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AfterEllen.com Down Under: A history of lesbian/bi visibility in Australia

Ruth Callander is a New Zealander living and writing in Melbourne. She hopes to cover stories from both sides of the ditch. Send her tips about the things you want to hear about at [email protected] or tweet her @RuthCallander.

Whenever I’ve been overseas and have told people that I live in Australia, it’s as if I’ve told them I come from Disneyland. “What are you even doing here?” ask the Brits, their little faces all aglow as they imagine a country where the sun shines every day and bronzed Australians nationwide have no bigger worries than whether to BBQ their breakfasts or just head straight on down to the beach without. “I love Osstralia!” exclaim the Americans, “Everyone is so friendly and laid back, and once you’ve wrestled your morning crocodile you get to cuddle koala bears all day long!” But most of all it’s the queers I meet, heaving sighs of heartfelt envy, because in Australia rainbows unfurl from the heavens in the shape of love hearts, and it’s Sydney Mardi Gras all year round.

This means that people who aren’t Australians are often taken by surprise when I tell them about how there’s still no marriage equality here, nor any form of federally recognised civil partnerships. That our rights as citizens are still a political hot potato, on both the left and the right, and that our gay teens are still bullied and at a higher risk of depression and suicide than our straight teens.

And yeah, we have a gigantically gay Mardi Gras – once a year in inner-city Sydney – but there are still great swathes of the country where even our right to exist is questioned. “I would walk to Bourke backward,” claimed the MP for Kennedy during a televised election debate last year, “if the poof population of Northern Queensland is any more than 0.001 percent.”

The thing about Australia is that it’s big – really big. Not like America is big, more like how Canada is big. There are stretches of road here so long and so remote that you have to pack your own petrol and enough water to feed fifty camels, just in case. But it’s not only its size that makes it feel like ten countries in one, it’s the incredible, stunning variety and extremes of the place.

I love my adopted home town of Melbourne, with its hidden laneway secrets and ridiculously “Stuff White People Like” suburbs of the inner north, yet as my girlfriend and I plan a holiday in the Northern Territory, I find myself gazing at pictures of rust-red deserts, lush wetlands, man-eating crocodiles and impossibly ancient Aboriginal rock paintings; to my eyes it looks like a whole other world. Most of all though, it’s the people who populate this big dusty continent who create the biggest contrasts. From the outback to the inner cities, from Arnhem Land to Hobart, and from Bob Katter to Bob Brown, Australia is the very definition of diverse.

All of which is a prelude to explaining why the television here astounds me so much. Turn on Neighbours or Home and Away and you’d think that the entire country was middle-class, suburban, heterosexual and above all white. So white in fact, that in 2008 Neighbour‘s executive producer Susan Bower tried to defend accusations of casting racism by describing the actors as being “…from diverse ethnic backgrounds including French, Italian, South African, Maltese, Danish, Portuguese and Swedish,” or in other words, various shades of white.

Despite being filmed and set in Melbourne, one of Australia’s most culturally diverse cities, Neighbours has had exactly two Asian characters in its entire 26 year run, while Home and Away (on our screens since 1987) has had one. Two of these actors were Australian born, and yet both were cast to play “foreign” characters, with one of the actors made to put on a fake Korean accent. Have I mentioned how there have never been any indigenous Australians on either of the shows, not even once? If you’re an indigenous viewer, what would this tell you about your place in Australia? You know, Pauline Hanson suddenly seems like less of an aberration when you consider the White Australia policy of our national soaps.

Now let’s talk about gay ladies. In August of 2004 – the same year I moved from New Zealand to Australia – the Howard government passed the Marriage Amendment Act (“Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others“) and were immediately rewarded by winning the federal election for the fourth consecutive term. However, it was in September that the real controversy of the year unfolded, when Neighbours aired Erinsborough’s very first lesbian kiss.

It was a serious blink-and-you’ll-miss-it peck on the lips between schoolgirls but the response was swift and aggressive. Talkback radio – that bastion of intelligent debate – went nuts, parents wrote angry letters and right-wing conservatives blamed the show for how the entire country would surely burn to the ground in the coming days. Bridget Neval the 19-year old actress playing the lesbian spoke out against the impact of the rampantly homophobic reaction, saying

… if you are a gay teenager already feeling insecure about how your sexuality will be accepted, that would be incredibly devastating.

Like all Kiwis my age, I’d grown up alongside New Zealand’s soap opera Shortland Street, meaning my own gay teen years happily included the chance to view passionate kissing between women on my TV screen, during weeknights at prime time, since 1994. The same soap showed cosily post-coital lesbians cuddling in bed together, engaging in relationships and having long, drawn-out, ridiculous story lines of their very own, right after the six o’clock news. So I got cocky in my patriotism: Australian television: so backward and embarrassing, am I right?

It pains me – as it does any New Zealander – to admit when Australia does something awesome, but the thing I’ve come to tell you is that I was wrong. As I discovered while researching for this article, the truth is that when Australia gets it right, it kicks some serious arse. Here are five reasons why:

1. World’s First Television Kiss Between Women

In 1974, a show called The Box arrived on Australian TV screens. Based around the story of a fictional television station and the lives of all who worked there, it also starred Judy Nunn or as you may know her, Ailsa, owner of Summer Bay’s diner and wife of Alf Stewart for two decades of Home & Away.

She looks a little different in this particular show, but whether that’s because she’s a few decades younger or more to do with her full frontal nudity or the happily meaningless sex her character’s just had with a very hirsute young man, I couldn’t tell you. The only thing I know for sure is that this is adamantly not Home and Away, ladies. In the final scene of the very first episode, she smiles flirtatiously at a young female starlet (who later in the show is revealed to be 15-years-old) and tells her she’s done a good job. As if in reward, she leans in and gives her a lingering kiss on the lips.

Guys, can I just ask you to take a minute? 1974! Dr. Rebecca Beirne of the University of Newcastle (author of Screening the Dykes of Oz: Lesbian Representation on Australian Television, 2009 ) tells me there may have been a film played on German television featuring a lesbian kiss around about the same time, but Australia was most certainly the first country in the world to screen a kiss between two women as part of a television series. And we’re talking first by a long shot; in comparison, the first kiss between women in the US screened in 1991, while in both the UK and New Zealand it was 1994. Australia, I would like to formally apologise for every time Tony Abbott‘s face has made me high pitched in sudden assertion that this nation is backward. It’s not backward. Sometimes it comes out way ahead.

2. Continued Early Representation

The representation of queer female sexuality in The Box wasn’t just a one-off event either. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, female gay and bisexual characters appeared and took starring roles in popular television series such as Number 96 (1972-1977) and Prisoner (1979-1986), although neither portrayal could exactly be described as positive. Prisoner being based in a women’s prison set the scene for a full range of queer and psychopathic female characters while Number 96 featured a lesbian witch who attempts to sacrifice her housemate for a Black Mass – but, really, who amongst us has not been there on occasion?

Prisoner however, as well as introducing an early television representation of a butch lesbian character in Franky Doyle, went on to inspire various international spin-offs over the years including one little British show a few years later, known as Bad Girls. Whilst the lesbians of Prisoner (Cell Block H in its American incarnation) may not have been quite so sympathetic to the viewers, we have Australian television ultimately to thank for Nikki and Helen. This fact on its own is almost enough to have me singing “Advance Australia Fair” around the house each morning.

3. Progressive Soap Operas and Daytime Television

Daytime television and soap operas are a traditionally conservative genre. The most famous Australian examples – Neighbours and Home and Away – have in themselves produced over the years enough, erm, interesting portrayals of same-sex female attraction that they warrant a whole other article (oh, I’m writing it, don’t worry), but Australia’s other soaps have had a surprising number of tales of lesbian love worth mentioning too.

Pacific Drive (1996-1997) which was a sort of Aussie Melrose Place, starred an out lesbian character Zoe Marshall, played by Libby Tanner (who later also shared a same-sex kiss on the drama series All Saints) along with a string of her female lovers. Daytime television’s Breakers (1998-1999) also rates a mention for its portrayal of the relationship (containing a higher lesbian-processing to actual relationship ratio than I’ve seen on any other show, in the history of the world, ever), between characters Lucy and Kelly.

Later came Out of the Blue (2008), a soap frequently described as being “kind of like Neighbours, but for grown-ups,” and featured a ridiculously adorable relationship (and a wedding) between the rather beautiful characters Peta (Daisy Betts) and Poppy (Katherine Hicks).

4. Portrayal of Sexual Fluidity

Australian TV has also provided various story lines that show an understanding that human sexuality is not always black and white and neatly catalogued. Melbourne based drama The Secret Life of Us (2001—2005) is a good example, screening a fairly non-judgemental, non-exploitative attraction and kiss between straight character Alex (Claudia Karvan) and her queer manager Pandora (Susie Porter) in its first season.

In 2003, the show also produced a rather lovely tale of the relationship that developed between previously straight girl Miranda (Abi Tucker) and lesbian character Chloe (Nina Liu). You know, I’m pretty sure it’s storylines like these that keep AfterEllen.com’s “I’m in love with a straight girl! Do I have a chance?” forums alive. That aside, the relationship played out with very little angst or fuss or major redefinitions of identity and you can read more about it here.

Not so great was All Saints‘ (1998-2009) clumsy treatment of the character Dr. Charlotte Beaumont (Tammy MacIntosh). The doctor was a woman whose lesbian sexuality – though proudly proclaimed at first – was portrayed entirely via a one-night-only alcohol fuelled hook-up with a straight nurse (Libby Tanner‘s Bron) and a short-lived relationship with another woman – most of which seemed to play off-screen – and then, oops, a fling with a man which left her pregnant. Which – surprise! – meant no more lesbian action for you, Charlotte. Still to this day I can’t decide if this storyline makes me want to scream or yawn. Maybe both. Scrawn!

I’m sorry, All Saints, writers, but you saw those tank tops right?

5. Cross-cultural Lesbian Love (And Extreme Hotness)

In 2007, SBS produced the series Kick, set in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick (or as I like to call it, “home”). University student Layla Salim (Nicole Chamoun) has a peaceful existence living at home with her family and engaged to a good Muslim boy her adoring parents approve of, until she meets and falls in love with Jackie, a woman she meets at fencing practise (Romi Trower). The show only ran for a single series, and while it was absolutely jam packed with clunky dialogue, cheesy music and some horrifically wooden acting at times, it’s still a rather uniquely lovely tale of cross-cultural love and Nicole Chamoun is so ridiculously beautiful that one glance into her incredible eyes will make you swear on your life that the show is perfect. Go and find it – you won’t regret it.

And the rest

Other shows that have had queer female characters include Water Rats (1996-2001), Raw FM (1997-1998), and Stingers (2004) included girl-on-girl kissing scenes that were definitely NSFN (Not Safe for Neighbours).

… as well as the very blokey Last Man Standing (2005) featuring lesbian characters in need of sperm (of course), and ABC’s I Rock (2010).

Finally, Channel Ten brought us Offspring last year, featuring minor lesbian characters Renee and Kim who are (gasp) also trying to get pregnant! Bless them though, they are rather adorable and the show is currently filming a second series, due to hit our screens later this year.

Yes we can!

Ladies of Australia, I put it to you that when it comes to girl-on-girl action, Australia is not the dry continent that today’s conservative television creators would have you believe. If they fear being too edgy or controversial then they’d have to beat Ailsa Stewart getting naked and making out with teenagers now wouldn’t they?

There is therefore, no reason for us to accept the tokenism of Neighbours or Home and Away throwing in the occasional mini girl pash as if that’s all there is to tell; Australian television has a strong history of being at the forefront of socially progressive queer story-telling, and it’s high time we got back there.

Alright, don’t spare me, just come right out and tell me: Did I miss anyone? If you can name me one lesbian pash, or one queer female fictional character on Aussie television (we’ll do reality TV another day) that I’ve missed, I will officially owe you one Golden Gaytime (um, to any non-Australians reading this, that’s really not how it sounds.)

Thank you to Dr. Rebecca Beirne for her assistance in providing access to her research on this topic.

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