to heterosexuality.

It is unfortunately the assessment made by Marissa’s mother, Julie Cooper-Nickel, which ends up being the most accurate summary of Marissa’s relationship with Alex. Julie says to Alex: “You are this week’s yard guy.2 Marissa’s latest drama weapon of torture to inflict upon me . . . Marissa’s only been in love once, and he looked a whole lot different in a wife beater.” It is Julie who speaks the final word of truth about Marissa. While Marissa’s attraction to Alex should not be entirely dismissed as insignificant, her relationship is ultimately couched within the heteronormative and homophobic discourses that are so common in popular culture.

Conclusion

Burston and Richardson ask, “Can we identify a particular ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’

way of self-representation which is fundamentally different from the ways in 9780230600805ts16.qxd 12-10-07 09:09 PM Page 226

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which homosexuality and homosexuals are imagined by heterosexuals?” (2).

Burston and Richardson are seeking to uncover whether there is a way in which queer sexualities might be represented beyond both the imaginations of heterosexual people, but also beyond the heteronormative constraints of sexual relationships and the relations of capital they support. The O.C. failed to do this. By couching Marissa’s character in inevitable heterosexuality, the show only continues to reconfirm heteronormative and homophobic discourses of sexuality.

Walters is critical of the oversimplistic way that queer people are often portrayed on television. She writes as follows:

Far too often, gay access to cultural visibility seems predicated on an acceptance of two possible modes or representation: the exotic but ultimately unthreatening “other”. . . or gays as really straights after all, the

“aren’t we all just human beings” position that reduces cultural specificity to a bland sameness that ends up assuming and asserting the desirability of the mainstream. (15)

Here, Walters is critical of the continued homonormativity espoused by some conservative gays, and, often, in media representations of gays and lesbians.

What is particularly disappointing about the queer portrayal of Marissa on The O.C. is that the first half of the story line refuses to fall within these parameters. Marissa is indeed interested in Alex, and the two begin an exciting romance in which Marissa’s exploration of her sexuality is nuanced. However, the plotline takes an unexpected turn and Marissa ends up using her relationship with Alex to get back at her mother. Her attraction to Alex is over-shadowed by her rebellion. As soon as her relationship with Alex becomes somewhat domesticated and exists in any kind of reality in which there are bills and laundry, Marissa panics and returns to her carefree and fun-loving life with her friends Summer, Seth, and Ryan.

The end of Marissa and Alex’s relationship is marked by the immediate return to her relationship with Ryan. While this is not in itself a justification for the denial of a queer sexuality, and certainly it remains the possibility that Marissa might identify as queer or bisexual, the writing on the show denies this opportunity and instead reasserts the domination of heteronormativity in Marissa’s life in a way that ignores and erases her history with Alex. Instead of offering the potential for Marissa to continue to embrace a fluid sexuality, the writers of The O.C. reconfirm the dominance of heterosexuality, indicative of the homophobia and heteronormativity at work in so many discourses of popular culture.

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Notes

I thank Dr. Roger Simon for his feedback on an earlier version of this essay, and Amy Gullage and Marie Vander Kloet for their insightful comments, edits, and suggestions. I thank Rebecca Beirne for her editorial comments and for her work on this project. I also thank Caitlin Burgess for our early talks about this essay and for her technical savvy in the collection of transcript materials.

1. I borrow the concept of “interlocking oppressions” from Mary Louise Fellows and Sherene Razack, who argue that each system of oppression is dependant on and functions through the workings of the other. In other words, racism succeeds because of sexism, homophobia flourishes because of classism, etc. (Fellows and Razack 335).

2. “This week’s yard guy” references an ex-boyfriend of Marissa’s involving class transgression, and yet another example of a relationship that Marissa uses to rebel against her mother.

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Index

1970s

1, 2, 3, 20, 35, 37, 83, 161,

class

10, 23, 34, 40, 44–47, 89, 91,

164, 213

92, 119, 145, 154, 159, 180, 214,

1980s

2, 3, 4, 151, 164

223, 225, 227

1990s

3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 21, 25, 33,

coming out

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 17–19,

61, 97, 137, 179, 212, 213,

21–25, 28–31, 52, 84, 87, 90, 97,

218

98, 104, 125, 137, 138, 140, 151,

Advocate The

17, 45, 63, 190

152, 177, 181, 209, 217, 220–222

Afterellen.com

5, 61, 167, 212

commodification

10, 111, 122–124,

Akass, Kim and Janet McCabe

11,

129, 131–132, 145

110, 133

consumption

2, 35, 59, 63, 92, 111,

119, 122, 124, 126,131–132, 190,

Barthes, Roland

55–59, 62

202–203

bisexuality

bisexual representation

3, 4, 9, 11,

DeGeneres, Ellen

3, 5–6, 9, 12,

13, 33, 51, 80, 104–105,

17–31, 33, 133, 137, 151, 177,

163–177, 179–184, 212, 217,

212, 221

221, 223, 224, 226

Dyer, Richard

37–38, 135–137,

bisexual viewers (see also

142–143, 183

spectatorship)

1, 13, 51, 61

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7, 9, 33,

E.R.

6, 83–98

49–63, 65–81, 100, 106, 137,

152, 168, 212

fandom

5, 50–52, 54–55, 58, 60, 61,

butch

3, 8, 11, 23, 26, 28, 44–46, 53,

63, 80, 111, 138–140, 143–146,

93, 105–106, 107, 124, 144–145,

152, 168, 224

146, 160, 172, 185–189, 192,

femininity

11, 44–47, 53–54, 92, 93,

202, 205, 209

99, 103, 105–106, 122, 159, 170,

Butler, Judith

44, 66, 112, 132, 150,

172, 185–187, 189, 191–193,

193, 206–207

195–209

feminist

1, 4, 8, 12, 46, 50, 55–58,

Chaiken, Ilene

137–138, 140–145,

61–62, 80, 109–112, 142,

164, 172–174, 190

146–147, 154, 165, 202–204, 209

9780230600805ts18.qxd 12-10-07 08:56 PM Page 250

250

●

Index

femme

6, 8, 26, 28, 46, 105–107,

passing as heterosexual

27, 47

124, 126, 140, 150, 185,

heteronormativity

6, 12, 20, 121,

187–188, 195–209

128, 131, 160, 161, 226

film

homosexuality (see also lesbianism)

film theory

164

female homosexuality

5, 8, 126,

LGBT representation in film

10,

homosexual relationships

9

27, 33–48, 50–51, 132, 139,

homosexuality

2, 4, 6, 12, 18–19,

146, 149–151, 157–158, 161,

22, 27–30, 51, 85, 91, 92, 97,

163, 165–166, 179, 181, 193,

104, 106, 112, 118, 124, 132,

209, 212

139, 163, 166, 183, 190, 104,

bisexual representation in film

226

163–166

hooks, bell

128, 130–132, 136–137,

pornographic film

54–55, 60–61,

202, 214

101

invisibility (see also visibility)

5, 34,

genderqueer

159, 160

36, 46, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 62,

Gross, Larry

2, 3, 19, 24, 54, 59, 163,

105, 123–124, 149, 163, 196, 212

167, 212, 213

label

10, 13, 22, 109–119, 123–125,

Halberstam, Judith

150, 156, 160,

130

189, 207

lesbianism (see also homosexuality)

heterosexual

lesbian actress

17–31, 133, 151

heterosexual actors

10, 37, 44, 47,

lesbian desire

20, 83–98, 100, 149,

54, 56

150, 151, 155–157, 161, 188

heterosexual audiences

5, 54, 90,

lesbian kisses

3, 4, 7, 48, 61,

142, 155, 164, 168, 174–175,

65–66, 69–70, 74–75, 86, 87,

192, 193, 204

100, 106, 167, 202, 216

heterosexual characters

4, 9, 10, 12,

lesbian mothers

6, 10, 33–48, 95,

41, 53, 54, 104, 116–118, 128,

96, 97, 104, 138, 200, 221

130, 140, 152, 162, 171, 174,

lesbian relationships

12–13, 19, 34,

223

47, 73, 80, 110, 112, 114,

heterosexual culture

95, 142, 150,

117–119, 125, 128, 152, 158,

179, 191, 207, 213, 184

182, 188, 211–212, 218

heterosexual desire & sex

13, 26,

lesbian sex

4, 7, 8, 11, 51, 54,

51, 104, 112, 114, 132, 156,

100–101, 115, 119, 122,

170, 173–177, 188

127–128, 130–132, 156, 159,

heterosexual men

51, 155,

173–176, 203–204, 212

156–159, 175–176, 217–220

lesbian sexuality

7, 93, 99–107,

heterosexual people

18, 43, 160,

121–133, 154–158, 174, 212,

169, 174, 226

218

heterosexual women

39, 58, 61, 99,

L Word, The

9, 11–12, 14, 51, 102,

102, 111, 121–125, 131–132

122, 135–209, 212

heterosexuality

8, 11, 23–30, 90,

151, 182–184, 193, 225

masculinity

11, 45, 53, 54, 91–93,

heterosexualize

53, 105

95, 105–106, 154, 156, 159–160,

9780230600805ts18.qxd 12-10-07 08:56 PM Page 251

Index

●

251

170, 185–187, 189, 199, 200,

Showtime

11, 13, 33, 47, 99,

202–203, 205, 209, 217–220

137–138, 142–143, 153, 163,

Merck, Mandy

10, 117–118, 124,

172–173, 177, 190, 192

126, 129

spectatorship

Mulvey, Laura

62, 191, 209

bisexual spectators

166

Muñoz, José Esteban

93, 119, 197,

female spectators

62, 112, 155,

198, 201, 208

192, 209

lesbian audience

8, 164, 177, 192,

O.C., The

12, 167, 211–227

193

male gaze

7, 11, 51, 56, 57, 155,

performance

157, 158, 191, 196–198,

performativity

20, 22, 66

203–204, 207, 209

performing femininity

195–209

straight (see heterosexual)

performing masculinity

106, 202,

203, 205, 209

television

performing sexuality

6, 11, 18–31,

network television

2, 31, 33, 35,

44, 97

47, 61–62, 84, 90, 93, 97, 122,

queer performance

139

151, 167, 173, 211

racial performance

200, 203, 208

pay cable (see also Showtime)

13, 30, 33, 47, 111, 121, 167,

queer theory

18, 110, 150, 208

172

transgender

1, 3, 107, 141–142, 144,

race

10, 14, 92–93, 121–133, 141,

145, 146–147, 159–161, 207

199, 200–203, 207, 208, 209

Russo, Vito

50–51, 53, 63, 105

visibility (see also invisibility)

2, 3, 7,

19, 20, 29, 42, 50, 51, 55, 57,

same-sex desire (see lesbian desire)

61–62, 89–90, 92, 95, 121, 129,

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky

146,

145–146, 150–151, 165, 188,

150–152, 200, 201

207, 212–214, 221, 224, 226

Sex and the City

9–10, 109–133, 138,

152, 167, 192

Xena

5, 51, 63, 152, 212

Document Outline

Contents

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: A Critical Introduction to Queer Women on Television

1 Resisting, Reiterating, and Dancing Through: The Swinging Closet Doors of Ellen DeGeneres’s Televised Personalities

2 Mommy’s Got a Gal-Pal: The Victimized Lesbian Mother in the Made-for-TV Movie

3 Complicating the Open Closet: The Visual Rhetoric of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sapphic Lovers

4 “Can You Just Be Kissing Me Now?”: The Question(s) of Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

5 States of Emergency: The Labors of Lesbian Desire in ER

6 Mapping Lesbian Sexuality on Queer as Folk

7 A Label Like Gucci, Versace, or Birkenstock: Sex and the City and Queer Identity

8 “Going Native on Wonder Woman’s Island”: The Exoticization of Lesbian Sexuality in Sex and the City

9 “This Is the Way We Live… and Love!”: Feeding on and Still Hungering for Lesbian Representation in The L Word

10 “Everything Else Is the Same”: Configurations of The L Word

11 “Shades of Grey”: Articulations of Bisexuality in The L Word

12 Paradigmatically Oppositional Representations: Gender and Sexual Identity in The L Word

13 Pink Heels, Dildos, and Erotic Play: The (Re)Making of Fem(me)ininity in Showtime’s The L Word

14 There’s Something Queer Going On in Orange County: The Representation of Queer Women’s Sexuality in The O.C.

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

L

M

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

X