Since I began doing my annual review of lesbians in theatrical releases four years ago, every year has been a variation on the same bad theme. 2002 was all about stereotypes of psychotic and/or promiscuous bisexual women. In 2003, it was depressing lesbian characters. In 2004, it was a mix of promiscuous bisexuals and depressing lesbians.

But in 2005, for the first time, there's actually something good to say about how we were portrayed on the big screen. A few good things, in fact.

First, there was an increase in the number of films with queer female characters this year. While there were only 5 theatrical releases with lesbian/bi characters in 2002, and 8 in both 2003 and 2004, there were 11 in 2005: D.E.B.S., Sin City (Carla Gugino has a small role as a lesbian cop), Jiminy Glick in La La Wood (Janeane Garofalo plays the lead character's lesbian assistant, who is having an affair with Linda Cardellini's character), Kicking and Screaming, Saving Face, High Tension, My Summer of Love, Happy Endings (Laura Dern and Sarah Chalke play a lesbian couple in supporting roles), Broken Flowers, Pretty Persuasion, and Rent.

That's 2.9% of the total movies released in theaters in 2005 (519), which is up from around 1% in 2004. Still a very small percentage, but moving in the right direction.

More importantly, 2005 saw a major improvement in the quality of lesbian/bi characters. For the first time, we actually saw more positive (or at least neutral) and interesting depictions of queer women than negative, stereotypical ones.

Oh, the usual stereotypes were still present and accounted for: the evil bisexual teen in My Summer of Love and Pretty Persuasion, the lesbian mothers in Happy Endings, the half-naked lesbian eye-candy in Sin City, and the gratuitous lesbian relationship in Jiminy Glick (although Garofalo and Cardellini's affair is the only good thing this really bad movie has going for it). Rent's flirtatious bisexual Maureen bordered on the promiscuous bisexual stereotype, and High Tension was pretty much one long lesbian stereotype (even if it was also an effective horror movie).

But most of the stereotypical characters had layers, at least, and they were more than balanced out by the characters who didn't conform as easily to stereotypes. We not only had a diversity of queer career women--including a surgeon, a ballet dancer, government agents, a reporter, a cop, an animal communicator, a lawyer, a professional protester, and soccer moms--but we only had one queer female murderer, which must be some kind of record.

There wasn't much racial diversity, though. Most of the queer characters on the big screen in 2005 were white, like they are almost every year, but we did get America's first theatrical release featuring an Asian American lesbian couple in Saving Face, and Rent featured an interracial lesbian couple. We also got our first lesbian action movie, D.E.B.S., even if it was more satire/romance than action.

Throw in the fact that we had a few prominent lesbian romances (D.E.B.S., Saving Face) and a few stable lesbian couples (Happy Endings, Kicking and Screaming, Broken Flowers), and 2005 was a pretty good year for queer women on the big screen.

Unfortunately, it was the films with the minor, thinly-drawn lesbian characters (Kicking and Screaming, Sin City, Jiminy Glick) that were the released in the most theaters, and watch by the most Americans. But this happens every year. In 2004, for example, Dodgeball's badly stereotyped bisexual character and the closeted lesbian in the Bridget Jones Diary sequel were far more widely seen than the semi-interesting lesbian couple in the barely released Eulogy. Usually the only time we see a prominent queer woman in a nationwide release is when she's a serial killer, as in Monster, or sleeping with men, as in Frida, The Hours, and Gigli.

The exception to this rule in 2005 was Rent, but so few people went to see it that it might has well have been in limited release. The queer women in Broken Flowers were semi-prominent characters, but only in a fourth of the film.

The films with the most well-developed and non-stereotypical queer characters (D.E.B.S., Saving Face) were released in just a small number of theaters before they went to DVD. But at least they were released at all--a definite improvement over 2004, when the best lesbian or bisexual characters we could find were in Eulogy and She Hate Me (yikes!).

So far, 2006 is shaping up promisingly, as well, with the February 14th release of the British import Imagine Me and You, starring Piper Perabo, and the September release of Running with Scissors. Other interesting queer women-inclusive films in the works for release in 2006 or 2007 include the Dusty Springfield biopic, Mara Maggenti's Puccini for Beginners, and Gray Matters (if it ever gets finished).

On the other hand, Basic Instinct 2 is also coming out early next year. Which just proves that the more things change, the more Hollywood's love of evil bisexuals stays the same.

Read about movies in 2002, 2003, or 2004