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When
Josh Schwartz came out to Out.com about the lesbian plot back
in December, he said, “Marissa has been trying to find
herself and trying different relationships. Many of them are
designed to piss her mom off.” But Schwartz insisted,
“She believes this is real. She takes it very slowly and
very cautiously. When her mom finds out, it’s not done
to be explosive.”
Schwartz’s
comments—and Marissa’s antagonistic relationship
with her mother—suggest that Marissa’s mother is
not going to be terribly pleased with Marissa’s latest
romance. In addition, Olivia Wilde, the actress who plays Alex,
is only scheduled to appear in a few more episodes. This means
that the relationship between Alex and Marissa is almost over,
and the way that Schwartz and the producers of The O.C.
handle its demise could be more important than the way they
handled the coming-out storyline.
Most
coming-out storylines on network television have not
concluded well. After Ellen DeGeneres's character came out on
her sitcom Ellen in 1997, she began a serious relationship
with her mortgage broker, Laurie, but ratings plummeted, and
her show was cancelled the following season. After Bianca came
out on All My Children in
2000, she was raped, and her lover left the country; she is
only getting a love life again now that she is leaving the show.
When Dr. Kerry Weaver came out on ER,
she was promptly saddled with a lesbian motherhood storyline,
her lover was killed in the line of duty, and she was forced
to endure a child custody battle in court. Although Once
and Again delivered a realistic and sympathetic coming-out
storyline in 2002 (with Mischa Barton as one of the two girls),
the show was cancelled before the girls were really able to
start dating.
The
only example of a coming-out storyline that has resulted in
a continuing lesbian relationship on network television is Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, in which Willow began dating Tara
in 2000. Their relationship, which lasted for two and a half
years, remains the longest-lasting lesbian relationship on network
TV.
It’s
clear that The O.C. isn’t going to break the
Buffy record anytime soon, but it’s less clear
whether The O.C. is going to be able to maintain the
sincerity of the lesbian storyline through the end.
Earlier
this month, Schwartz told the Hartford Courant
that “It is not done for character exploitation. A character
who is lonely and lost connects with a person who becomes a
mentor to her, who happens to be a girl, which is not something
she expected.”
If
that’s actually true, Alex’s departure should have
some kind of serious affect on Marissa. Anyone’s first
relationship with someone of the same sex has long-lasting consequences.
In the real world, friendships are broken or renewed, family
members pass judgement, and psychotherapy often ensues. The
O.C. is a one-hour television drama, so it’s not
likely that all of those issues will be examined in their full
complexity, but if Schwartz really wants viewers to believe
him when he says the Alex and Marissa relationship is a real
one, he has to end it like a real one.
If
Marissa quickly forgets about Alex and starts dating boys right
away, all of Schwartz’s gay-positive press will be revealed
as merely spin. After such a good start, let's hope that's not
how it ends.
Find
more articles on The O.C.'s lesbian storyline in our
O.C. section
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