News Flash: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles are not gay. They’re outstanding heterosexuals who just happen to flirt, sleep in the same bed, touch each other gratuitously, look deeply into each other’s eyes and have crazy, crazy chemistry while not maintaining any long-standing or significant romances with members of the opposite sex. They’re straight, OK? Straight.
But, hey, it never hurts to double check. TV’s gayest non-gay couple (which we called from the start, ahem), is raising eyebrows outside of just us fangirls as even the mainstream press has started to ask: Are Rizzoli and Isles gay? In interviews with the Los Angeles Times and TV Guide, Rizzoli & Isles series stars Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander and series creator Janet Tamaro have reasserted the character’s straight status. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Tamaro told the Los Angeles Times, the questions are understandable because the show features “two gorgeous actresses together who have great, natural chemistry” and says Harmon’s Rizzoli and Alexander’s Isles “are straight women who don’t fear the interest in or the speculation about their relationship.”
She followed up by telling TV Guide:
The lesbian theory endlessly amuses me, and it amuses the cast. Rizzoli and Isles have been heterosexual from the first episode, though there is no way I would want to interfere with my viewers’ fantasy lives.
Or as Harmon put it more succinctly to the LAT, “I hate to disappoint, but these characters are straight. If we lose viewers because of it – sorry!”
They may be straight, darling, but they’re definitely not narrow in their flirty behavior. And Alexander told TV Guide all the attention is actually rather flattering:
It’s a great compliment. Angie is a beautiful woman, and I can’t say we don’t make a hot pair.
Well, that’s the understatement of the century. Harmon and Alexander also posed for a photoshoot for TV Guide where they talked about their friendship and touched each other a lot. This isn’t helping those rumors, ladies — just saying.
Of course, the thing about all of our so-called speculation about Rizzoli & Isles is that most of us know they’re not gay and are probably never going to be gay. For me, at least, it’s never been about the actual possibility of them hooking up on screen, but instead just enjoying the fun subtext that comes from their undeniable chemistry. Some TV characters are straight, we know. But we sure can dream.
It also hasn’t hurt that the series producers seems to be OK with, if not outright playing up, the sexual chemistry between its two stars. How else can you explain the super gay gag reel or the speed dating promo for the show? And from the sounds of the interviews, they won’t be shying away from the subtext anytime soon.
So the cast and creator reasserting their straight status doesn’t both me one bit. And it certainly won’t stop me from writing those Rizzoli & Isles subtext recaps. But how about you? Are you still gay for Jane and Maura even if they aren’t actually gay for each other?
