I
was starting to get
worried: we were almost halfway through February Sweeps this year
and there
was still no sign of the annual lesbian exploitation
episode that has come to symbolize this month of ratings-pandering
and general television merriment.
Was
this year's lack of such an episode a sign of the apocalypse,
I wondered? Perhaps a side-effect of global warming? Or another
Al Qaeda attempt to disrupt the American way of life?
Fortunately,
just when I was about to panic, Fox's Monday
night drama Boston Public put my fears to rest with their
February 10th, 2003 episode in which an obsessed lesbian/bi
teen (played by Angela Goethals) stalks her teacher (played by
Michelle Monaghan) and ends up in a psychiatric institution, while
her teacher is forced to permanently leave the school for her
own safety.
Even
better, it was a Valentine's Day-themed episode in which love
is in the air for many of the heterosexual characters, who engage
in various light-hearted hi jinks while the lesbian teen vandalizes
her teacher's apartment and writes "Bitch" on the wall
in big letters. It's a nice contrast.
While
the cast of Boston Public is fairly racially and ethnically
diverse for television, it has been overwhelmingly
heterosexual since the show debuted in 1999--in fact, they've
never included any lesbian characters until now (and
only a few gay male ones). There
was a lesbian kiss as part of a student play last year,
but no actual lesbian characters.
Which
is why I applaud their efforts to finally introduce a lesbian
storyline now in their third season, and in such a sensitive manner.
It's wonderful that they're reaching out to their lesbian audience
this way with a character and storyline I think we can all identify
with.
When
Sheila "I'm not a lesbian but let me read my really explicit
sex dream about my teacher to the whole class" stops by Kimberly
Woods' apartment unannounced with flowers one night after school,
I was immediately taken back to my own carefree high-school stalker
days.
It's
especially important that the first
time the series introduces a lesbian or bisexual teenager,
she is mentally unbalanced and dangerous, since so much of Boston
Public's audience is comprised of impressionable teens. We
wouldn't want to confuse teenagers by giving them the false idea
that lesbian and bisexual teens can actually be healthy and well-adjusted.
With
suicide rates so high among gay and lesbian teens, we need to
show these kids now the miserable life in store for them if they
don't change.
Granted,
the WB's teen drama Smallville
did feature an excellent storyline about an obsessed lesbian
teen psycho-killer in January, as did a January rerun of Lifetime's
now-cancelled legal series For the People in which a
black lesbian teen killed her lover in a jealous rage.
But
really, a few episodes in a two-month period just aren't enough--we
need more of these episodes to really get the message
across! And
now is the perfect time to reinforce the unstable lesbian teen
stereotype since those pesky happy teen lesbians on Once
and Again are finally off the air and those lesbian teens
on Buffy are, well, not so "teen"
anymore.
Of
course, what else should we expect from
a David E. Kelley series, since he is the undisputed
King of the Special Lesbian Episode--from the
L.A. Law kiss in 1992, to the blacked-out teen kiss
on Picket Fences in 1993, to the Ally-Ling kiss on Ally
McBeal in 1999, to the thoughtful exploration of the
"dyke" slur in 2002's short-lived series Girls
Club, his series have single-handedly contributed more
to the national dialogue around lesbianism than just about anything
in Hollywood since Basic Instinct!
So
thanks, Boston Public, for introducing such a one-sided,
negative stereotype on your series, and for not caving into those
silly demands for a balanced approach. Suicidal lesbian teens
everywhere are grateful.
Update:
the series tried to redeem itself with a February 25th episode
in which a gay boy is beaten and the Vice Principal subsequently
forms a gay-straight alliance. Although the overall message is
gay-positive, once again the story revolved around a gay male
teenager, with only a cursory, two-second inclusion of a lesbian
teen in the support group. Memo to the Boston Public
writers: gay male teens are not stand-ins for lesbian teens.
