Archive

“Skins” boss Bryan Elsley talks Tea, Tony and Naomily

A year ago, when the fourth series of UK Skins was coming to an end, series co-creator Bryan Elsley wrote a scene that would endear him to his lesbian viewers forever – or at least until he made the trip across the Atlantic to roll out an American version of his show.

Naomi and Emily are one of the most beloved lesbian couples of all-time, and Elsley gave us all a happy ending when he wrote Naomi’s series-ending speech in which she confessed that she’d loved Emily from first moment she saw her. Elsley’s reign atop the Honorary Lesbian throne didn’t last, though; when he unleashed Tea Marvelli on US Skins last month, he found himself in hot water. Halfway through the show’s first season, the self-proclaimed lesbian character is having feelings for – and sex with – a guy.

Skins is always in tune with the buzz, and when he found out about his lesbian fanbase’s growing rage, Elsley agreed to chat with me about Tea. Of course, I also managed to sneak in some questions about Naomily and that mythical Skins movie.

AfterEllen.com: I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but a lot of lesbians are not happy with you.

Bryan Elsley: I always seem to do this, Heather. I don’t know why. I just really believe that characters in television dramas should do things they’re not supposed to do, rather than what they are supposed to do. Because people doing things they are supposed to do is quite a bit boring. But that always causes a conflict when there is a view about how people are supposed to behave, or a view of how people do behave, things like that. Storytelling and drama just get in a crash at that point. I’ve been thinking about this, and wondering why I didn’t think about it more. But I probably would have done the same thing, I think.

AE: Did you have ever have this kind of response about a character in UK Skins? I can’t think of any, but I wasn’t actively involved in the conversation during the first generation.

BE: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I was talking to people about this in the office today. I think it’s a cultural difference between the US and the UK. No one in the UK would care less about this. It wouldn’t matter in the UK. Which, again, is maybe a lack of cultural awareness on my part, possibly. I am becoming aware that people in America are more concerned about these kind of issues than perhaps they are in the UK. And I don’t characterize that as being good or bad. I’m just saying it’s something I possibly overlooked.

AE: Can you talk a little bit about your process for developing Tea? I know you talked to young lesbian women as she began to take shape.

BE: Like lots of the characters in Skins, Tea is based on a person in my life, someone I have known for a little while. She has given me an insight into some of her experiences. And there’s a very direct correlation between her and Tea. And, of course, Tea was developed in the teen group, both here and in the UK. Especially here, this is a story that I am told often, about a certain degree of flexibility in young people’s sex lives.

I do regret that maybe I didn’t hear as many stories as I could have. I don’t enjoy giving offense to anyone, especially when you’re talking about a minority group, like the gay community, that has had to fight for equality. When I was younger, gay people had to fight to be heard. I don’t enjoy offending that sensibility. I am respectful of it. I’ve had a lot of gay friends who have had to struggle to be taken seriously.

AE: It’s not always the case, but often times women who view themselves as sexually fluid label themselves as bisexual. Do you look back and wonder if maybe you should have given Tea that label instead of lesbian?

BE: Tea definitely identifies as a lesbian. In fact, it is really interesting to me that so many of the young people I spoke to definitively characterized themselves as lesbians and they report that for various reasons they’ve all had sexual relationships with men. I think that possibly what happens, with both men and women, is that there is a process so many people go through whereby there sexuality is in question, often into adulthood. Often times in adulthood, people get more entrenched in their position.

AE: I wrote about that a little yesterday. I wondered if possibly some adult lesbians, who are secure in their sexuality and have settled on a label, might be projecting that secure sense of self onto Tea. But I heard back from a lot of our readers who said, “No. I am a teenager and I am a lesbian and I would never consider having a sexual relationship with a guy.” Tea doesn’t resonate with them.

BE: I completely understand. I’m sure plenty of teenage lesbians would never proceed in this fashion. But I would like to add that I urge people to watch the whole story, because it twists and turns. Tea does characterize herself as a lesbian. And I’d like to point out that these two sexual experiences she’s had with Tony have been deeply unpleasant. They have not worked for her in any way. And they have only caused her trouble. In Tea’s relationship with Tony, I am characterizing someone who is behaving badly, not well. Her motives are complicated.

AE: My sense with Tea, and I hope I’m right, is that she lives in an insular high school world. She knows she is attracted to women. She identifies as a lesbian. But like she said in her episode, she doesn’t feel like there are any girls in her world who match up to her. Tony challenges her because his arrogance appeals to her, and it confuses her because she’s never met anyone who shares her confidence.

BE: Yes, that’s it exactly. It’s about how someone could confuse an intellectual connection with someone, or a spiritual connection with someone, or even a dislike of someone for sexual attraction. That’s what’s being portrayed here. She keeps saying, “I feel something for him” without ever defining what that is. And I don’t want to give the story away, but she’s making a mistake. She’s mistaking the vibe she feels for him as sexual attraction.

I have a personal belief in this, and Skins does in some way reflect my personal belief. My belief is that, in matters of sex, as long as what you engage in is not illegal or abusive, no one should have an opinion about it. It’s something I believe rather profoundly. This story, in so many ways, is about how Tea finds her feet, and how Tea remembers who she is. I feel that the story lands in the correct way.

AE: Correct in the sense that it echos the stories young lesbians shared with you?

BE: Right. No one I’ve spoken to, in all the years I’ve been writing, even when I was writing Naomily – I’ve never met a lesbian who said, “You know, I’ve never, ever considered sleeping with a man. I’ve never slept with a man. I’d never consider doing that.” If we think back on our own teenage sexual experiences, so many of them are confusing and wholly unsatisfying.

Probably at the heart of the Tea controversy is my belief as a writer that you should never allow characters to act in a codified way. Or in a correct way. You shouldn’t adhere to black and white social or political ideas. In a way, that sort of makes me naughty.

AE: Yes, but in another way, it really worked well for you in the Naomily storyline. If you had applied rigid social constructs to their characters, it would have never been as resonant or as satisfying. One of the things people always appreciated about Naomi and Emily is that they are lesbian characters who weren’t subjected to a lesbian storyline. Ironically, that’s what makes Tea so difficult.

BE: Yes. And, of course, the Naomily story took on its own life, and I wasn’t the only person who wrote it. But really, that story was a massive function of Lily [Loveless] and Kat [Prescott]. The people who contributed most to that story were Lily and Kat, rather than the writers, in my view anyway. There was such an incredible chemistry between those two, and the writers just fed off it.

AE: One objection I’ve heard a lot is that you’re exploring sexual fluidity with Tea, but you didn’t do it with Maxxie, whom Tea is based on.

BE: I never rehearsed sexual fluidity with Maxxie in series one of UK Skins, and the reason for that, honestly, is that I didn’t think of it. Young Maxxie was barely in the first series. If I’m completely honest, I invented a gay character and did nothing with him for an entire season. And even Mitch will tell you that he felt a little bit bored. As to the accusation that I didn’t allow for Maxxie, that is true.

AE: But you explored it with Tony.

BE: Yes, Tony did have a little sexual fluidity.

There are lots of areas I want to improve, and the main one is that I want my gay characters to be written by young, gay people. Not by me. That, to me, is a big aspiration for me. I would love for Tea’s story to be written by a young gay woman next season. On the UK show there’s no writer over the age of 25 for the sixth season of UK Skins.

AE: When you were writing Tea were you aware of this really horrible pattern on American TV where teenage characters go through a “lesbian-phase” and always end up with men? It’s probably the most rage-inducing trope in the book for lesbian viewers because it perpetuates the long-held stereotype that lesbians just haven’t found the right man yet.

BE: Was I aware of that strong tendency on American television? No, not really. Am I aware of that as a strand of storytelling and an easy way to deal with lesbians? Yes. Do I think my story falls into that stereotype? No, I don’t. But I can’t tell people how to respond to my story. I do understand that some people feel I have adhered to that stereotype, but I don’t think I have. But I also understand that when people feel something, they feel it. I do understand, but I don’t think the story is traveling along that path.

AE: Is Betty coming back?

BE: You know, I never introduce a character into the show unless I mean to make them play. She’s there for a reason.

AE: That’s good because a person could argue that Tea’s female love interest is a peripheral character you can just drop in and out at your leisure, but her male love interest – if I can call Tony that – is integral to the cast.

BE: Well, of course I would completely assert my right to drop any character at any time I like.

AE: Of course. [Laughing] If I know anything about Skins writers it’s that you guys can kill anyone you want!

BE: [Laughing] Yes. But as for Betty, she and Tea are both very important to me, and I think they’ll both be important to future writers.

AE: That brings up an interesting point then. On the press screener I got for Stanley’s episode, Tea blows off Tony by telling Betty not to leave. (Betty: “I can go; this sun’s serious.” Tea: “No! It’s not serious. [Turns to Tony] It never was serious. Right, Tony?”) But in the episode that aired on MTV, Tea just says, “I’m kind of busy here, Tone.” How come?

BE: The reason that didn’t make the cut was that I felt like it couldn’t be more clear in that scene what Tea was saying to Tony. Which was, you know, she was not interested in speaking with him at that moment. She was with someone and to stop following her around.

One thing I will say is that I haven’t come under any pressure from MTV to remove any lesbian or gay content. MTV has communicated to me in numerous occasions that they have a good relationship with the gay community. It’s a relationship they cherish. It’s one they believe in. I haven’t done any of this on anyone else’s instruction; I’ve only done it on my own stupidity.

AE: [Laughing] Oh, man. OK, well, I have to ask you this next thing. You knew you had a strong lesbian fanbase after Naomily, and there are a lot of people who think you decided to cash in on that by hooking them with the promise of a lesbian character and then – surprise! – she fell for a man.

BE: Well, I think the best way to say it is that there’s nothing special about a gay character, in the sense that “gay” isn’t the first thing I think of when I think of Tea. That’s not the most important or most interesting thing about her.

AE: Like it wasn’t the most important or most interesting thing about Noami and Emily.

BE: Right. What’s important about Tea is that she’s gotten herself into a situation that she shouldn’t. The back half of the series is about the consequences of that, and for a show that’s not supposed to have any consequences, it’s bucking a trend, I’d say.

AE: Fan criticism aside, do you think you accomplished what you set out to accomplish when you started writing Tea?

BE: Yes, I do. I mean, the creation of Tea came out of my friendship with a lesbian who I like and respect and think is an interesting person, and my feeling about Sofia Black-D’elia, who I met and think is a tremendous actress. And, of course, from my teen group and writers room.

AE: I have a suggestion for you, a way to turn around all this anger in an instant: You could just whip out that Skins movie.

BE: Oh, I’d love to be able to tell you about the movie, Heather. Movies are so complicated and difficult. They tend to just get postponed and postponed and postponed and then somehow you’re making it. It’s impossible at this point to say when that movie will get made.

AE: But do you feel confident that the movie will get made?

BE: I’d say the prospect is 50-50. But if we were set to start filming on Monday, I’d still feel 50-50 because that’s the movie industry. But I certainly wouldn’t want to write the movie to defend myself. But I do love Lily and Kat. I love writing for them. I think they’re amazing, and I would love to do the movie.

AE: How are you going to follow up that series four ending? It’s legendary, you know. Skins fandom calls it the True Love speech. Where’d that come from, anyway? Naomi’s acknowledgment that she’d been in love with Emily for practically her whole life?

BE: It took two years for that line to roll out. The ending I wrote for Naomily is the first thing I thought of two years before. Where I finished is where I started with the whole relationship. And Lily did do it well, didn’t she?

AE: Did she ever. Does Naomily hold a special place in your heart?

BE: Yes, it absolutely does. It’s also surreal because, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how I started writing about that. Where it comes from, I think, is that I have a deep feeling for the experience of teenagers. And I think that gay teenagers do have some of the most intense experiences. I do believe, in that way, that they are special. They have a unique mountain to climb. I am drawn to the stories of young gay teenagers in some ways because I have an admiration for their strength.

AE: Would you like to say anything else to AfterEllen.com readers?

BE: I think I’d just like to urge them to watch the whole story. If it’s not quite right, I’ll own it. But I would encourage them to watch the whole thing. Skins is not about one episode; it’s about 10.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button