Every
year during the major Sweeps periods--the weeks when
TV-rating services like Nielson survey
all local market broadcast media for the purpose of rating
the stations and their programming--we see a sudden flurry of
lesbian-related themes and characters on shows
that any other time of the year almost never touch the subject,
as television execs try to outdo one another in a bid to get the
highest ratings possible.
This
year's November Sweeps, which began in late October and ended
just after Thanksgiving, featured even more lesbian-themed episodes,
characters, or kisses on TV than usual.
First
was a kiss between two undercover FBI agents pretending to be
in a relationship on the cop drama The Handler (Oct 31),
followed by lesbian-themed episodes of Half
& Half, Girlfriends, and
The Parkers (Nov 3). Next, Karen Sisco featured
a lesbian detective who made a subtle pass at Karen (Nov 12),
and Kate Fox fixed up her first lesbian couple on the dating drama
Miss Match
(Nov 20). Less
Than Perfect's Thanksgiving episode featured Joanna Kerns
and Valerie Harper as lesbian moms (Nov 24), and finally, Girlfriends
had another lesbian-themed episode (Nov 24). During
this period, HBO also had lesbian/bisexual characters on its shows
K Street and Carnivale.
As
always, the quality of the portrayals of lesbianism in this Sweeps
period ranged from good (K Street, Half and Half) to
decent (Girlfriends, Miss Match, Carnivale), to downright
bad (Less Than Perfect and The Parkers).
The
prominence of the lesbian themes/characters within the episodes
varied widely, as well. Lesbianism was only a very minor subplot
on The Handler and Karen Sisco, for example,
but a major focus on Miss Match and Less Than Perfect.
Ever
since TV execs first figured out the formula that attractive
women + kissing = ratings, Sweeps weeks have featured some of
the most exploitive lesbian-themed episodes, like last February's
Boston Public
episode or the Ally-Ling kiss on Ally
McBeal in 1999.
But
the networks' relentless drive for ratings have also been responsible
for pushing television to make more progress
around lesbian visibility on TV--prior
to 2000, in fact, Sweeps weeks were often the only time
you'd see lesbian themes on television. Even today, when there
are more lesbian characters on TV than ever, Sweeps periods increase
lesbian visibility on TV exponentially.
While
it's tempting to be grateful that we're getting this increase in
representation during Sweeps, the Sweeps
period gives viewers a distorted impression of lesbian
visibility on TV. Single lesbian-themed episodes of varying quality
are not equivalent to ongoing representation with multi-faceted
lesbian characters the viewers come to care about.
But
this distinction appears lost on the media, for whom these episodes
provide even more ammunition to write endless articles touting the
prominence of gay visibility on TV and for some viewers to claim
that TV is overrun by gay characters.
Only
two out of the 674 leading or supporting actors on prime-time
broadcast sitcoms and dramas this season are lesbians--not even
a half a percent. When you throw in all nine of the gay male characters,
you only get to one-and-a-half percent. That means 98.5% of the
leading or supporting characters on TV are straight.
If
the facts are so obviously against this conclusion, however, what
is giving the media and the occasional disgruntled viewer this
impression? Certainly all the media coverage devoted to gay men
on TV, like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will
and Grace, is a major factor, but so is the temporary obsession
with lesbianism that occurs during Sweeps.
"Temporary"
is the key here: only a week after this November Sweeps
has ended, not one of the shows that ran a
lesbian-themed episode during that time is still featuring lesbian
characters or themes. Carnivale and
K Street are off the air (for the season and for good,
respectively), and none of the remaining shows include any lesbian
characters or content. Nor are they likely to do so again anytime
soon--at least, not until February Sweeps.
Meanwhile,
those shows on network TV that feature ongoing lesbian or bisexual
characters--ER and Two and a Half Men--continue
to only include the lesbian characters for a few minutes in each
episode, if at all. To say the lesbian visibility on those shows
is poor is like describing Carnivale as a show about a
traveling carnival: a gross understatement.
So
while on the one hand it's great that lesbians get some much-needed
visibility three times a year (even if it's of varying quality),
what we really need is better visibility the rest of the
year. Let's see if we can raise the percent of lesbian leading or
supporting characters on primetime broadcast TV to even one or two
percent, and really give the media something to write about.
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