Archive

Spanish TV Embraces Lesbian Relationships

A lesbian police officer and her forensics expert girlfriend sneaking a quickie at work. A lesbian doctor and a female nurse house-hunting together after finally reuniting. A young woman trying to figure out how to tell her boyfriend of eight years that she’s fallen in love with a woman.

No, this isn’t the lineup of an American gay TV channel – this is what you’ll see on some of the most popular national primetime series in Spain.

While the American primetime television landscape is virtually barren when it comes to lesbian and bisexual visibility – with very few lesbian/bi characters on broadcast TV, and only slightly more on cable or premium channels – lesbian/bi characters are flourishing on mainstream Spanish TV shows.

Spanish TV wasn’t always this inclusive. Only 10 years ago, LGBT characters were primarily limited to smaller shows on regional channels, with a few exceptions such as the lesbian couple on one of the country’s most popular sitcoms, Aquí No Hay Quien Viva (No One Lives Here), from 2003 to 2006.

But as social awareness and acceptance of same-sex marriage rights has grown in Spain, so has the number of Spanish TV shows that include LGBT characters. National channels like Antena 3, Telecino, and Cuatro, and popular regional channels like TV3, now regularly include lesbian and bisexual characters and relationships in their TV shows.

The legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain in 2005, and the subsequent lesbian wedding storyline on Telecinco’s medical drama Hospital Central later that year, are considered a turning point in the visibility of lesbian and bisexual women on Spanish television.

Lesbian pediatrician Maca Fernández Wilson (Patricia Vico) joined the medical drama in the eighth season, and developed a friendship with the chief nurse, Esther García (Fátima Baeza). The friendship soon led to romance, culminating in their engagement at the end of the ninth season.

When Hospital Central finally aired the couple’s wedding in 2005, it created a flurry of coverage by the Spanish media, because it was the first same-sex wedding on Spanish television. It even made international headlines, and became the first Spanish television show we wrote about on AfterEllen.com.

There were some complaints prior to the episode airing, but the producers of the series dealt with them by saying they would take appropriate action if any dire consequences resulted.

But not only were there no negative consequences, the wedding episode made the show even more popular – it was the most-watched episode of the series at the time – and the couple remains one of the more popular ones on the show several seasons later, with fan sites such as maca-esther.mforos.com and Patricia-Vico.com devoted to the characters and the actresses.

“The scriptwriters succeeded in writing a very nice, authentic love story between two women,” explains Sandra Showtime, editor in Chief of EurOut.org, a website devoted to European lesbian entertainment and political news. “People got hooked on this story. Maca and Esther became two of the leading characters in the series, and the number of viewers skyrocketed.”

Rogue, the editor of Spanish-language blog Lesbicanarias.es, which features news and recaps of lesbian and bisexual women in the media, agrees.

“I really think the [Hospital Central] producers were just trying to find something new to attract attention when they decided to create a lesbian storyline,” says Rogue, “but they developed it really well – at least in the beginning of the relationship – and they discovered that not only could they get a lot of attention from LGBT viewers, but that heterosexual viewers were really enjoying the opportunity to follow the story of this couple, too.”

Now in its 17th season, Maca and Esther have weathered their share of drama, including problems with extended family, Esther’s one-night stand with a man that resulted in an unexpected pregnancy, and Maca’s infidelity with psychiatrist Veronica ‘Vero’ Sole (Carolina Cerezuela), which turned into a full-blown relationship after Maca and Esther broke up.

The Maca-Vero pairing even developed its own fan following, until Vero finally took a job at another hospital because she believed Maca would never completely get over Esther.

But all of this has made Hospital Central viewers even more emotionally invested in Maca and Esther’s inevitable reunion, which has been slowly unfolding this season, with the two recently deciding to live together again.

The popularity of the lesbian characters and storyline on Hospital Central paved the way for other series to follow suit. “Other channels thought that having a lesbian storyline could help increase their audience share,” contends Showtime.

The increase in lesbian/bi characters on TV in the last few years is due to the writers “discovering they can tell a story about love between two woman that appeals not only to lesbian/bi viewers, but to their core audience, too,” says Rogue.

These TV shows haven’t just become popular with Spanish viewers. Thanks to the internet, they’ve gained a worldwide following – articles and recaps of Spanish television shows are among EurOut’s most-read content on their site, and Spanish TV shows are popular topics in the AfterEllen.com forum.

One couple with a large international following is “Pepsi,” made up of lesbian police officer Pepa (Laura Sanchez) and forensics expert Silvia (Marián Aguilera) on Los Hombres de Paco (Paco’s Men), a primetime comedic police drama which debuted on Antena 3 in 2005.

The couple has been embraced by straight and queer fans of the show alike, and in press coverage and promotional materials, they are featured just like any other couple on the series.

The show’s lesbian storyline began when Pepa joined the show early in the fifth season, and rekindled her romantic interest in her sister-in-law Silvia (one of the original cast members), with whom she had shared a kiss years ago.

The two pair have now become one of the most popular couples on the series, fueling the creation of popular Spanish-language fan sites like pepaysilvia.mforos.com, and English language ones like The International Pepa and Silvia Community.

Sites like Lesbicanarias, EurOut, and and Random Flores recap the shows in Spanish and English, and the international popularity of this storyline led to Sanchez – who is a well-known model in addition to being an actress – being voted No. 54 on our Hot 100 this year. The series also won our 2008 Visibility Award for Best International Scripted Series with Lesbian/Bi Characters.

Pepa and Silvia reunited this season after a break-up, but they are keeping their reconciliation a secret from co-workers, which has led to sexy – and humorous – scenes such as this one, in which they are interrupted in the parking lot at work by a police officer who thinks Pepa is in love with him (English subtitles are thanks to PepsiEnglish):

You definitely won’t see that on primetime broadcast American TV anytime soon!

The new series Infidels on TV3 in Catalonia (a region in Spain with 7 million residents) also includes a prominent lesbian relationship. The series revolves around five friends who are all unfaithful in some way (to their partners, or themselves). One of them is Arlet (Aina Clotet), who is living unhappily with her boyfriend of eight years when she falls for swim instructor Dani (Dolo Beltran).

After avoiding the issue for awhile, they finally admit their attraction to each other and begin a romantic relationship.

Now that she’s falling in love with Dani, Arlet is faced with telling her boyfriend that her feelings for him have changed.

Although Infidels is a regional show (and in the Catalan language), it’s a fairly popular show there and watched by people of all ages on TV and online.

There are several other Spanish series currently airing or between seasons that have lesbian/bisexual subplots and characters.

The first season of Pelotas (Balls), which just finished airing on TVE 1, included a bisexual woman named Nieves (Celia Freijeiro), who breaks off her relationship with her boyfriend when he can’t accept that she previously dated a woman, and wants to stay friends with her.

Teenager Alma (Sandra Blázque) on Antena 3’s high school drama Física o Química (Physics or Chemistry) appears to be bisexual, although this is still being explored.

Cuatro’s mystery series Hay Alguien Ahí? (Is Anybody Out There?), about an average family threatened by unknown forces, currently includes a storyline in which teen Amanda (Esmeralda Moya) is seduced by her friend’s mother, Nieves (Barbara de Lema). The age difference and Nieves’s behavior has sinister undertones, but it fits within the overall tone of the show. (Watch a clip in Spanish here.)

Another Cuatro drama, Cuestión de Sexo (Question of Sex), about a family that includes 18-year-old Sofía (Ana Fernández), introduced a romantic relationship between Sofia and her friend Daniela (Paula Cancio) when the show returned for its third season earlier this year.

Unfortunately, the series was canceled a few weeks ago due to low ratings – but another LGBT-inclusive series is bound to come along any day now.

It’s not just the quantity of lesbian/bi storylines on Spanish TV that’s impressive, it’s the quality.

Although these lesbian storylines and relationships are subject to the same bouts of bad writing and plot holes that occasionally afflict all storylines on TV (Hospital Central in particular has suffered from this in the last few seasons), and the writers always seem to find a way to have both bisexual and lesbian characters end up sleeping with men at some point, the lesbian couples are usually shown with equal (or almost equal) sensitivity and passion to the other storylines on the series.

Although there are still Spaniards who don’t approve of showing lesbian relationships on TV, in general, Spanish audiences have grown so accustomed to LGBT characters that they aren’t really greeted with complaints or fanfare by the media or viewers anymore.

“The majority of people today don’t see a ‘lesbian couple,’ only a couple,” says Rogue.

The Spanish actresses playing lesbian/bi roles are regularly featured in and interviewed by mainstream Spanish publications about their characters and the future of their relationships, with minimal “what’s it like to kiss a girl?” types of questions.

And not only is it not seen as a bad career move for actresses to play gay on Spanish TV, it can be a good one, as Marián Aguilera noted in a recent interview when she said, “Before, my character was featured very little … now Silvia is getting more of a leading role because of her relationship with Pepa.”

There’s an added benefit for queer viewers to the proliferation of lesbian couples on national Spanish TV shows, says Rogue: “the ability to talk with your straight friends not only about ‘their’ favorite couples but ‘yours’ too, because now it’s ‘their’ couple, too.”

Special thanks to Sandra Showtime at EurOut.org, Rogue at Lesbicanarias.es, and AfterEllen.com reader Joana for the research help!

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

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button