Remember the good old days of after-school specials, when the teenage gay boys were the moody loners and the teenage lesbian girls were…hey, where were they?
Times have changed, and television has the young lesbians to prove it. Shows like The O.C., Degrassi, and South of Nowhere not only depict lesbian and bisexual teenagers, but they depict them as the edgy, cool, and even-gasp–popular.This trend extends to programs that feature the occasional guest lesbian, as in last night’s episode (“Versatile Toppings”) of Veronica Mars–the UPN series now in its second season that is part teen drama, part murder mystery, and part rumination on race, class, and the screwed-up lifestyles of the rich and famous.
While investigating a string of pizza delivery guy muggings, teen sleuth Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) discovers that the gay students at Neptune High are being blackmailed. The problem becomes obvious on what appears to be Gay Bash Day at Neptune High School, as Veronica witnesses several students getting harassed for being gay.
Particularly nasty is one girl’s gleeful recitation of a love poem allegedly written about her by a fellow member of the Pep Squad named Marlena (Miriam Korn), who is now derisively referred to as “Pep Squad Lez”. Marlena dodges the taunts and Indigo Girls jokes, and weakly protests to her pep squad teammate, “I didn’t write that!” while Veronica looks on in indignant liberal horror.
Before she can step in, classmate Ryan pulls Veronica aside and explains that Marlena has been outed because she wouldn’t pay the $5,000 demanded by a mystery blackmailer.
Ryan tells Veronica that he created a secret website, The Pirate Ship (resist urge to make bad gay joke), for the gay students at their school. Ryan lost the list containing their names and passwords and now the person who found it is cashing in on their closets. Veronica promises that she will discreetly track down the blackmailer, and Ryan tells her that one of the students being blackmailed may come to her with more details.
Soon enough, the closeted student does indeed find Veronica, in the girls bathroom, and she turns out to be a Gwen Stefani look-alike cheerleader named Kylie (played by Laguna Beach starlet Kristin Cavallari).
When Kylie tells Veronica that she’s being blackmailed, the normally astute Ms. Mars responds with silence and a “does not compute” face. Kylie says (with a hair flip), “Sorry to blow your mind, Veronica, but I’m a lesbian.” When Veronica recovers from her shock and comments “that’s cool”, Kylie retorts, “In college maybe–not in high school!”
The show’s producers cue up some soft core porn music (no, I’m not kidding) and Veronica tells Kylie to stall the blackmailer while she investigates.
But before Veronica can nab the suspect, Kylie uses her job as a reporter on the Neptune High TV news broadcast to out herself-and Marlena-to the entire school, by confidently signing off her newscast with, “Oh yeah, I’m gay, and Marlena is my girlfriend”, as the students watching the broadcast all gasp.
Take that, blackmailer!
Soon after, we see an emboldened Kylie sashaying through the halls hand in hand with Marlena. Never mind the fact that poor Marlena looks a bit shell-shocked, Kylie has brought some lesbian pride to Neptune High!
While Veronica is pleased to see some gay pride on display, her male classmates are simply titillated. When Kylie reacts to their catcalls with disdain, one of the guys loudly exclaims, “Why are lesbians so angry?”Later, hilarity ensues when Veronica enlists the help of computer whiz Mac to hack into the Pirate Ship in order to further her investigation. Mac is surprised and asks, “Veronica, you’re not…” Veronica quickly assures her, “No, I’m just curious–I mean…”
After reading through the chat session records, Veronica suspects that the blackmailer may be one of the gay students. This new twist leads her to spoiled athletic rich boy, Kelly (Lucas Grabeel), who previously claimed to have been robbed by the pizza delivery guy mugger.
But Kelly is gay, and he staged the robbery for the insurance money needed to pay off his blackmailer.
Veronica is shocked, because earlier in the episode, she watched as Kelly made gay jokes at another student’s expense. Kelly notes Veronica’s disapproval and explains that he made the jokes and committed insurance fraud “because I want to survive high school. If people here find out that I’m queer, then I’m dead.”
But the blackmailer (humorously called “Rick Santorum”, the name of the homophobic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania) makes the mistake of using a real mailing address for the payoff, and the trail leads Veronica back to sassy lesbian cheerleader Kylie, who easily confesses that she is indeed the blackmailer.
Why would Kylie blackmail a fellow gay student? She needed the money for college, and she had no problem extorting from “self-hating” spoiled little rich boy Kelly.
But why did the teen lesbian Robin Hood out her own girlfriend? “Because I’m a horrible, crazy bitch” Kylie says only half-jokingly, then elaborates, “I wanted to be out, but I wanted Marlena to be out with me. I wanted to be able to walk down the hall with her, like a real couple.”
While her materialistic and self-centered motives are more Act Out than Act Up, the character of Kylie represents a fascinating twist on what could have been a maudlin, “poor gays” storyline. At Neptune High, gay students are plentiful and allied with one another, their homophobic classmates are presented as immature and moronic, and, although her methods are questionable, Kylie challenges her girlfriend’s internalized homophobia rather than perpetuating it within herself.
In the end, the viewing audience is encouraged to see lesbian cheerleader Kylie as more of a diva than a delinquent. Smells like gay teen spirit to me.
For more on Veronica Mars, visit the official site
