In
1993, Meredith Baxter received
an Emmy nomination for her role in the CBS afterschool special
Other Mothers, a controversial episode about
a teenage boy with lesbian parents. At the time, it was a unique
and bold initiative, as it was extremely rare to see lesbians
on television, let alone lesbian parents; most people thought
"lesbian" and "mother" were incompatible.
In
the ten years since then, the number of lesbian characters on
TV whose storylines revolve around their role as a mother (or
desire to be a mother) has grown to such epidemic proportions,
it now appears that all lesbians do is have and raise
children--when they're not losing custody of them and fighting
to get them back.
Some
TV series lesbian characters are clearly positioned
as mothers from the beginning, such as Carol and Susan on Friends
(1994), Laurie Manning on Ellen (1997), and Melanie and
Lindsay on Queer as Folk (1999).
Motherhood
is introduced early on as one of the defining characteristics
of these characters, and most of their storylines revolve around
parenting in some way.
A
more recent trend in ensemble series is the lesbian-insemination
storyline. While it was unique when Norma Lear
on Sisters first did it in 1993, it's
now such an oft-used plot device as to be almost boring. From
Det. Abby Sullivan and her partner on NYPD Blue in 1996
to Dr. Kerry Weaver's decision to have
a child with her girlfriend on ER
to Sharon Stone and Ellen Degeneres' wacky insemination antics
in the 2000 Showtime movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, it's
a trend that will not die.
Even
Showtime's new lesbian series The
L Word, premiering next summer, includes a couple trying
to get pregnant.
Another
popular plot device in recent years is to make the mother of a
main character gay, such as Roseanne's mother on Roseanne
(1996), Steve's mother on Beverly Hills 90210 (1999),
Harrison's mother on Popular
(1999) or Raina's mothers (played by Sally Struthers and Debbie
Allen) on The Division.
There
have also been numerous television movies about
revolve around lesbian parents. Some focus on lesbian parents
fighting for custody of their children, beginning with 1978's
A Question of Love, then Two Mothers for Zachary
(1996) and What Makes a Family (2001), or coping with
unexpected parenthood, as in Bobbie's Girl (2002), or
dealing with the implications on your children of coming out,
as in Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammerymeyer Story
(1994) and the upcoming movie An
Unexpected Love (2003), which Lifetime describes
as a movie about "a mother dealing with divorce and her sexuality."
In
fact, the only broadcast or cable television movie about a lesbian
who wasn't a mother was The
Truth About Jane (2000), and that was only because the
character was a teenager. In fact, teenage lesbians are about
the only other kind of lesbian character you will find on television
besides the Lesbian Mother.
Let
me be clear: there's nothing wrong with storylines about
lesbian mothers. In fact, they would be welcome if they were well
written (which they usually aren't), and if they were included
among a variety of different storylines about lesbians. But trying
to conceive, adopt, get custody, or otherwise deal with children
are the only stories adult lesbians get on TV anymore
(besides coming out), and the reason TV writers fall back on this
storyline is less about exploring the joys of motherhood than
it is about desexualizing lesbians and making them more palatable
for straight viewers.
Although
television has always been about finding a good
idea and beating it to death, the lesbian-as-mother trend has
lasted longer than most because it is rooted in deep-seated stereotypes
about women and lesbians.
The
first is the notion that "woman" is synonymous with
"mother." The endurance of this stereotype has resulted
in a persistent double-standard in television
roles for men and women--male roles only sometimes revolve around
parenting issues, while roles for women overwhelmingly do
This
is slowly changing with the popularity of shows like Everwood
and 8 Rules for Dating My Daughter, which revolve heavily
around fatherhood, and the proliferation of shows like Law
and Order, Alias, and ER, which feature women in
roles that focus primarily on their professional life. But it's
still hardly a level playing field.
It
isn't even that so many of the lesbian characters are
mothers that is the problem--it's that their storylines so frequently
revolve around their role as a mother, as if this defined them
exclusively.
There
are some exceptions, such as Dr. Weaver's role of as physician
on ER and, occasionally, Melanie's role as a lawyer on
Queer as Folk, but for the most part, the storylines
for lesbian characters who are mothers overwhelmingly focus on
issues related to motherhood.
