We’ve already reimagined Classic Films a Lesbian Love Stories – but what about television? Let’s look back at some classic TV. These shows bring on a big nostalgic mood. I loved them as a kid, but the only thing they’re missing is lesbians. It’s not like out lesbians were appearing on TV in the 1960’s and 1970’s, so we had to tune our gaydar and look a little deeper. Here are some of our most beloved classic television characters reimagined as lesbians. Bewitched It’s common knowledge that witchcraft belongs to lesbians. Adrienne Rich’s Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience, anyone? So it was a mystery to us all how Samantha from Bewitched could possibly be straight. She gives off Big Femme Energy, but gave up a life of magic and sweet, sweet lesbian domesticity for a boring life of suburbia with a boring husband?
Samantha is Not Okay and clearly needs rescuing from the grasps of compulsory heterosexuality. She refuses to heed the warnings of her deeply concerned family who recognize her marriage for the tragedy it is, and the plot is often driven by their desperate attempts to free her. I can’t believe we had to watch eight seasons without the resolution of Samatha leaving her husband for a butch witch who would love her as she is, but we can pretend, right?
I Love Lucy I have always had a deep love of Lucy, and I don’t develop crushes on straight women. Reimagining I Love Lucy as a beautiful story of a classic attention-seeking femme and her long-suffering butch is a lot more satisfying and frankly feels truer to character. As a femme, I’m allowed to say this, but we live and breathe drama, charisma, and flamboyance. Who embodies this more than Lucy? Her antics, unquenchable desire for fame, and her nose for trouble are telltale signs of a Leo femme on the loose. Ricky is her tolerant, passing butch wife, trying to support her dreams while remaining realistic considering Lucy’s clear lack of talent for show business. In all seriousness, however, Lucille Ball paved the way for many women interested in clowning and physical comedy as a talented female comedian unafraid to take up space and own the limelight. Happy Days Happy Days was a prolific sitcom with over 250 episodes over the course of a decade depicting an idealized nuclear family in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Or was it? Frankly, everyone in the show was a little gay–especially the kids. Joanie, most notably is clearly a dyke. Joanie joined a motorcycle gang (uhhhh dykes on bikes?) after going on a date with a boy she straight up calls dull. She leaves for the big city after she has tolerated suburbia long enough to pursue music with her band (pre-Riot Grrl era, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a dyke band). She seems to settle for Chachi when she settles down into a teaching career. I genuinely can’t tell is Chachi is a butch or a twink, but there’s no way that character is straight. Chachi is either a butch or a beard and I am not taking comments on this claim. Joanie is a dyke and this is not up for debate. The Brady Bunch The Brady Bunch is an American classic. The idyllic home life, the warm, loving parents, and the live-in maid are all fixtures in perfect American family sit-coms. I could try to reach to find a lesbian relationship in this show, or we could just acknowledge the fact that Alice was a dyke. She may have dated the butcher in town, but she wasn’t fooling anyone with a moderately functioning gaydar. The real Alice, Ann B. Davis, was also most certainly a dyke. She sold her home in L.A. to move to Denver, Colorado. She never married, and instead dedicated her life to the Episcopal Church, and published a cookbook with Brady Bunch-inspired recipes. The Mary Tyler Moore Show This 1970’s sitcom was groundbreaking for women at the time. It was rare for unmarried women to be depicted as happy and successful. Mary Tyler Moore was a career woman, working her way up in her field, with no husband, fully able to support herself. She had an “upstairs neighbor,” Rhoda Morgenstern, who was her “best friend.” Sounds a little like “gals being pals” to me. She was a dynamic, wholly-realized female character at a time when women were often reduced to their role as wife or mother on television. She didn’t need no man, and neither do we.
