In
short, think the Ross-Rachel-Joey triangle times six, with almost
all of the conversation revolving around sex and relationships.
Lindsay
Price, who plays Jane, is perhaps best known for her
role as Janet as Steve's girlfriend/wife Janet on Beverly
Hills 90210, and for her roles on the daytime dramas Days
of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful.
What
NBC doesn't mention in their official description of Coupling,
however, is that Price's character Jane is bisexual--actually,
"psychotic, self-absorbed" and bisexual, according to
Price's description of her character in a recent issue of Soap
Opera Digest. "There are the boys over here and [Jane] loves
all of them," Price diagramed to Access Hollywood in May,
"and these are the girls over here and she wants them too."
Bisexual
women on television are a rarity; in fact, there have
only ever been two regular bisexual characters on primetime television--C.J.
Lamb on L.A. Law and Sophie on the short-lived sitcom
That 80's Show--so if the show is successful and lasts
more than two seasons, Price's character easily has the potential
to become on of the longest-running bisexual characters on television.
But
more importantly, Jane will be the first Asian-American lesbian
OR bisexual character on network television (Sonja Sohn who plays
Det. Greggs on The Wire is
half-Korean, but that show is on Showtime and thus not widely
accessible to the public). There are almost no regular Asian-American
characters on television of any sexual orientation, actually,
so Price's addition to the cast would be noteworthy even if she
weren't playing a bisexual character.
If
the American version of Coupling is faithful
to the British version, however, Jane's bisexuality will
primarily serve as fodder for jokes and a platform for sexually-charged
conversations that let the sitcom show how "edgy" it
is. We won't actually see Jane date women, just talk about it
a lot, especially when she's trying to seduce a man. She'll make
the occasional comical, half-hearted come-ons to Susan or Sally,
there will be the occasional humorous episodes when Jane's therapist
or other female friend is mistaken for her lover, and we'll get
to laugh at Steve, Jeff and Patrick's attempts to understand bisexuality
and explain why they're so attracted to the idea of two women
together.
But
there's no danger of Jane actually dating a woman, not
the way she regularly dates men.
Partly
this is a reflection of the limitations of the show,
which focuses on the relationships between the six friends--in
order for Jane to actually have a relationship with a woman and
stay within the show's parameters, it would have to be with Susan
or Sally, both of whom are straight.
But
it is also consistent with the overall portrayal of bisexual women
in Western Culture, who are really Bisexual Straight Women
instead--while they may be attracted
to women and occasionally have sex with them, they almost never
have serious relationships with women, since ultimately what they
really need/want is a man. Both Sophie on That 80's Show
and Karen Walker on Will and
Grace are examples of this: although they both talk about
being attracted to women a lot and occasionally hit on them, they
never really do anything about it. C.J. on L.A. Law had
been in serious relationships with women in the past, but she
wasn't allowed to actually have a relationship with a woman on
the series.
The
only exception to this so far on U.S. Television is Lena on the
daytime drama All My Children,
a woman who formerly had relationships only with men and is now
in love with Bianca (although their relationship has fallen victim
to other kinds of stereotypes, namely an overly-chaste portrayal).
"Self-absorbed"
and "psychotic" are also words that could be used to
described Sophie, Karen, and most bisexual
women in film, making Jane just one more in a long line of
obsessive, unbalanced bisexual characters in American entertainment.
So
while Jane will be a ground-breaking character simply
because she is Asian-American and one of the few bisexual characters
on American television, she is also likely to embody the same
stereotypes that have characterized so many bisexual characters
before her. Lesbian and bisexual Asian-American viewers will probably
be willing to overlook this, and understandably so, since they
have had no representation on network television until
now.
But
if NBC truly wants to describe Couplings as "provocative,"
they'll need to do better than just using Jane's bisexuality
as a turn-on for men. If the confines of the show make that impossible,
then at least let's call her what she is: not bisexual, just another
Bisexual Straight Woman.
November
2003 Update: Coupling was canceled by NBC after
only 5 episodes, due to dismal ratings; Jane's bisexuality on
those few shows that aired was depicted exactly as expected -
as a tool to manipulate straight men.
