2008 Year in Review: Television

Unscripted television

So-called reality television is usually so over-the-top that its representation of lesbian and bisexual women is typically far more dramatic than what we find in scripted television. But the histrionics (both on and off screen) surrounding the Grey’s Anatomy fiasco this season were hard to top. In fact, reality television seemed almost tame by comparison.

Lisa Fernandes, Jenn Biesty, and Zoi Antonitsas of Top Chef Season 4

Back in June of this year, writer Malinda Lo reported that with the concurrent broadcast of Bravo’s Work Out, and Top Chef, Shot at Love 2 With Tila Tequila and Logo's Gimme Sugar:

For the first time ever in television history, this week there are at least a dozen lesbian/bi women on prime-time TV in reality shows on three different networks….These women range in age from 20 to their late 30s, have many different interests and personalities, and even represent some diversity in race, with several Asian-American lesbian/bi women among them.

While the sheer volume of lesbian and bi characters supplied by these programs was comforting, the quality of representation on the shows varied wildly. Top Chef was easily the most benign of the group, but Jackie Warner’s Work Out was, for the third season running, a hot bed of lesbian intrigue, betrayal, controversy and smack talk.

Jackie Warner (left) and Rebecca Cardon of Bravo's Work Out

Similarly, Gimme Sugar placed friendships between lesbian and bi women in the foreground, but with the bisexual character taking more than her share of grief from her lesbian friends simply for being bisexual.

The cast of Logo's Gimme Sugar

Of course, all of these issues seem insignificant when compared to the Tila Tequila dating-show train-wreck, Shot at Love 2, which regularly employed trashy, offensive, and hyper-sexual stereotypes about lesbians or bisexual women (or heterosexual men, for that matter) in its hot pursuit of a mate of either gender for its host.

Tila and her suitors

Other notable queer women in realty television in 2008 included Tabatha Coffey in her Shear Genius spin-off, Tabatha’s Salon Takeover; Elina Ivanova from America’s Next Top Model (which, this season, also included an MTF transgender contestant, Isis); and Cat Cora on Iron Chef America.