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Television’s Queer Teen Girls

From Gossip Girl to Degrassi, South of Nowhere to the just-announced return to Beverly Hills, 90210, teens are more of a fixture on television than ever before. And as more teen characters have become prime-time regulars, there have also been more opportunities to find lesbian, bi and questioning teens on TV as well.

Throughout the history of queer teen girls on television, it has often been the case that their sexual orientation has not been taken seriously (The Box, Degrassi Junior High, The O.C.), they are only included as an issue rather than as ongoing characters (Neighbours, One Tree Hill), or they face a double standard in comparison to heterosexual characters when it comes to romantic relationships (Picket Fences).

However, in recent years, story lines about queer teen girls have developed from stand-alone “issue of the week” episodes to multi-episode arcs that are integral to a series, such as on South of Nowhere and Sugar Rush.

The first same-sex kiss on television involving a teenage girl occurred in 1974 on Australian series The Box, when grown-up bisexual character Vicki Stafford kissed 15-year-old Felicity in a stand-alone episode. While this moment in many ways was used as a sensationalist tool to grab ratings and position The Box from its very first episode as raunchy and controversial, it did pave the way for more to come.

In 1987, Canadian teen series Degrassi Junior High – known for its controversial story lines about issues such as teen sex and pregnancy – took quite a different approach when it brought up the issue of lesbianism in the episode “Rumour Has It.”

In the episode, rumours circulate that popular teacher Ms. Avery (Michelle Goodeve) may be a lesbian. Recurring character Caitlin (Stacie Mistysyn), Ms. Avery’s pet student, initially defends her teacher against the rumours, but when she starts having dreams about Ms. Avery, Caitlin begins to question her own sexual orientation.

When Caitlin confronts Ms. Avery about the rumours, the teacher insists that Caitlin’s dreams are normal and do not mean anything in terms of sexuality. In other words, they do not mean that Caitlin is attracted to women. It is then quickly revealed that Ms. Avery is dating a male teacher, thereby confirming her heterosexuality. Caitlin’s questioning of her own sexuality is dismissed with Ms. Avery’s assertions that “of course” she must be heterosexual.

Caitlin in DeGrassi Junior High

The next significant moment occurred on American television with the 1993 Picket Fences episode “Sugar and Spice,” written by the king of the one-off lesbian kiss, David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal). During this episode, teen character Kimberley Brock (Holly Marie Combs) is attracted to her friend Lisa (Alexondra Lee), and the two kiss. (The possibility of this having further significance to the sexual orientations of either character is not explored past this episode.)

Kimberley and Lisa in Picket Fences

The episode had some positive moments, particularly when Kimberley’s parents are openly chastised for their homophobic “bigotry.” However, the network (CBS) was not impressed by the scripted kiss scene between the two girls and insisted on a reshoot. The new version of the scene was so dark that the kiss itself was not visible, and this retake was used in the screening of the episode. The network did, however, release the original take of the kiss scene to the media, and this was then played in a decontextualized and sensationalized way in order to promote the series.

With the exception of a few other stand-alone episodes, television’s representation of lesbians through the 1990s was largely focused on adult women, and it was not until after the millennium that a significant number of queer teen girl characters started to emerge on the small screen.

ABC’s All My Children has the distinction of being the first daytime soap opera to introduce a teen lesbian character, Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel), a longstanding character who came out on the show in 2000 at age 16. Despite its initial promise, however, the series has been disappointing in its representation of Bianca. Although All My Children‘s heterosexual characters frequently have romances and relationships, Bianca has largely been prevented from exploring her lesbian sexuality.

In 2002, prime-time family drama Once and Again (ABC) explored queer teen sexuality in the episode “The Gay-Straight Alliance.” Fifteen-year-old Jessie (Evan Rachel Wood) is informed by her stepsister that Jessie’s best friend Katie (Mischa Barton) “and Sarah Grasser were like madly in love.” Jessie is initially highly discomfited by this news, insisting to her therapist that this arose not from homophobia, but from her feeling that if Katie were gay, she would have told Jessie.

Katie then does reveal to Jessie that she has feelings for her, and the two girls kiss twice. Katie and Jessie’s relationship was developed over the course of the show very subtly, but their kiss was clearly not meant to be a one-off exploration. Due to the cancellation of the show a few episodes after “The Gay-Straight Alliance,” Jessie and Katie’s relationship didn’t develop further, but it was insinuated to be ongoing via hand-holding and a kiss during the few remaining episodes.

Jessie and Katie in Once and Again

Canadian teen series Edgemont (2003) has been one of the few series to include a non-Caucasian queer teen girl character, Shannon Ng (Grace Park). Although Shannon, a Chinese Canadian, initially dates a male character, her attraction to a female classmate causes her to question her sexuality, and toward the end of the third season, she begins to come out.

Shannon (Grace Park) and Stevie (Sarah Edmondson) in Edgemont

At the beginning of the fourth season, it is revealed that Shannon has been kicked out of her home by her parents due to her sexual orientation. She comes out at school in the fourth season episode “Out and About.”

This story line differs from most television portrayals of a teen coming out, which tend to follow narratives stressing tolerance. Because Shannon comes from a conservative Christian background, the consequences of her coming out were relatively severe.

In 2004, Australian early evening family soap opera Neighbours featured the coming-out story of lesbian teen Lana Crawford (Bridget Neval). New-girl-at-school Lana is initially very closeted because she left her old school due to homophobic bullying. She later develops a crush on her best friend Sky (Stephanie McIntosh), a socially progressive yet heterosexual Neighbours lead teen character, and kisses her.

Skye and Lana on Neighbours

The two remains friends until Skye kisses Lana before declaring that she is really only interested in her boyfriend. Shortly thereafter, Lana decides to leave the school (and thus the series), and while she is given the opportunity to dance with a female classmate who had been her secret admirer before leaving, she never returns.

Although this story line went on for significantly longer (several months) than the “very special episode” approach to queer characters on television, it was still an example of the same kinds of attitudes, as the character was introduced only in order to address an issue (homosexuality). Once the issue had been addressed, the character was shipped out of Neighbours.

The significance of this depiction was that it occurred in a relatively conservative, family-oriented show with a large child viewership, and all the major sympathetic characters were presented as supportive of Lana’s sexuality, with the bullies being depicted as villains.

During late 2004 and early 2005, bisexual Latina character Anna Taggaro (Daniella Alonso) was introduced in teen series One Tree Hill. Having had to leave her old school because of (true) rumours about her relationship with a female classmate, Anna is very closeted about her bisexuality. After initially dating one of the male leads, Anna develops a friendship with and a crush on lead female character Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton), and the two became close.

Daniella Alonso (left) and Hilarie Burton

Peyton is confused, however, by Anna’s hostile reactions to public displays of affection, and when Peyton’s locker is spray-painted with the word dyke, Anna reacts quite homophobically, refusing to be associated with Peyton in fear that she might be outed. But Peyton reclaims the supposed insult, creating a T-shirt printed with the word dyke and challenging homophobic school authorities.

This story line continued the tradition of the straight teen being the one who is willing to be an activist against homophobia, while the truly queer teen is not, as was also seen in Once and Again. Although for some queer teens this may occur due to fear of discovery, it denies the central role that queer teens – and queer people in general – play in advocating for their rights. As in the case of Neighbours, once Anna fully came out, completed her crush on a straight lead character, and stood up to the homophobes (in this case her brother), it was time for her to leave the series.

Glamorous teen soap The O.C. also saw a teen girl romance, albeit short-lived, when leading lady Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) dated and briefly moved in with bisexual character Alex Kelly (Olivia Wilde), who had previously dated a male character. Canadian scholar Allison Burgess argued in her essay “There’s Something Queer Going on in Orange County” that at first, “this lesbian relationship began as something new and exciting, representing a nuanced and fluid understanding of women’s sexuality on prime-time television,” but the last few episodes disappointingly affirmed the dominance of heterosexuality.

In addition, Marissa’s relationship with Alex was in some ways represented as a strategy of Marissa’s to get back at her mother, rather than the result of true desire. It suggested that relationships between teen girls are part of a phase rather than meaning anything about their true sexualities.

Marissa and Alex in The O.C.

Canadian tween series Degrassi: The Next Generation certainly took queer teen sexuality much more seriously than its predecessor Degrassi Junior High. In the 2005 episode “Lexicon of Love,” Alex Nuñez (Deanna Casaluce), a character who had dated a boy in Seasons 3 and 4, is attracted to classmate Paige Michalchuk (Lauren Collins), and the two kiss.

Paige and Alex in Degrassi: The Next Generation

They develop a relationship that ends when Paige goes away to college, but when Alex returns to Degrassi in an attempt to get sufficient credits to graduate in a later season, she and Paige temporarily get back together again. Their relationship ends abruptly in the Season 7 episode “Love Is a Battlefield,” angering many fans, but actor Lauren Collins has stated that she feels that her character remains open to relationships with both men and women.

In 2005, Britain’s Channel 4, previously well-known for queer programming such as Dyke TV and Queer as Folk, adapted the young adult novel Sugar Rush to television. This series featured the character Kim (Olivia Hallinan), who openly lusted after her (straight) best friend Sugar (Lenora Crichlow).

Kim and Sugar in Sugar Rush

The noticeable difference between Sugar Rush and previous depictions of queer teen sexuality is that it focused more on Kim’s sexual desire than questioning her sexual identity. Although Sugar largely does not reciprocate Kim’s desires, they do steal a car and then sleep together in the final episode. Interestingly, it is Sugar who is punished for these trangressions, while Kim is not.

During the second season, Kim becomes involved in the lesbian scene in Brighton and is more sexually active. Kim also finds herself a steady girlfriend, Saint, a DJ and sex store owner. But despite being popular and winning an international Emmy for children’s programming, the series was cancelled after its second season, ostensibly because Channel 4 couldn’t find a timeslot for it.

Also in 2005, South of Nowhere debuted on The N in the United States. South of Nowhere‘s Spencer Carlin (Gabrielle Christian), a new student at a Los Angeles school, is from the outset clearly attracted to new friend Ashley Davies (Mandy Musgrave), the bisexual daughter of a rock star. Spencer does have a brief romance with Ashley’s ex-boyfriend Aiden, but it is quickly made clear that she is not truly attracted to him, and she embarks on an on-again, off-again relationship with Ashley for the majority of the series.

Spencer and Ashley in South of Nowhere

What was particularly significant about this representation is that unlike in such shows as Degrassi, where Alex, a significant though relatively minor character, carries the burden of queer representation, Spencer is one of the central characters in the series. In addition, South of Nowhere‘s explicit youth-oriented nature (it airs on tween network The N) differentiates it from shows such as The O.C. or Once and Again, which were pitched at a slightly older demographic.

South of Nowhere did, however, disappoint lesbian viewers with its significant double standard during Season 2 in terms of how physically the romance between Spencer and Ashley was presented on-screen, in comparison to the various other heterosexual pairings on the show.

In the Season 2 finale, Ashley is depicted as torn between her feelings for Spencer and her feelings for Aiden, and Spencer and Ashley break up early in the third season. The writers, however, didn’t utilize this as an opportunity to remove lesbian sexuality from the show. Instead, they gave Spencer a new girlfriend (Carmen) for a number of episodes, and a clearly sexual reunion with Ashley in the final episode of the first half of the third season.

Although the series has now been cancelled and the second half of the third season (to air in the U.S. this fall) constitutes the show’s final episodes, the series has made significant breakthroughs in representing teen lesbian sexuality on a series directed at young viewers.

Making queer teen girl characters central to the narratives of these shows has played an important part not only in raising visibility, but ensuring that young viewers have these kinds of characters to connect to. Perhaps watching and connecting with characters like Spencer, Ashley and Kim will allow young queer women to feel that they are not alone in their sexual orientation, while knowing these characters and relating to them week by week will make their heterosexual schoolmates more accepting of young queer women.

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