Wednesday, 02 December 2009
Viorica does the time warp
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There's a very insightful Supernatural fanvideo called Women's Work, about the way the show handles female characters, set to Courtney Love's song "Violet" I mention this not because this article has anything to do with Supernatural or female characters, but because the vid very accurately sums up my current state of mind: I watched this, and now that I've seen it, I don't want it anymore.
For some background on what it is I'm about to rant about, I should probably explain Phase II Created in 2003 by a group of self-avowed Trekkies, the series is based on Star Trek: The Original Series, and picks up where TOS left off. The series is notable for the high production value, and the fact that they have several ST alum helping them out, including Eugene Roddenberry, Denise Crosby, and David Gerrold. The latter contributed an episode that he'd originally written for TNG, but was rejected due to the fact that it contained an openly gay couple and an allegory for the AIDS epidemic. Gerrold retooled his script to fit the TOS characters, and "Blood and Fire" was finally released to the public. So far, so good. I mean, I have to wonder how well-characterized the original script was if he could just adjust things to have it fit TOS, but the dialogue is well-written, and the characters well-realized. The gay couple in question (Kirk's nephew Peter and his boyfriend Alex) are genuinely sweet together, and their relationship doesn't feel forced or cliched. There aren't any stereotypes present- neither of them are especially effeminate or hysterical (well, in the first half anyway) and the other characters never lift an eyebrow at the idea of a gay couple. But then in the second part of the episode, it all comes crashing down.
The episode's main plot circles around the discovery of an abandoned ship, and the horrifying realization that it's infested with "bloodworms-" parasites that feed on human flesh, and are capable of destroying entire civilizations. Peter and Alex are on the away team sent to find out what happened to the ship's crew, and after the discovery that the ship is infested, Starfleet orders that it be blown up, along with everyone who's potentially been exposed. "Okay," I think, "this could be interesting. Kirk wrestles with obeying orders versus his concern for his nephew (and Spock, who's also on the away team) and has to decide whether the potential risk posed by saving the away team outweights the slaughter of anyone unfortunate enough to be on the ship . . ."
. . . or they could just blow over that, and save everyone, except for Alex, who is forced to committ suicide rather than be munched on by bloodworms. Three guesses as to which option the writer took, and the first two don't count.
So after Alex dies, Peter volunteers to go and blow the ship up himself, because he wants to die (because you know how HYSTERICAL them gays are!) only then they find out that the infested ship's original crew was carrying bloodworms because they wanted to committ genocide against the Klingons. Captain Kirk lectures everyone on the dangers of hatred, and they steer the ship into a solar flare, roasting the bloodworms. Oh, and a bunch of sparkly space butterflies symbolize Alex passing into the afterlife or some shit like that. The end!
There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start.
The Times, They Are A-Changing
Back when this script was originally written, the socio-political climate was light years away from what it is now. For one thing, there were virtually no gay characters on television, let alone ones in committed relationships. To show such a couple tragically ripped apart by AIDS- excuse me, bloodworms- would have made a huge difference in the way TNG's viewers would have looked at the AIDS epedemic. Instead of filthy perverts who brought their deaths on themsevles by being mindlessly promiscuous, they'd see two young men (who are so sweet and wholesome, it hurts- they bonded over being study partners, for Christ's sake) being ripped apart by something that neither of them could control. Sure it's a flawed allegory, but it was a message that needed to be sent. And even if they did kill one of the gay characters, there was still one left to remind the audience that gays were, in fact, people.
But that was then, and this is 2009. The climate is vastly different then it was in 1989, with different issues that need to be addressed. While AIDS still exists, it doesn't loom as large as it did in the eighties, and most people don't need to be told how awful it is. The problem now isn't a dearth of gay characters, it's the fact that they're rarely allowed to have successful happy relationships. We all know it's hard to be gay, but could someone please give us at least one happy couple? Please? I'm running out of hope here.
And although I'm sure the writers/producers would be shocked! shocked, I tell you! at my casting aspersions on their motives for getting rid of Alex, I'm going to do it anyway. With him gone, they never ever have to address Peter's sexuality again. Think about it: giving him another love interest would look callous right after his fiancee died, and if they aren't going to give him another love interest, they never have to mention his gayness again! He'll become functionally asexual, just like Dumbledore. [Edit: As a reader pointed out, "invisible" would be a better term.] They get all the kudos for having a gay character, but they'll never have to address his affection for men. Or they could retcon it entirely by having him fall for a woman and say "Oh, he was bi! Didn't we mention that?" which would just make me want to break things. I'm just as desperate for bi characters as I am for gay characters, but for fuck's sake, stop using my orientation as an excuse to erase queer characters. We deserve better than that.
But that's just the worst-case scenario. The best is Peter having other relationships with men (which I just don't see being possible/plausible in the near future) or just not having any relationships at all. The latter option would certainly please the fanboys who howled in protest about the icky gay kissing in their bastion of heterosexuality and testosterone, but it wouldn't especially please me.
The Dead Gay Problem
Back when gay characters were first starting to emerge in the media, they could rarely expect a happy ending. The Well of Loneliness ends with Stephen begging God for the mere right to exist, while Maurice's main character and his lover are forced to shun society and live in the woods. This is presumably due to the fact that the books were written at a time when being publically gay was social (if not literal) suicide. The problem is, it hasn't gone away as things have progressed. At the end of Lost and Delerious, Paulie jumps off a roof; RENT has Angel dying of AIDS. Even when the writers can't tie the characters' deaths to their sexuality, they still manage to get rid of them. Buffy had Tara get shot; Torchwood booted Ianto in the third season by having him drop dead of an alien virus. It's like there's some sort of mass delusion that being gay/bi will immediately result in violent, unpleasant death. Is Jan Moir secretly running a media empire or something?
So with the Dead Gay Epidemic going on on network television, it's disappointing to see web-based media falling to the trend as well- especially when there's no reason for it. Alex's death does absolutely nothing to serve the plot. You could remove it, and the episode would make just as much sense, and be rid of a bunch of extraneous angst. Now it's entirely possible, even probable that Alex's death was in the original script, but massive edits have been done since. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility for someone to say "Hey, this is great, but killing Alex doesn't really carry the same meaning as it would have back in '89- how about letting him live?" Moreover, I have a hard time buying that no one realized that it was outright offensive. Unless of course, they were deliberately making sure that they wouldn't have a gay couple on the series by killing half of it off. Not only did they avoid having a recurring gay couple, but they dodged having to show them getting married (the horror, the horror.) See, Peter and Alex spend the first half of the episode planning to get married, and Peter asks his uncle to marry them right before they leave on the away mission. Now this feels a bit like pointing out the obvious, but if you want to stay politically relevant, wouldn's showing a gay couple get married accomplish that goal? I mean, it's not like people all over America are fighting for the right to have their union legally recognized. Nothing of the sort. Prop what?
Good fuckity god.
In conclusion, the people running Phase II fucked up. Badly. They had the opportunity to remain politically relevant and adhere to Gene Roddenberry's vision of a more equal future. Instead, they sent their show hurtling back to the eighties, when I wasn't even born. Which I suppose is a good thing, because I am never watching this show again.
For some background on what it is I'm about to rant about, I should probably explain Phase II Created in 2003 by a group of self-avowed Trekkies, the series is based on Star Trek: The Original Series, and picks up where TOS left off. The series is notable for the high production value, and the fact that they have several ST alum helping them out, including Eugene Roddenberry, Denise Crosby, and David Gerrold. The latter contributed an episode that he'd originally written for TNG, but was rejected due to the fact that it contained an openly gay couple and an allegory for the AIDS epidemic. Gerrold retooled his script to fit the TOS characters, and "Blood and Fire" was finally released to the public. So far, so good. I mean, I have to wonder how well-characterized the original script was if he could just adjust things to have it fit TOS, but the dialogue is well-written, and the characters well-realized. The gay couple in question (Kirk's nephew Peter and his boyfriend Alex) are genuinely sweet together, and their relationship doesn't feel forced or cliched. There aren't any stereotypes present- neither of them are especially effeminate or hysterical (well, in the first half anyway) and the other characters never lift an eyebrow at the idea of a gay couple. But then in the second part of the episode, it all comes crashing down.
The episode's main plot circles around the discovery of an abandoned ship, and the horrifying realization that it's infested with "bloodworms-" parasites that feed on human flesh, and are capable of destroying entire civilizations. Peter and Alex are on the away team sent to find out what happened to the ship's crew, and after the discovery that the ship is infested, Starfleet orders that it be blown up, along with everyone who's potentially been exposed. "Okay," I think, "this could be interesting. Kirk wrestles with obeying orders versus his concern for his nephew (and Spock, who's also on the away team) and has to decide whether the potential risk posed by saving the away team outweights the slaughter of anyone unfortunate enough to be on the ship . . ."
. . . or they could just blow over that, and save everyone, except for Alex, who is forced to committ suicide rather than be munched on by bloodworms. Three guesses as to which option the writer took, and the first two don't count.
So after Alex dies, Peter volunteers to go and blow the ship up himself, because he wants to die (because you know how HYSTERICAL them gays are!) only then they find out that the infested ship's original crew was carrying bloodworms because they wanted to committ genocide against the Klingons. Captain Kirk lectures everyone on the dangers of hatred, and they steer the ship into a solar flare, roasting the bloodworms. Oh, and a bunch of sparkly space butterflies symbolize Alex passing into the afterlife or some shit like that. The end!
There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start.
The Times, They Are A-Changing
Back when this script was originally written, the socio-political climate was light years away from what it is now. For one thing, there were virtually no gay characters on television, let alone ones in committed relationships. To show such a couple tragically ripped apart by AIDS- excuse me, bloodworms- would have made a huge difference in the way TNG's viewers would have looked at the AIDS epedemic. Instead of filthy perverts who brought their deaths on themsevles by being mindlessly promiscuous, they'd see two young men (who are so sweet and wholesome, it hurts- they bonded over being study partners, for Christ's sake) being ripped apart by something that neither of them could control. Sure it's a flawed allegory, but it was a message that needed to be sent. And even if they did kill one of the gay characters, there was still one left to remind the audience that gays were, in fact, people.
But that was then, and this is 2009. The climate is vastly different then it was in 1989, with different issues that need to be addressed. While AIDS still exists, it doesn't loom as large as it did in the eighties, and most people don't need to be told how awful it is. The problem now isn't a dearth of gay characters, it's the fact that they're rarely allowed to have successful happy relationships. We all know it's hard to be gay, but could someone please give us at least one happy couple? Please? I'm running out of hope here.
And although I'm sure the writers/producers would be shocked! shocked, I tell you! at my casting aspersions on their motives for getting rid of Alex, I'm going to do it anyway. With him gone, they never ever have to address Peter's sexuality again. Think about it: giving him another love interest would look callous right after his fiancee died, and if they aren't going to give him another love interest, they never have to mention his gayness again! He'll become functionally asexual, just like Dumbledore. [Edit: As a reader pointed out, "invisible" would be a better term.] They get all the kudos for having a gay character, but they'll never have to address his affection for men. Or they could retcon it entirely by having him fall for a woman and say "Oh, he was bi! Didn't we mention that?" which would just make me want to break things. I'm just as desperate for bi characters as I am for gay characters, but for fuck's sake, stop using my orientation as an excuse to erase queer characters. We deserve better than that.
But that's just the worst-case scenario. The best is Peter having other relationships with men (which I just don't see being possible/plausible in the near future) or just not having any relationships at all. The latter option would certainly please the fanboys who howled in protest about the icky gay kissing in their bastion of heterosexuality and testosterone, but it wouldn't especially please me.
The Dead Gay Problem
Back when gay characters were first starting to emerge in the media, they could rarely expect a happy ending. The Well of Loneliness ends with Stephen begging God for the mere right to exist, while Maurice's main character and his lover are forced to shun society and live in the woods. This is presumably due to the fact that the books were written at a time when being publically gay was social (if not literal) suicide. The problem is, it hasn't gone away as things have progressed. At the end of Lost and Delerious, Paulie jumps off a roof; RENT has Angel dying of AIDS. Even when the writers can't tie the characters' deaths to their sexuality, they still manage to get rid of them. Buffy had Tara get shot; Torchwood booted Ianto in the third season by having him drop dead of an alien virus. It's like there's some sort of mass delusion that being gay/bi will immediately result in violent, unpleasant death. Is Jan Moir secretly running a media empire or something?
So with the Dead Gay Epidemic going on on network television, it's disappointing to see web-based media falling to the trend as well- especially when there's no reason for it. Alex's death does absolutely nothing to serve the plot. You could remove it, and the episode would make just as much sense, and be rid of a bunch of extraneous angst. Now it's entirely possible, even probable that Alex's death was in the original script, but massive edits have been done since. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility for someone to say "Hey, this is great, but killing Alex doesn't really carry the same meaning as it would have back in '89- how about letting him live?" Moreover, I have a hard time buying that no one realized that it was outright offensive. Unless of course, they were deliberately making sure that they wouldn't have a gay couple on the series by killing half of it off. Not only did they avoid having a recurring gay couple, but they dodged having to show them getting married (the horror, the horror.) See, Peter and Alex spend the first half of the episode planning to get married, and Peter asks his uncle to marry them right before they leave on the away mission. Now this feels a bit like pointing out the obvious, but if you want to stay politically relevant, wouldn's showing a gay couple get married accomplish that goal? I mean, it's not like people all over America are fighting for the right to have their union legally recognized. Nothing of the sort. Prop what?
Good fuckity god.
In conclusion, the people running Phase II fucked up. Badly. They had the opportunity to remain politically relevant and adhere to Gene Roddenberry's vision of a more equal future. Instead, they sent their show hurtling back to the eighties, when I wasn't even born. Which I suppose is a good thing, because I am never watching this show again.
Themes: TV & Movies, Sci-fi / Fantasy, Minority Warrior
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The few times homosexuality has come up in Star Trek that I can recall, except for the fact the show itself doesn't *really* want to deal with it, it's been semi-well handled. I seem to remember there's a nice episode of DS9 when Jadzia meets and old Trill lover who is currently in the body of a female. They grapple with their love for most of the episode, but the main issue is always very much the fact that Trill aren't allow to resurrect relationships rather than the fact that they're both girlz now. Which I liked :)
But.
Ugh. I don't even know how to put this. One link summarises it as demonstrating the portrayal of women as "Evil, slutty or helpless" but this is true of almost every bit part character that the main characters meet. Why? Either they are the big bad - ie evil, or they are the victims - ie helpless. Slutty is a different problem (to do with target audiences etc), but temptation is part of the whole demon thing, right?
Plus, to make it's point, it ignores a lot of actual characters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_of_Supernatural) There are women who are not evil, slutty, or helpless. There are guys who are...
Here I stop before I dig too deep a hole.
Basically, I think the video is extremely well put together, hits all the right buttons to get you worked up about certain issues. But in doing so it leaves out all evidence that doesn't agree, and that bugs the hell out of me.
Back when Star Trek TNG was big, just having openly gay characters on television was a Big Deal, which means the episode described would actually have been remarkably progressive for its time. Put it ten years later and suddenly it's yet another episode in which the token gay character gets killed off early.
On a side note, bisexuality on TV is always really tricky. There's this horrible trap that both writers and audiences seem to fall into off assuming that bisexuals "don't count". It always used to mildly annoy me that Buffy made such a big thing about Willow being Definitely Gay and Not Bisexual At All. There's this nasty perception out there that being bisexual is somehow cheating - which I rather expect is exascerbated by the fact that, as you observe, it very often *is* used as a way to retcon out previously gay characters.
I can't believe people are still buying into the idea that "monogamous bisexual" is a contradiction in terms.
Well, it's very self-consciously a piece rhetoric - that is rather the nature of rhetoric, isn't it? To concentrate on the evidence that supports your central point.
Also I don't want to derail Viorica's very excellent article into a discussion of the portrayal of women in Supernatural BUT I think the issue is one of generalities not specifics in that the two central characters of Supernatural are men, so you're *always* going to have a very strong portrayal in the foregound to counter-balance all the slutty, helpess, evil men who show up as secondary characters. Equally you always have a very positive depiction of male-male bonding, again, to act as a counterweight to any unfortunate or destructive male relationships, like Dean's short-term friendship with the crazy rogue demon hunter guy.
One can think of no end of possible reasons for this: conscious or unconscious desire to feature gay characters but not for so long that they have to be treated like, you know, real characters; the fact that a lot of media people are probably of such an age that the first time male homosexuality really obtruded on their picture of the world was when it was very strongly associated with AIDS; the conscious or unconscious belief that gay people are normally or necessarily deeply troubled (a belief no doubt reinforced by the fact that a few of them are - thanks to Sonia for reminding me of that comic). But it occurs to me that another contributing factor to the high death-rate among gay characters may be the persistently low visibility of middle-aged and older gay people in society. In other words, not only do writers have in their minds an association between homosexuality and early death (partly based on out-dated reality - AIDS in the '80s - and partly based on distortion by the news media - Jan Moir and such), but they also lack a counter-balancing store of real-life examples associating homosexuality with long life.
Of course it's all a bit of a vicious, er, whatever geometric form is more complicated and less symmetrical than a circle, because the low visibility of older gay people is largely caused by media distortion and by the habits they themselves have picked up from growing up and growing old in times (even) less tolerant than today. But it does underline why Ian McKellen is right to nag his contemporaries and fellow public figures to come out.
Now this one I think may be partly structural. The only ways for a work of fiction to dramatize the bisexuality of a character are (1) to put him or her through a series of monogamous relationships with people of both sexes; (2) to put him or her through a number of simultaneous or overlapping relationships with people of both sexes; (3) to have him or her demonstrate the desire or temptation to have sex with other specific people of both sexes; (4) to have him or her express attraction to other specific people of both sexes; (5) to have him or her (or another character or omniscient narrator) state his or her attraction to both sexes in general.
Perhaps you already see where I'm going with this. Options 5 and 4 are weak and smell of tokenism (it used to be, for example, one of my major difficulties with the generally charming Questionable content that although there was a respectable number of bisexual and gay characters they never actually did anything beyond mentioning their off-stage partners and hook-ups and occasionally claiming in a rather hypothetical way to be attracted to other characters of the same sex; I'm glad to say the last few months have remedied this to a great extent). Also option 4, if the character is already in a monogamous relationship, risks making him or her look like he or she has a roving eye and is therefore within sight, if not within spitting distance, of 'slutty slut slut' territory. Option 3, if the character is already in a monogamous relationship, can, unless handled very well, end up with the character looking confused about his or her sexuality and / or fickle and tending toward the slutty. Option 2 has to be handled very very very well to avoid landing in confused / slutty territory. And the trouble with option 1 is that, to make it clear that we aren't dealing with a case of confusion or conversion, you really need to give the character a series of at least three monogamous relationships with partners of alternating sex, and that means either making the relationships very short (which again risks ambling down the road to slutty) or dealing with an unusually long time-span for the average work of fiction (excluding soap operas that run forever).
None of which is to say that it can't be done or that it shouldn't be tried or that writers couldn't be doing a lot more than they are. But it's worth noting the pitfalls.
Again, not to shift off the topic, but yes! Fifty times yes. This annoyed me so much. Here was an opportunity for a truly bisexual character (rather than retconning a previously gay/straight character), and they totally ignored it. I felt like poor Oz got so gyped. It was obvious that Willow was in love with and (key word) sexually attracted to Oz. She was the aggressor for the most part in their sexual relationship. Every time Willow had a line equivalent to "Eww, I don't like penises, remember?!" I always got majorly pissed off.
/rant
This surely depends whether you're defining "expressing attraction" as the person in question saying to themselves "hey, this person of a gender not of my partner's is making me doubt my commitment to my current relationship", or whether it's just them casually saying something along the lines of "I'd hit that" without any serious intent behind it to go out and, you know, hit that. There are plenty of relationships in which both partners are just fine with their other halves idly expressing attraction to others in a purely hypothetical way.
And what about option 6, depict them in a committed relationship during the course of the story but make references to a previous romantic history which, while in the past, is not denounced or regarded by the character as an aberration?
At one point, Amber Benson commented that she was glad that Willow didn't "flip-flop" about her attraction to men versus women. I don't even know what to say to that.
Most shows featuring bisexual characters seem to take either option two or three, if they don't just retconn the character's sexuality altogether (Buffy, The L Word) The problem is, the audience will automatically assume that when a character is dating someone of one sex, they are only attracted to that sex- i.e. they've "settled down-" when when that's never stated in the show itself.
Yes, but there's only a certain extent to which you can blame the audience for the depictions an author chooses to put forward. Surely, in fact, in this case there's a certain responsibility for writers to challenge the audience's assumptions?
In fairness, I should say that the first part of the episode is really well done- part of my irritation stems from thinking "Yay, a well-done gay couple! I'm so happy!" and then getting smacked in the face with SURPRISE DEAD GAY! But I'd say that Part 1 is worth a look, if you ignore part two. (Both parts are on YouTube here and here if anyone wants to take a look.)
I'm sure the original version was much different - Picard would have tried to negotiate with the bloodworms rather than shoving them into the Sun...
For me personally (though this may be just because I was not hugely into Bones), Angela kind of read like a straight women who had a sexy, wild side that included sometimes making out with girls. Granted, I never saw her when she was with this woman (maybe I missed that ep), but from what I remember, she primarily dates men. Having one girlfriend does not really say much for her being bisexual (to me, anyway). Others may disagree.
I guess as far as Angela goes, I just never really saw her be interested in women as fully as she was in men. Which, yeah, bisexuals can lean to one side or the other. But it didn't come off that way to me when I watched it. Even my mom thought it was reconning when she got engaged to (blanking on his name) Dirt Guy. For example, when the two guys were fighting over the delivery girl, and it turned out that she was actually into Angela, she didn't actually ask her out or anything as far as I remember. It was like, "oh, haha, she likes me not you". Angela seemed more surprised and flattered than actively interested.
Especially when the labels we use tend to make people think of discrete little boxes, like sexuality works along the same lines as D&D alignment.
Although now I think of that, I do get a sort of juvenile amusement from the idea of Paladins being obliged to be Lawful Gay.
To say nothing of the fact that this it's an incredibly reductionist and unhelpful way of looking at bisexuality. Obviously I can't speak for every other bisexual in the world but I think most of us experience regular fluctations in our attraction to members of either sex, dependent on who knows what. How on earth do you put that on TV? I can barely explain it anybody who isn't an actual bisexual. Main character is feeling moderately more straight today than she was yesterday!
Angela is basically a wild child who was mostly shown dating men--though I don't think she dated so many men, exactly. I thought of her because it seemed like when her ex-girlfriend was introduced she was introduced as an ex-girlfriend, meaning a serious relationship, rather than an experiment, for instance. She does seem to mostly be into guys, but I got the impression that this character was introduced as an important past relationship not particularly different because it was with a woman. She was more important than her first husband, for instance.
I still consider her as mostly leaning towards the het side, but it didn't really feel like a retcon when we were told she'd had a girlfriend.
Not easily, which is a shame, because it would probably be a great help to teenagers who are freaking out over "what the hell is going on with me?" without any real examples that say "yes, this is normal." I know it would have been a huge help when I was fifteen.
. . . what was the original article about, again?
Fair point. And it's annoying when shows/media act like anyone who is gay is attracted to anyone else who is gay because, yeah, they're not. So I understand that Angela might not be attracted to every girl she sees.
But I was just trying to pull an example out of the many examples. From the beginning, they indicated that she was interested in woman, but I don't remember her EVER really hitting on a woman in the seasons I watched. She commented that a girl was hot or cute or something once, but more as a recollection of what this woman looked like.
I didn't see her with her ex-gf - I couldn't put up with the show enough to watch that far. But when I think about her relationships, I remember Hodgens, her first husband/fling thing, and the guy she was involved with in New Mexico who died.
I guess it just felt to me like a bit of cop-out. It seemed like they wanted to have a hot, artsy bisexual woman without having to actually deal with it past her talking about having a past relationship with a woman or saying a woman is hot/pretty/sexy. This ex-girlfriend (I’ve just looked up) doesn’t show up until season 4 though she was referenced in season 3. It just seems like the writers were more inclined to write her in relationships with men despite having made it clear that she was bi. Why did they wait so long to actively show this part of her sexuality? Maybe other people read her character differently, but that's how I saw her.
I think bisexuality is, in some ways, more frightening than homosexuality to straight culture. An informed understanding of bisexuality denies the black-and-white, gay-and-straight mentality that can be easy for straight people to fall into. Being attracted to both sexes opens up the myriad possibilities of human sexuality in a way that neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality do. Because of that, it can be more threatening than homosexuality to the traditional straight mindset.
Because of this cultural context, like it or not, people need to be very careful portraying bisexuals in the media. I'm even going to make the claim that bisexuals in media should not be considered the same way as bisexuals in real life. In real life, bisexuals can be anywhere on the Kinsey scale. For example, I have a female friend who has never had a girlfriend and recently married a man, but considers herself bisexual because she is attracted to women as well as men. In real life, this is fine.
In media portrayals of bisexuals, however, this is not acceptable. In the media, a bisexual who only has experiences with the opposite sex might as well be straight. Similarly, a bisexual who only has experiences with the same sex might as well be gay.
The thing to remember is that media characters are not real people. Real people need no justification for their identities; characters do. If a character does not behave in accordance with their supposed identity, either the character's behavior or identity should change. Bisexual characters, therefore, should be portrayed as being attracted to both men and women, preferably in roughly equal proportions. That is not to say that bisexual characters need to be attracted to every person they encounter, or that they can't have long-term relationships. But bisexual characters should be just about as likely to have relationships with women as with men, and when they are flirting or looking for dates, they should look to both sexes.
Media people (directors, producers, authors, etc.) need to stop presenting characters that have mostly/entirely heterosexual experiences as bisexual. Bisexuality means being attracted to both sexes, and that needs to be better portrayed in the media.
Ultimately, it's all very well to stand here going "the media doesn't portray bisexuality" very well, which is self-evidently true and nets you immediate Minority Warrior points ... it doesn't actually *mean* anything. I mean, I think most people find the sexuality of other people somewhat alien, regardless of the genders involved.
Which is probably why it probably isn't helpful to bring up the Kinsey scale in this context. Putting aside the fact that is itself an oversimplification based on dubious 1950s logic, the fact is that you just don't get people marching for Equal Rights For Four Point Twos.
I don't really care about what other people think. I want to be represented because I'm sick of not having any characters to relate to. Which is why statements like this-
If a character does not behave in accordance with their supposed identity, either the character's behavior or identity should change. Bisexual characters, therefore, should be portrayed as being attracted to both men and women, preferably in roughly equal proportions.
Are really fucking offensive. If I read your statement right, you're implying that a bisexual character is not behaving like a bisexual unless they date both genders in equal measures, which as I've already mentioned is fallacious. Either that, or you're saying that bisexual characters should act in a way that doesn't challenge the paradigms of monosexual audiences. Either way, what the hell?
I agree with you that bisexuals are under-represented, I just merely meant to point out that it's very easy to lock yourself in "woe is me, I am so misunderstood and special" thinking, when sexuality, in itself, is a hellishly complex business. Quite frankly there's a part of me that cannot compute when someone is attracted to someone I am not, regardless of gender, and as far people who are only attracted to one sex ... yikes, how do they function within such limitations? =P
Not to put words into anybody's mouth, but I think what Baihehua was saying was that while in real life it's perfectly possible for somebody to be bisexual but still wind up having exclusively heterosexual (or homosexual) relationships, in fiction such a character would wind up looking extremely tokenistic.
To pick an example I think we're all comfortable with, in real life it's entirely possible to have an elderly gay man who had one tragic affair in his youth and hasn't been in a relationship since. It's entirely possible that you could spend seven years at school and never realise that your beloved headmaster was actually a homosexual. In a work of fiction, however, a "gay" character who never has a homosexual relationship is a major problem because it contributes to the idea that gay people are okay, so long as they don't actually act on their sexuality.
With bisexuality it gets a whole lot more complicated, because you've got a veritable minefield of stereotypes to dance around. It's particularly a problem with bisexual women, because it's extremely easy for their bisexuality to come across as something they put on for the benefit of men (a misconception not helped by the huge number of media outlets in which women are encouraged to do exactly that - Katy Perry has never kissed a girl in her life and probably wouldn't like it if she did).
I don't think numbers games are what matters here, so much as attraction to men and women being shown as equally *valid*. This ties back to Mellissa's comments about Angela in the first couple of series of Bones. The problem isn't that she doesn't routinely chase girls, the problem is that when she's attracted to men it's presented as something natural, sensible and meaningful, while when she's attracted to girls it's presented as something delightfully naughty and risque. Of course the fact that I didn't like Bones might be prejudicing me here.
You mean Tim Gunn? :-) Sorry, couldn't resist.
Since I brought up Angela, I just wanted to say I agree with this--particular since she seems to be a character who has a lot of sex and they also continue to bring in male character with whom she has a relationship or an attraction but not characters who are women.
It was just that this one relationship that they introduced for her as something from her past that was briefly revived, it seemed like it actually was addressing the idea that it wasn't naughty or risque, but was an actual long-term relationship. I don't remember it well enough to defend how well it was done or not, but it did seem like it was introduced as an important relationship, someone she'd lived with iirc, that was presented as less naughty and more thoughtful than some of her male relationships for instance.
Another problem I'd say is that there tend to just be more male characters, period, and of the female ones the writers probably want to put them with male characters. For instance, I haven't watched House in a while, but I remember being told 13 was bisexual, and seeing her have a lot of anonymous sex with women when she was self-destructively dealing with being diagnosed with Huntington's. But then she got into a relationship with a male character on the show. So it's probably all too easy to read her relationships with women as having different value.
Not to put words into anybody's mouth, but I think what Baihehua was saying was that while in real life it's perfectly possible for somebody to be bisexual but still wind up having exclusively heterosexual (or homosexual) relationships, in fiction such a character would wind up looking extremely tokenistic.
Not denying that there's a minefield of potential stereotypes that well-meaning writers can fall into (especially since that's part of why "Blood and Fire" fails) but as long as it's well-established, it dosn't have to be tokenistic. Alice on "The L Word" establishes very specfically that she's more romantically inclined towards women, but enjoys sex with both genders. It only took two lines to explain that. Now, The L Word gets a bit more leeway because it's populated entirely with lesbians, so Alice doesn't look as tokenistic as she would on a show populated largely with straight characters. But still she was a well-written bi character for a few seasons.
And (to get somewhat back on-topic) I don't have any problems with the idea of Peter or Alex being bi, since it's mentioned that they only ever dated each other ("There's never been anyone else for either of us") so it's entirely plausible. Or- considering that the show takes place hundreds on years into the future- it could be that people no longer label sexuality, so dating both genders requires no explanation. What worries me is the very real possibility that "bi, lol" will be used as an excuse to duck out of ever showing a gay relationship with an HEA.
My point is that, no matter how much we may like and identify with fictional characters, they are not real people. Real people can identify and behave however they want and there's no problem. Fictional characters' identities, however, need to be justified. I think this is true for a lot of things, not just sexuality. For example, a character in the US who claims to be Democrat, yet always votes for Republican presidents and congressmen, exclusively watches Fox News, and who adores Newt Gingrich-- that's a problem. In real life, I don't think anyone can tell this person that he or she can't be Democrat (weird as that might seem). As a character's identity, however, there is no reason for this person to be Democrat. As evidenced by behavior, being Democrat is obviously not very important to the character. Therefore, there is no reason not to have this character be Republican (or at least moderate). Or, if the director or author wants to insist that the character is a Democrat, either revise the character's behavior or at least point out how incredibly hypocritical it is. The same goes for sexual orientation and a whole lot of other identity issues. If there is no basis from the character's behavior to make a claim about that character's identity, then the claim should not be made.
Now, I do grant that things are even more confusing with bisexuality because it is considered to be between hetero- and homosexuality. And I don't really care about exact numbers. Also, I grant that there is less of a problem if a bi character is generally more attracted to the same sex than if he/she is generally more attracted to the opposite sex. But if a bi character only exhibits attraction to one sex (note: that's "exhibits", not "claims"), I think the director or author should rethink his/her decision to make this character bi. Or revise the character's behavior.
But they are both elements of a character's (or a real-life person's) identity. Identity is made up of many facets, including race, sex, nationality, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion, etc. I was simply using an analogous example to (hopefully) make my point more clearly.
So for instance, in real life bisexuals can be any number of different ways, but when a character is identified as bisexual on TV we're going to judge how well s/he lives up to that idea, or what the fiction seems to be saying about bisexuals through how they show this character.
I was hoping someone would pick me up on that because it's something I sort of wanted to cover in the original comment but left out to avoid wandering too far from the point. You're of course absolutely right, and I think the trouble here comes from a separate bias that's prevalent in fiction but isn't specifically to do with sexual orientation, though it has this disproportionate effect we've encountered here: it's very rare in fiction to get (and I quote because I can't say it better myself) 'relationships in which both partners are just fine with their other halves idly expressing attraction to others in a purely hypothetical way'. I suppose in origin this has something to do with the general assumption that every fairly unimportant that happens in a work of fiction should point towards something more important going on beneath or likely to go on in the future or possibly having gone on in the past: thus writers perhaps fear that an idle expression of attraction in act one necessitates some sort of infidelity in act two. Which is wrong because it assumes a far too straightforward connexion between finding someone attractive and actually having sex with that person, but one can sort of see why the idea might arise. So that's another thing for writers to work on, separately from (but related to) writing convincing bisexual characters.
That's a very good option that I hadn't thought of at all, which is probably why I shouldn't write stuff. :) Of course it's still a little bit at the less powerful end of the show / tell spectrum, but still it would be a dashed good start.
And unless we adjust portrayals of bisexuality to reflect the real-life variations, that idea is going to remain flawed. Which is why saying "bisexuals characters must date both genders in equal measures" is only allowing the misconceptions to be reinforced.
It's not that the bisexual characters can't slide to one side or the other of the Kinsey scale (to use a phrase we're all familiar with), but when bisexual characters are shown on televisions, there's a tendency to portray how they interact sexually with each gender in a different way. And this also leads in to the issue of how we interpret the behavior of characters on TV differently than we would in real life.
Just to give an example, in real life, it would be perfectly fine for a bisexual woman to follow a trend of having flings with women and serious relationships with men. But if this was a character on a TV show, people would infer from this behavior that the writers feel that relationships between men and women are more valid than relationships between two women. I think this is where it gets tricky.
And (please correct me if I'm wrong) I think that's why Baihehua suggested they show them being attracted to both sexes in equal proportions. Not because she feels that we need to cater to the mainstream monosexual audience, but because if there is a somewhat 50/50 ratio, we have more relationships with each sex to judge and would be better able to see how this character treats her relationships with both men and women entirely in the same light. It would be more obvious that this person falls for/is attracted to people regardless of gender (in the sense of not being limited to attraction by gender). Which I think would really help to battle certain stereotypes surrounding the bisexual community.
If I'm completely misunderstanding something, please let me know.
I'm not trying to discredit what you're saying, and I think that adjusting portrayals of bisexuality to reflect real-life variations is a wonderful ideal.
However, I don't think it's manageable in a media setting. The media relies on simplifications all the time. If the media is not able to say "bisexual", "Jewish", "Democrat", etc. and have its audience understand what it means by these labels, then the media will never have the time to tell its stories--it will be too busy defining what these terms mean for each individual character. So, while these simplifications can be harmful in real life, they are often helpful in the media, if simply so the media can perform its function (to tell stories/to entertain).
From what I know of bisexuality, the basic concept is being sexually attracted to members of both sexes. Since the media is unable to present the entire spectrum of human sexuality (because it varies with every single person), it is this basic concept that should be consistently portrayed.
I understand it can be frustrating how the media interprets or presents your identity, but I don't think we can expect it to fully encompass all variations of humanity.
I would concede that if a work stated that a character was bisexual but never showed them in any relationships with their own sex, one could reasonably say that it couldn't really claim brownie points for featuring non-heterosexual characters, but provided the revealing of their sexuality is natural (i.e. not clearly there for the sole purpose of creating a bisexual character), I'd have no problem with it.
Well, I suppose this leads to a larger, even messier can of worms regarding whether you consider sexuality as connected to who you are or what you do... I think the problem with portraying minority groups (Minority Warrior!) is that as soon as you start arguing that it *shouldn't* matter if someone is gay, or a woman, or black, and that ideally it's equivalent to disliking potatoes, then you're merely giving excuses for it to be badly handled or ignored.
I had a tangential thought about this whole business actually - and I wonder if the difficulty might not lie so much with the depiction of bisexuality but with the depiction of relationships. The problem is that characters, like people, may have more than one relationship over the course of a text, especially if it's a long running series. And unless you're specifically going for "this is an unhealthy relationship", then it's very difficult to give both (or however many relationships they have) equal validity.
And truthfully I don't think we do that in real life either - we look back over our past relationships and go "oh, it wasn't love, it didn't count" (at least we do once we get over them) and our current relationship and think "yes, this is it, this is the real thing."
In fiction it's even worse - in order to make a romantic relationship convicing you have to pretty jettison everything that went before it. Which means that if you do have a bisexuality character, I reckon you can't win. Because if you set them up with a person of the same sex and then with a person of the opposite sex, the implicit (although *unintended* message) will be "lol, they were really straight all along" (because this is their twu wuv) and if you do it the other way round you'll be stuck with "lol, they were really gay all along (because this is their twu wuv).
Mmm, yes, I can see that. It's all rather difficult.
I think perhaps part of the problem is that it's difficult to judge whether a work of fiction is representing any group in an unreasonable way (or simply underrepresenting it), because a work of fiction will have relatively few characters and situations in it and one could easily argue each as in themselves reasonable. Women are vastly under-represented in fiction as a whole (i.e. the majority of characters, perhaps around 70%, are male), but it's difficult to accuse most specific works of under-representing women (Tolkein is an exception, being an extreme example), because it'll have only 5-10 major characters and you could put it down to random chance or come up with a plausible reason why the majority of characters in this particular work are male.
And this is far worse with sexuality, both because it isn't a 50/50 split in the first place (so one wouldn't want to argue that half of all characters should be homo- or bi-sexual), and because a character's sexuality isn't necessarily evident (whereas their sex generally is).
I automatically agreed with this statement, but I wonder if this is just because its what we're used to seeing. For example, in Friends, (apologies to anyone who doesn't watch this, I'm sure a better example will come to mind) Monica has a longstanding relationship with Richard, then they break up because she wants kids and he doesn't. Later on, she gets together with, and eventually marries, Chandler. There is never any "oh, he wasn't that great" about Richard, its just accepted that there was too big of a problem to work around, and Monica does occasionally have to reassure Chandler that she loves him and is over Richard, etc.
I think if either of the men was made a female character, you could quite conceivably play it that way and have the same kind of break up and moving on without invalidating the previous relationship. I really think the biggest problem with trying to portray bisexuality in fiction is usually that people will go "Wait, so she's straight now?" instead of "oh my god they are such a cute couple/so annoying/etc," as you normally do to a new couple on a soap or sitcom.
That and, of course, things like the *wonderful* reaction of the Sex and the City girls when one of Carrie's boyfriends tells her he has had a boyfriend or two in the past. She freaks out and can't understand why he doesn't "just make up his mind". It was a horrible response to a character who is, very maturely, saying "look, this is my sexual history, I've been tested x months ago, I want you to know so you don't have to worry." That was so frigging offensive it shocked me. (Though why I don't know. It's not as if they put any real thought into how they depict women or gay men.)
Mmm, worms.
Just out of interest, and possibly for the sake of looking at it from a new angle, can anyone think of any bisexual characters / relationships in fiction that have been well handled?
Characters... I think everyone has a different definition of "well handled". Among characters I think are reasonably well handled, I can name a couple that, while they are not explicitly stated to be bisexual, can easily be seen as bisexual or gender-blind.
*Rachel, from Imagine Me & You. She never names her sexuality and even explicitly refuses to label herself. She has had a long-term sexual and romantic relationship with a man before meeting the woman she falls for. Also, the reason given for her leaving her husband is not because she is not attracted to him, but because she "went crazy. [She] went crazy for someone and it wasn't [her husband]".
*Sita and Radha, from Fire (by Deepa Mehta). Again, these women do not label themselves. They are attracted to each other and begin a physical, as well as emotional, relationship, but there is nothing to indicate that either woman would be adverse to a relationship with a man. While they have not found what they need in their heterosexual marriages, this is portrayed as due to the unique circumstances they have with their husbands, not as a dislike of men in general.
I'm sure there are other examples out there, but I can't think of any right now.
That's an interesting pair of character names, especially if they're in a relationship. I'm going to have to read that book...
You should definitely look into it, though. I think it's a great movie. If you're interested, Deepa Mehta also has two later films out, "Earth" and "Water", that address different social problems in India. They're all excellent.
I haven't watched Torchwood, but from what I've heard, Captain Jack Harkness is a rather well-done bisexual character.
(Very interesting discussion, by the way!)
I have watched Torchwood, and Captain Jack was one of the first people who came to my head when I thought about bisexual characters. I really do read him as someone who just hits on anything that moves. I suppose people could argue about whether this is a positive or negative portrayal of a bisexual. But he definitely doesn't discriminate based on gender, and that's pretty clear.
In fact, I'm pretty sure the creator of the new Doctor Who and Torchwood is of the impression that by the time we get to Jack's time period (51st century), everyone will be "omnisexual" (his term, not mine) meaning that we won't discriminate on gender, race, or even species. And that idea is evident in both Jack and John, an ex-beau of Jack's who comes in the second season of Torchwood.
Yes, that's how I viewed it too. It wasn't Jack is a bisexual SO he's flirty. It was just that Jack, as a person, is flirty.
it doesn't seem to imply any tendency toward being unfaithful if he were actually in a relationship.
It got a bit trickier in Torchwood b/c it was a more adult show. But while he was in a relationship with Ianto, he never cheated on him despite having sexually charged moments with other characters. But you were left wondering how serious he was about Ianto, but I chalked it up to Jack being a bit of a commit-a-phobe rather than anything to do with his sexuality.
Torchwood is interesting because every character on the show has had a bisexual moment. Owen had a "devil's threesome", Tosh despite being straight had a relationship with an alien chick for an episode, Gwen had a french kiss with a girl (albeit a super pheromone induced thing out of Gwen's control), and Ianto had a girlfriend before shacking up with Jack.
Oh...uh, spoilers? Sorry.
Personally, I'm with you on that. That's why I wasn't going to bring him up, but I wanted to respond to miss-morland.
I guess it comes down to if you can separate Jack from his sexuality to the point where you know that his flaws as far as relationships go are not due to his sexuality, but due to him as a person. But obviously not everyone is going to be able to make that distinction, which leaves you with a rather, as you said, emotionally unfaithful bisexual character, which is not a great example.
Thanks for pointing it out -- I'll have to watch it (especially after reading about the controversy)! What actually interested me about the names Sita and Radha is the mythological, er, connection. Is Mehta preaching narcisissm ;-)?
Well, now you've made me curious as to the portrayal of Ianto's bisexuality... (I really should watch that show!)
Not that it would in any way detract from the epic fail. Gah.
Oh, and thanks for the "Biphobia" link, Viorica.
Interestingly enough, while I was browsing for “Involuntary Human” I discovered that David Gerrold published a book entitled Blood and Fire in either 2003 or 2004 (sources are conflicted on this point). According to the website linked above, it's the concluding volume of his “Star Wolf” trilogy, which I've never heard of before. I wonder how it may or may not fit in.
Kyra: Quite frankly there's a part of me that cannot compute when someone is attracted to someone I am not, regardless of gender, and as far people who are only attracted to one sex ... yikes, how do they function within such limitations? =P
Ha-ha, that reminds me of a story my philosophy professor once told me. Once, when questioned on his sexual orientation, James Dean reputedly quipped: “Let's just say I don't believe in going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”