ratcreature | queer tv characters

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queer tv characters

Not that I needed another tv series, but recently I started watching Traders eps. Initially it was because I've seen a bunch of SGA/Traders x-overs centered on David Hewlett's Traders character Grant Jansky, and I dislike reading crossovers without having seen at least a little bit of all characters so that I can imagine them. So I figured I'd watch an episode or two. (Yeah, we all know how well something like that tends to work out. *g*)

I didn't expect to like it much because I'm not a huge David Hewlett fan (I mean, I like his acting and characters well enough, I'm just in general not obsessed with actors, nor watch series just because an actor I like is in them), and I don't find investment banking interesting either. But it turned out that the series is really cool and I like many of the characters, not just Grant. I mean for example Donald is adorable, and Marty is kind of a jerk, but really fun too. Anyway, by now I've watched up to the middle of season three, and watched that episode in which Sally's ex-girlfriend shows up.

Obviously I find it cool that they revealed a major character as bisexual in a subplot, and handled it in a decent way too, IMO, but that ep made me wonder whether it is somehow easier to have lesbian/bisexual women appear as regular tv characters than gay/bisexual men (in not "specialized" programs, I don't mean things like QAF or L-Word and such, nor minor characters that are just there for one or two episodes for some coming out story or whatever).

That is, I remember a bunch of lesbian major or recurring characters on shows I watched, but fewer gay ones. Like there's Kerry Weaver on ER, Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters on Babylon 5, Willow, Tara and Kennedy on Buffy, Original Cindy on Dark Angel, Sharon on Wonderfalls, Marissa on The O.C. and I've heard there's a major lesbian character on Nip/Tuck and a bisexual one on One Tree Hill (I haven't watched either of the last two). OTOH I recall Tim Bayliss on Homicide being bisexual, that gay kid on Dawson's Creek (I never watched more than two episodes, so I can't recall his name), and I have heard that Six Feet Under has gay couple among the major characters as has that prison series Oz, though I watch neither.

So did I just forget a bunch of gay characters from my shows or are they all in the other many shows I've never watched? (and in a greater number than the queer women in shows I don't watch?) Or are lesbians for some strange reason more palatable than gays on tv?

And not that it has much to do with anything, but I really really wish the drunk football fans would shut up already, and stop singing, shouting and honking. It's been hours already, and this is a residential neighborhood. Argh.

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It's definitely easier to have lesbian/bisexual female characters on TV than gay/bisexual male characters. They're seen as less 'threatening' by straight males (unless they're butch dykes, but notice how feminine most of the female characters you named are?) The only other queer characters I can think of at the moment are Inara on Firefly (bisexual female), Captain Jack on Dr. Who (bisexual male), and they played with bisexual subtext with Normal on Dark Angel (though they played it for laughs.)

You're right about that feminine thing. The only "butch" character I recall is Grace from Joan of Arcadia, but she is more portrayed as still figuring her sexuality out than as anything else. Which makes sense since she's a teenager, but I didn't list her because of her sexual orientatin being still uncertain. But to me she read definitely as a cool potential baby dyke.

Now I wonder whether queer male characters would be less threatening to masculinity if they were portrayed in the more or less feminine gay cliche (as many minor gay characters seem to be) to distance them from being male at all or analogous to the lesbian characters, who are "still women", as just like other guys, thus trying to disconnect the image of masculinity from heterosexual sex.

That's one of the criticisms of Will & Grace (speaking of a mainstream TV program with main gay characters) that I've seen quite often-- that the gay male characters are desexualized and played in the feminine gay cliche. Same thing with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (actually, I've heard the phrase "gay minstrel show" used in relation to that one.)

Strangely enough the lesbian and gay characters (outside of soap operas) I remember from German tv series (which I don't watch a lot) are all from police and prison dramas and such. Like a gay police detective who's partnered with a more mach guy and they surprisingly get along. Another one is a lesbian police detective, well actually that is a bit overstating it, she flirted with and kissed another woman on screen once, and there's afaik no steady male love interest as the series is mostly about the police work, and the character is somewhat butch, what with having short hair, not caring much about looks, watching football and such, but the actress (who's openly lesbian) said that she had no interest in her character being one (maybe she doesn't want to be type cast in the rather limited "lesbian" slot), so there was never any follow-up. Then there's some series taking place in a women's prison that has lesbian couples (or maybe situationally lesbian couples, I never watched the thing)...

Interesting! Another HBO show, The Wire, has a lesbian as a major character. And wasn't there a queer boy on My So-Called Life?

And wasn't there a queer boy on My So-Called Life?

I think so. Ricky?

And Kima's girlfriend Cheryl? Is Sally's student-turned-assistant on Traders.

And Omar, on The Wire, is gay. He's one of the major characters in a year-long story arc (and, of course, his boyfriend). On the commentaries, they repeatedly talk about how the show is about how institutions destroy individuals, and that Omar is the only person on the show that isn't caught up in one system or another.

The guys who do The Wire also did Homicide. They're pretty driven to portray Baltimore as it is, which means that they constantly have to fight to have multiple black actors on screen. They also got a lot of crap for having a female homicide detective. But they're kind of proud, now, because over the run of the show Baltimore did get (more) women in Homicide. So, I expect they're going to keep it up on all fronts.

There's a dead lesbian character on Hex, but given the nature of the show being dead doesn't necessarily count for much.

And how dare we assume that characters are heterosexual if we don't see them with any partners and no partners are named--and how do we know that a character who used to have/currently has an other-sex partner has no same-sex interests?

I'm not wondering about whether a character's sexuality is open to interpretation, or even has strong undecurrents queerness, like I think are present with Grace on Joan of Arcadia. I was talking about TBP explicitly stating a main or regular character is gay, lesbian, or bisexual, either by having him/her openly same-sex love interests on screen (or mentioned in on screen conversation), or declaring themselves as such, so that there is no way one could possibly cop out and see them as fully heterosexual. And whether that was easier for tv shows to do for female characters than for male characters.

Two women can't really have sex, don't you know?

What, not even with strap-on dildos?

They're only half-way there. You gotta have the real, throbbing cocks.

OMG, I clicked on this link from metafandom, because it made me think of Traders, but I never expected that it would actually be about it.

Because I missed several Traders eps, and that's obviously one of them. But it's perfect. I don't read femslash at all, but every. damn. scene. between Sonja Smits and another woman, and I'm screaming for fanfic. So, there's that.

But Traders also stands out in my mind for some of the minor characters who've been gay men. (I don't want to spoil you - what ep are you at?) There's the biogeneticist who they set up with Porky Pete (financially), who's lusting over Jack. (306)

And which episode is the one with Sally's ex? Makes a nice switch from her and every billionaire in the western hemisphere.

Of course, it *is* a Canadian show.

/neighbourhood of drunk-with-giddy-joy hockey fans, absent for tonight because of the flood

Okay:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~wyatt/tv-characters.html
http://www.queertv.btinternet.co.uk/
http://www.afterellen.com/TV/gaymenvswomen.html

The episode with the ex-girlfriend was 3x14 IIRC (episode numbers kind of blur together for me during marathon series watching). And you know how at that time Ian is trying to get her to go out with him? There's scenes where he talks to Donald that he's sure the woman is an ex-girlfriend of Sally and about how hot it is that she's into women too. That conversation is adorable with Donald being somewhat flustered and Ian being all eager as if imagining a threesome.

Very true. It has also been my impression that the main character can't be gay/bisexual unless the show is about that feature of them. It's hard to be a "casual gay" on television.

Well, it wasn't that big of a deal on Babylon 5, and so far Sally's bisexuality hasn't come up with again explicitly after the episode with the ex-girlfriend from college was over. (I mean, I see some of her behavior as flirting with women, but so far nothing else explicitly happened and her other love interests so far were men.)

Int'rusting. I'll have to watch Babylon 5 sometime...

You really should, it is an awesome show. IIRC (and it has been a while) it is relatively late in the show that the whole lesbian thing comes up, but in any case the show is well worth watching.

Where did you find all these lesbians?

Seriously, it seems to me like the Token Gay Character (recurring or one-shot) is always male. Running down the shows I've seriously watched in the last few years, Joan of Arcadia had a Token Gay Guy Episode; The Book of Daniel had a gay guy in the family (although, to their credit, a lesbian couple was revealed in the episode before it got canceled); Doctor Who, the 2005 series, has homosexual subtext in half of the episodes (to be fair, half of it's from Captain Jack) but it's all between males; The Daily Show and The Colbert Report make gay jokes all the time, but again, all about the guys. Star Trek: Enterprise had all straight characters, but there were only two females and their relationship was never developed, so any subtext was between the guys. In movies, Brokeback nearly gets Best Picture, but there's no buzz about any film with lesbians. And before that, I'm running out of examples, but it just feels like whenever there's a Token Gay Character appearing, it's a guy. (And let's not even get started on manga. Shōnen-ai everywhere from FAKE to Gravitation to Tokyo Babylon, and subtext all over everywhere else, but lesbians? Ummmm, RG Veda, which nobody's ever heard of, and Sailor Moon. Big crowd, there.)

...that was a bit of a rant. Hm.

I think I need to get into Buffy.

I suspect main characters and minor characters present for only one or two episodes work differently from the perspective of TPTB. I mean, Ewerwood has a gay teenager coming out subplot for a couple of eps, and another subplot about how Bright at first assumes his roommate is gay because he talks about his ex-partner and such (also he's very body conscious in a gay stereotype kind of way with caring about his looks, working out etc), when that guy was a paramedic and meant his work partner. Traders has minor recurring gay characters too. Of course Smallville had that episode with the homicidal lesbian stalker girl or whatever that was, but I prefer not to count that one... I only read Western comics, but there are some lesbians and lesbian couples, like that lesbian cop in Superman (Maggie Sawyers, I think) and Renee Montoya (another lesbian cop) in Batman comics, and of course the new Batwoman is supposed to be lesbian too.

There is shojo-ai and f/f subtext in a few more manga/anime series than those you've listed. Noir, Utena, Planet Ladder all leap to my mind immediately. There's also an anime series (the title of which escapes me) about two reincarnated mikos, mechs and the obligatory ancient evil. Card Captor Sakura also has some unrequited f/f.

There's so much anime/manga out there that I'm sure there are examples I'm forgetting (or simply don't know about). Of course, what's popular in terms of anime/manga is something else again... Planet Ladder fan fiction, for example, tends to focus on the male characters (though I think the female characters are more compelling).

If you look at something like CCS, there are a couple of unrequited f/f pairings, and a couple of unrequited m/m pairings, so it evens out. Utena's the classic example, but the farthest the f/f goes is one kiss, and that was in the movie (which is crack on a stick in all other respects, so I'm not sure it counts).

I know the miko series you're referring to; I read the first two chapters. It wasn't that good, alas.

I'll have to look into Planet Ladder. Still, while subtext is all well and good, I'd love some more text. The requited kind. Where is the f/f FAKE?

I love Planet Ladder, but I'll warn you that the main character is... She starts out as rather weak and not necessarily very interesting. She does get better, but she never develops much personality (apart from the traits that fit her type). Also, the ending of the series is dreadful because the manga-ka seems to have run out of space. The last volume is longer than the others, but it still-- How to explain it? Everybody gathers for the big fight to decide the fate of everything, and then the story abruptly skips forward to about a dozen pages of who's doing what several years later. I really think that she misjudged the length of what she had to tell.

Also, the two female characters don't end up together. There's definitely an attraction/connection there, at least on one side (it's hard to tell what's going on with the heroine). I'd have liked to see a lot more of Banvivrie. I wish someone would write decent fic for the series (I haven't the time in the next couple of years, not till my daughter's in school). There are about half a dozen stories out there, and they all focus on male characters.

So it's one of those series that sort of skips the climax. Wish did that. So did Victorian Romance Emma (actually, it never really reached the climax, which is too bad as it had some potential f/f couples, but oh well). Le sigh.

And the f/f is unfulfilled? Le double sigh.

I'll look into it anyway, see if I can help write good Banvivrie fic.

While I think everyone should get into Buffy, because I'm a huge fan of the show, if you want other options:

For the shoujo-ai/yuri (Japanese fandom term for femslash), try

daily_yuri, which is an f-locked comm that posts images of girl on girl.

For a blog that reviews anime/manga with a focus on yuri, try Okazu (http://okazu.blogspot.com/).

For a website devoted to yuri, with links to Amazon, and a huge list of anime/manga(although not quite helpful, since they count minor characters and subtext that I sometimes interpret as just female friendship), try Yuricon (http://www.yuricon.org/).

Oh, and for a website that reviews Western media, movies and tv shows, that focus on lesbians and bisexual women, try After Ellen (http://www.afterellen.com).

I agree that the male/male is more prevalent, and easily found, than the female/female. I have no idea if it's just the areas I hang out in, or what, but it felt like the m/m just fell into my lap or was pimped to me, while I had to sift through stuff to find the f/f.

Love the icon.

I'm used to saying shōjo-ai, actually; it's been weird saying "femslash" for this thread ^_^;

Thanks for the resources! I've already started digging through them. The yuri equivalent of FAKE is out there somewhere, I'm sure . . . *starry eyes*

I wasn't sure if you were familiar with the terms, so I figured it was better to be redundant than confusing. ;)

Happy digging! I can't think of a non-subtext shoujo-ai version of FAKE, but then again I just got into anime/manga about a year or so ago.

Oniisama (Translated as Brother, Dear Brother) is an old, old manga series from the 70's with lesbian text and subtext. But mostly text. And then it was made into an equally gay anime series with an elegant old-fashioned look available on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/results?search=oniisama&search_type=search_videos

Basically, teenage girls in an exclusive high school, having the kind of obsessive but not explicit relationships that teenagers have. Only gorgeous and sort of epic and very gothic novel. Femme lesbians, androgynous lesbians, androgynous straight girls, terrifying little high school divas, confused and innocent young bisexuals...

It doesn't break pg-13, but it doesn't need to.

There was Larry Blaisdell on BtVS. Was he on often enough to qualify?

Well, considering that I (as a more casual Buffy viewer) don't remember him, I'd say not. Then again it could be I'd recall the character and just not the name, since I'm really really bad with remembering names. (Not kidding, I was once in a drawing group with six other people for nearly a year and we met once a week, and at the end I knew and remembered all kinds of stuff about everybody, but was still unsure about some of the names -- that's why I love LJ and internet communication, the name comes always attached...).

I understand; I'm really bad with names too. :-)

So, Larry was the big jock who used to harrass and intimidate Xander until he came out to him. (It was all a misunderstanding; Xander thought Larry was the werewolf that had been seen prowling Sunnydale, and so he was hinting to him about the hyena possession to show him that he understood what Larry was going through. Larry thought he was talking about being attracted to men too.) After that, Larry turned out to be a pretty nice guy: offered to put a tasteful 'coming out' announcement in the school newspaper for Xander and everything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_shows_with_lesbian%2C_gay%2C_bisexual%2C_or_transgendered_characters

Wikipedia remains the awesome.

*takes count from drama/miniseries list, guessing gender based on names, ignoring The L Word and Queer As Folk*

Male: 41
Female: 35
Not sure: 7

Biased towards males, but not heavily, and within the margin of error. Interesting.

I recall a gay couple who were recurring on thirtysomething.

Most of the shows I can think of that had recurring or regular gay characters (outside of cable and Will and Grace) weren't on for more than a few episodes. I'm told that Eyes (a show that came and went in the blink of one, despite critical acclaim) had an excellent gay regular.

Oh, there was that one guy on Melrose Place. Matt? I think. And Northern Exposure had a gay couple that I remember as being recurring, though it could just be that they stand out in my memory.

Hmm... Actually, I'd say the real difference is that characters not originally introduced as gay can turn out to be lesbians, but male characters rarely ever come out mid-series. It's as if people find it more disturbing when male characters turn out not to be as straight as advertised.

Huh. You're right, it does seem much rarer to have male characters come out as gay or bisexual later on. Strange.

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queer tv characters

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just a few links, now that you've got me thinking

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