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Middle
America Meets its Lesbian Neighbors
on Still Standing
Sarah Warn,
September 28, 2004
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Last
night, Middle America was introduced to its new lesbian
neighbors on the CBS sitcom Still Standing (now in
its third season), replete with all the requisite jokes and
innuendo, as well as a few unexpected and quietly revolutionary
moments.
Chicago couple Bill (Mark Addy) and Judy (Jami Gertz) Miller
are your standard screwed-up (straight) sitcom parents—a
lot more Roseanne than Cosby Show, with a
nerdy teenage son and a vapid teenage daughter. In the second
episode of the sitcom's third season, new neighbors Terry (Justine
Bateman) and Shelly (Julia Campbell) move in next door, and
Bill and Judy try to charm them in order to get permission to
build a deck against their adjoining property line.
Turns
out, the new neighbors are lesbians—or "same-gendered
love buddies," as Bill calls them awkwardly ("well,
that's one of the nicer names we've been called," Bateman's
character Terry comments dryly).
Judy
and Bill proceed to fall all over themselves trying to be politically
correct, with comments like this one from Judy: "We are
totally cool with you two being lesbians. In fact, we admire
it. We think you're heroes. You and firemen." Or Judy's
comment to the couple's son, Chris (Sean Marquette): "I
think it's great how you've accepted having two moms. And I
mean, what's to accept? It's natural. In fact, it's better
than natural. It's supernatural!" (To which Judy's son
Brian replies, "Mom, they're lesbians, not ghosts.")
The
show pokes fun at the Millers' constant emphasis on
the couple's sexuality, like in this exchange following Bill's
question about whether the women have any dietary restrictions:
TERRY: We don't eat cheese.
JUDY: Oh, is that a lesbian thing?
TERRY: It's a lactose-intolerant thing.
When
a romance develops between Chris and the Millers' daughter Lauren
(Renee Olstead), Bill jokes to Shelly, "If this keeps up
you could become our lesbians-in-law." To which Shelly
replies, "You know Bill, we're not just lesbians. She's
a nurse, and I'm a flight attendant." Bill just shifts
around uncomfortably and says "Awesome!" His inability
to get past the fact that they're lesbians is both humorous
(as is his obsession with their hanging plant holder, which
he automatically assumes has some erotic function) and accurately
reflects the attitude of some heterosexuals.
The
show takes a slightly subversive turn with
the subplot about the teenagers' budding relationship. The lesbian
couple's son Chris is a very smart, well-adjusted kid whose grades
begin to drop when he starts spending time with with the Millers'
daughter Lauren—making her the bad influence (and
by implication, the heterosexual Millers less effective parents
than the lesbian couple—although their poor parenting skills
are a constant theme of the show).
When
Terry and Shelly express concern about their son's dropping grades,
Judy tells them, "You've done a wonderful job with Chris,
you've got nothing to worry about." Quite different from
the rhetoric we hear from the Christian Right about the negative
impact gay parents have on their children.
Still
Standing is already a little different from most sitcoms
in its reversal of gender-roles: in the Miller family, Judy is
clearly the one who does the physical labor, while neither her
husband or her son can even swing a hammer properly. But by presenting
the lesbian couple as a "normal" (albeit unusual) family
with the same concerns as the Millers, the show is going one step
further in pushing the envelope on social convention.
Although
the show handles the lesbian neighbors with humor throughout,
it too often goes for the cheap laugh, like Shelly's last comment
in this exchange when they're discussing whether to stop Chris
from seeing Lauren because of his dropping grades:
TERRY: But we also want [Chris] to be happy. It's not like we're
ever going to stop him from liking girls.
SHELLY: Yeah, I guess not—my mom certainly couldn't stop
me. [cue loud laugh track]
Jokes
like that are so late-90s, even in Middle America.
It
would be difficult for anyone to deliver lines like
these well, but it doesn't help that Campbell is painfully overacting
in most of her scenes. Bateman, on the other hand, strikes just
the right amount of low-key bemusement in her role, and is frequently
the only character in a scene who appears realistic and natural.
There
is some unexpectedly funny dialogue, however, like this:
TERRY:
Sorry if we seem over-protective. Chris is our only child and
we have hopes for him. it was a huge drawn-out process just
for us to conceive.
BILL: I know, Judy's like that too. Sometimes I have to go through
a whole checklist just to get cleared for landing.
TERRY: I never thought I could get more gay, but I just did.
BILL: (pointing to Shelly): Hey, good news for you!
Overall,
this was a solid effort at including lesbianism in a
mainstream, Middle-America sitcom, with strategic use of humor
to depoliticize the lesbians' sexuality, and to mask the subversiveness
of presenting Shelly and Terry as model parents. The episode was
clearly designed for a heterosexual audience, but with a wink
and a nod to all the gay folks out there exasperated by well-meaning,
bumbling heterosexuals.
It's
not exactly supernatural, but it's a step in the right direction.
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