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Flashback Friday: Lesbian Representation in the Early 2000s

When AfterEllen was created in April 2002 by then-editor Sarah Warn, its goal was to provide a critical analysis of the portrayal of lesbian and bisexual women in the media and flag for readers new characters and trends. At the time, there was such little LGBT visibility in Hollywood that Warn was able to contribute to the website part-time, as a hobby, with articles relatively few and far between.

Since then, the number of non-heterosexual female characters on screen has grown by leaps and bounds, and most of the pernicious tropes that once plagued these characters have finally been banished, in part as a result of sites like AfterEllen shining a spotlight on them. In honor of this month’s LGBT History Month, AfterEllen looks back at lesbian and bisexual representation on the large and small screen as during the early 2000s. 2002 In the early 2000s and before, LGBT representation on the big and small screen was all but nonexistent. As a result, every character and storyline was noted, analyzed in-depth, and compared to those that had come before. Although positive trends in portrayals of lesbian and bisexual female characters had finally started to emerge by 2002, too many negative stereotypes and tropes persisted. The most pernicious of these was the “evil/crazy bisexual girl” trope, which created a subconscious association between bisexuality and death, jail, drugs, or satanic cults (yes, seriously). Luckily, the trope seems to have largely been abandoned by Hollywood no later than the late 2000s…probably because by then Mia Kirshner, who played all the evil bisexuals in the early 2000s, had moved on to play crazy Jenny on “The L Word.”

TV in 2002: In the 2001-02 TV season, there were only 20 regular or recurring lesbian or bisexual characters, the most visible of which were Willow (Alyson Hannigan) from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) from “ER.” Unfortunately, “Once and Again” was cancelled just after it achieved three landmark firsts: 1) the first primetime drama to show two lesbian kisses in one episode, 2) the first primetime show to have a teenage girl engaging in more than a single episode of sexual experimentation, and 3) the first positive depiction of a lesbian relationship between teenagers on TV.

The character Jessie, played by Evan Rachel Wood, represented only the fourth primary character in a TV drama to have developed into a lesbian during the show (the other three were Bianca of “All My Children,” Willow and Dr. Weaver). Although “Once and Again” had experienced last-place ratings for months, the “Gay/Straight Alliance” episode had record-breaking ratings, a fact that dovetails with AfterEllen’s recent analysis that lesbian storylines pump TV viewership numbers.

Movies in 2002: Although films were beginning to explore new ways to look at sexuality, visibility still was a mixed bag in 2002. The new breed of middle-class, professional-oriented films for the black community coming out around then, for example, produced the following false messages: 1) straight black people do not have lesbian family members or friends, 2) lesbians and lesbianism are only used to serve as a warning to straight black women about how to behave, and 3) bisexuality among black women does not exist. On the other hand, “Kissing Jessica Stein” countered the Hollywood trope of bisexuals all being murderers or promiscuous (the lead characters were neither) while generating positive images and discussion of bisexuality (particularly the introduction of the sexual continuum) in a new and engaging way.

LOL moment of 2002: Then titled “Earthlings,” AfterEllen asked if the show, still in development, that would become “The L Word” would be the lesbian “Queer as Folk.” Answer: YES.

2003 Visibility in 2003 remained approximately the same as in 2002. Bi-erasure continued to be a negative trend and fueled the American public’s ignorance of the difference between lesbian and bisexual women. Any woman on screen kissing another was immediately labeled “lesbian” regardless of her actual orientation. Bisexuality was therefore treated almost as a taboo because it presented the idea of sexuality as fluid rather than fixed orientation.

TV in 2003: In 2003, only 2 out of the 674 leading or supporting actresses on prime-time broadcast sitcoms and dramas were lesbians-not even a half a percent-and in total, 12 shows on American TV aired lesbian kisses. Bianca (Eden Riegel) from “All My Children” had the first lesbian kiss on daytime television. Although there was no major negative fallout, many local ABC affiliates displayed “viewer discretion advised due to adult situations” warnings on the bottom of the screen during the episode and the prior episode (although no such warning was used on episodes about drug abuse, abortion, or attempted rape).

Bianca’s love interest Lena (Olga Sosnovska) was one of only three explicit bisexual female characters in the history of television to date (the others being Sandra Bernhard’s character on “Rosanne” and Brittany Daniel’s character on “That 80’s Show”). The Bianca-Lena relationship became only the third lesbian couple on TV to last multiple episodes, the other two being Willow and Dr. Weaver.

Lena and Bianca’s romance quickly became a hit with viewers, regularly knocking older more established heterosexual couples out of the #1 spot in online and soap magazine readers’ polls. In another historical first, the two also won Soap Opera Weekly’s Hottest Soap Couple contest, which again reinforces the unexpected popularity of lesbian couples even in ostensibly socially conservative fandoms.

Meanwhile, “Nip/Tuck” had an unprecedented two regular lesbian characters (who were not dating and were of different ages and ethnicities) and showed the first on-air depiction of a threesome (teenagers, to boot!). “The Secret Life Of Us became one of a handful of Australian shows to depict a lesbian sex scene and was the first Australian show to feature a lesbian character of Asian decent and a long-running same-sex relationship between two women.

However, not only did Dr. Weaver’s relationship get all but no screen time in 2003, she fell victim to the Lesbian-Motherhood Storyline: a plot device used by shows unsure of what to do with lesbian characters after they’ve exhausted the coming-out narrative. Later, her partner would be felled in a Dead Lesbian trope, too. Ugh.

Movies in 2003: Few notable movies with female same-sex storylines were released in 2003, but in Showtime’s “A Girl Thing,” a relationship-phobic heterosexual woman struggled to come to terms with her attraction to a bisexual woman. It was a thought-provoking story in part because it highlighted how fears of societal expectations and internalized homophobia can destroy a relationship.

LOL moment of 2003: AfterEllen complaining about female pop stars using same-sex shenanigans as a ploy to spark interest in their upcoming albums. Some things never change.

2004 In 2004, lesbian and bisexual representation on TV began to increase drastically. This year was the first that AfterEllen noted that actresses had turned the corner on taking gay roles and there was now significantly less stigma attached to taking them than previously, in part because of the likes of Salma Hayek, Charlize Theron, and Hilary Swank taking them with no negative repercussions. AfterEllen also offered a suggestion of how to make a good lesbian movie, noted the increase in the number of queer Asian females on screen, and noted the “Dead Lesbian” problem in season 1 of “Hex.”

TV in 2004: In 2003, AfterEllen had worried based on early teaser trailers that “The L Word” would have too little-or too much-sex when it premiered in January 2004, but concluded that fully-realized lesbian and bisexual characters with sex lives onscreen on this scale and with this attention and thoughtfulness was unique and revolutionary. And in fact, as we all know, “The L Word” ended up being revolutionary in untold numbers of ways when it did finally air. Rather than being all about coming-out storylines, the show explored the lives of women already comfortable with their sexuality. It was also the first show on TV to show lesbian characters with other lesbian friends. What a concept!

Meanwhile, Fox followed a policy for same-sex kisses which could be summarized as: one-off kisses and kisses for titillation were acceptable, but full relationships were not. This problem was epitomized by the show “North Shore,” in which Charlie (Krista Kalmus) and her girlfriend Erika (Makika Dominczky) both started dating pro-surfer-wannabe Gabe because clearly bisexual=promiscuous and looking for a dude. While there were more than 14 lesbian kisses in 2004, unbelievably, they were almost exclusively between straight women.

Movies in 2004: AfterEllen summarized the movie landscape in 2004 as such: every year, it’s bisexual women dating men and women at the same time and lesbians who sleep with men or have no love life and/or have unrequited crushes on straight women. Each year, there’s one or maybe two movies with three-dimensional, non-stereotypical lesbian or bisexual characters. In India, the opening of “Girlfriend,” which contained a brief erotic scene between two women, was marked by violent protests.

Screenings were stopped in some cities. Falling into tired tropes, the lesbian was, of course, a psycho-killer who was a victim of sexual abuse. Meanwhile, “She Hate Me” improbably posited that 19 lesbians all spectacularly enjoyed being impregnated naturally by a man instead of using artificial insemination, a blatant catering to the male fantasy that lesbians are really just looking for the right man. A bright spot for the year, however, was “My Summer of Love,” which AfterEllen described as a stunning, superbly acted film worth watching despite the inevitably sad ending (because all lesbian endings were sad at the time).

Trivia of the year: As of September 2004, ABC had signed a commitment to develop a sitcom in which Melissa Etheridge would play a lesbian in a “non-traditional family comedy.” The plot involved Etheridge, a lesbian music teacher, and her straight male best friend raising the daughter of another friend.

LOL moment of 2004: When Colleen came out to her father on “Rescue Me,” Tommy’s reaction was to suggest to her mother that they get stock in k.d. lang albums.

Shamefully, before 2004, most “lesbian” action on TV came in the form of exploitative same-sex kisses during Sweeps Weeks. The fact that a ratings ploy was the most likely way to find lesbian themes on TV says everything about Hollywood’s commitment to LGBT storytelling. It is therefore ironic that this fetishization of lesbians ended up actually propelling true progress on visibility: the popularity of same-sex kisses during Sweeps led networks to very slowly incorporate more same-sex storylines during the regular season.

Nor was this popularity confined to the small screen: the Swedish film “Show Me Love” (originally titled “Fucking Amal”) was so popular when it premiered in 1998 that it unseated “Titanic” at the box office in some countries. While the early 2000s too often fell back on the same tropes of promiscuous bisexual/depressed or dead lesbian/confused woman made un-confused by a sexy man, at least the following years slowly started to move away from these tropes.

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