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2011 Year in Review: TV

Because I’ve spent thousands of hours over the the last few years writing about television for AfterEllen.com, I often make the extrapolation that modern media is as saturated with lesbian and bisexual characters as my daily life. But every year when I sit down to write our annual TV review, I am reminded that while we’ve come so far in terms of positive LGBT representation on television, we still have a long way to go.

2011 was roller coaster ride for lesbian and bisexual TV viewers. On the upside, we saw a history-making lesbian wedding on primetime network television; a fan-favorite lesbian couple cross the line from subtext to main text on one of TV’s most-viewed programs; and a sensitive, authentic portrayal of teenage lesbianism on the most popular show in the world (according to Twitter). Also on the upside were the international lesbian TV couples that took our website by storm, and the real-life lesbian and bisexual women who continued to dominate ratings with their talk shows and cooking shows and news shows.

On the downside, we saw almost a dozen lezzy departures on TV due to death, dismemberment and cancellation – a startling number when you consider that we kicked off the 2011 TV season with only around 30 lesbian and bisexual characters.

THE UPSIDE

In 2011, all seven of the leading lesbian and bisexual characters on primetime American TV saw ample screen time.

After a year of ups and downs, breakups and makeups, Callie and Arizona tied the knot in highly publicized episode of Grey’s Anatomy. While some viewers were frustrated at the timing – Callie was pregnant with Mark Sloane’s baby and Arizona was feeling jealous of their connection when she popped the question – it is impossible to overstate the historic significance of the occasion. The first lesbian wedding on primetime TV took place in 1996 on Friends. Between then and now only ten lesbian weddings have been seen on TV, and none of them took place between two leading characters. In a year when the same-sex marriage debate in the U.S. reached a fevered pitch, Grey’s chose to portray their lesbian couple as one of the most stable and committed on the show – and they gave them a fairy tale wedding to boot.

This year also saw the confirmation of a couple AfterEllen.com readers have been swooning over since Brad Falchuck penned the lines: “Sex is not dating.” “Yeah, if it was, Santana and I would be dating.” The exchange between Brittany and Santana took place in 2009 during Glee‘s first season, and it drove fans wild with speculation about the subtle looks and touches between the Cheerios BFFs. During the second half of the show’s second season, Santana finally acknowledged to herself that she’s a lesbian. Thanks to a committed, nuanced performance by Naya Rivera, Santana’s coming out and subsequent love confession to Brittany was the emotional anchor of Glee‘s 2011 run. (It also earned her the top spot in our annual AfterEllen.com Hot 100!) When the show kicked off its third season, it finally gave Brittany and Santana a chance to have a real, on-screen relationship. And it gave Rivera a chance to show off her acting chops with a public coming out to her grandmother.

ABC Family’s breakout hit Pretty Little Liars continued to impress us this year with its characterization of lesbian teen Emily Fields. The premise is deliciously campy: Four teenagers find themselves being blackmailed by the ubiquitous ghost of their dead best friend as they try to solve the mystery of her death. But the emotional elements of the show – especially the ones involving Emily – ring true to viewers of all ages. After a tumultuous coming out experience with her family, 2011 saw Emily’s mom, Pam, accept her daughter’s sexuality and defend her against homophobic parents at Rosewood High School. The show also gave the same amount of gravitas to Emily’s dating relationships as it did to her three (straight) best friends. Emily dated rival swimmer Paige (who got her own emotional coming out moment on-screen), GSA counselor Samara, and she reconnected with her first girlfriend Maya. Pretty Little Liars doesn’t shy away from gay-specific storylines and content, but it also doesn’t treat those storylines as Very Special Episode elements. For a teenage murder mystery, Pretty Little Liars packs an organic emotional punch.

One of the most intriguing characters on primetime continues to be The Good Wife‘s Kalinda Sharma – and lucky for us, Archie Panjabi‘s Emmy Award-winning role happens to be one of the most well-rounded bisexual characters we’ve ever seen on TV. After a dicey moment last year when she shared her first on-screen kiss with a woman behind a closed garage door, The Good Wife‘s writers haven’t shied away from showing Kalinda in passionate situations with other women. In 2011, Kalinda shared intimate moments with Lana Delaney and Sophia Russo. She also shared them with co-worker Blake. Kalinda’s sexual dalliances always result in audience insight into her mysterious character. They make her more sympathetic; they make her motivations clearer; and they make AfterEllen.com readers dizzy with glee. Authentic bisexual characters are as elusive as unicorns, but in Kalinda we have a bisexual lady who is as well-rounded as she is critically acclaimed.

Logo’s Exes & Ohs also returned to Logo this year with Michelle Paradise continuing to delight viewers with her portrayal of the affable, floundering Jennifer trying to navigate the wild world of lesbian dating. In season three, she made the age-old mistake of recording a sex tape and falling in love with her best friend – much to the delight and lesbian fans everywhere. One of the most exciting things about Exes & Ohs is that it was written and acted by lots of openly gay women. A show for lesbians, by lesbians – and no one was murdered in a swimming pool. Revolutionary!

2011 also saw an upsurge in supporting and recurring lesbian and bisexual characters. CBS, a network that almost always fails miserably on GLAAD’s Network Responsibility Index, gave us the lesbian Brenda on Rules of Engagement, as well as Sophia, the aforementioned love interest for Kalinda on The Good Wife. FX’s pride and joy Archer gave a little bit of screen time to bisexual Pam; TeenNick’s Degrassi considered a love interest for lesbian character Fiona; gay icon Lucy Lawless saw some lesbian action as Lucretia on Spartacus: Vengance; we finally met Dianna Barrigan’s oft mentioned girlfriend on White Collar; Nurse Jackie‘s bisexual Dr. O’Hara continued to delight us; Syfy’s American adaptation of Being Human kept Emily’s queer sexuality in tact; Showtime’s Shameless gave us three supporting lesbian and bisexual characters; and even though she lost half of her face, True Blood‘s lesbian Pam De Beaufort kept our undying affection.

THE DOWNSIDE

One of the most discouraging losses of 2011 was the cancellation of ABC’s long-running soap All My Children. In the show’s waning days, they brought back fan favorite Bianca and finally allowed her a love interest that deserved her commitment and affection. Marissa made the journey from enemy to lover, from the closet to the wide open spaces of a white picket fenced-in yard, where she hoped to make a family with Bianca once she realized she was in love with her. The Minx relationship was a slow burn, but the payoff – and their happily ever after – made it worth the investment. They may not have been the longest-running couple in TV history, but they will certainly go down as one of daytime’s most beloved.

Then there were the year’s axe-murders. Or, well, gun murders. After finally giving the long-suffering Angela Darmody an attentive, adoring women to love, Boardwalk Empire promptly killed them both. Angela’s girlfriend was enjoying a post-coital shower when she was treated to a shower of bullets from one of Angela’s husband’s enemies, and then the mobster turned his gun on Angela. Also meeting an untimely death (apparently) was True Blood‘s bisexual Tara, who took a bullet in the last episode of the season after forging a relationship with Naomi. We’re sensing an unwelcome pattern, HBO!

2011 also gave us a full season run and first season cancellation of a US remake of the beloved UK series Skins. The sexual journey of Tea Marvelli was one of the most hotly (and caustically) debated storylines on AfterEllen.com this year. Skins co-creator Bryan Elsley adapted the show for an American audience, and after giving the world the beloved Naomily, many lesbian fans believed he could do no wrong. Unfortunately, Elsey tapped into the societal stigma and long-running TV trope that lesbians are just straight women who haven’t found the right man yet. Tea started off the series as a confident, out lesbian, but spent most of the episodes battling her attraction to Tony. In the end, she realized that she was chasing Tony as a way to run away from her growing feelings for Betty and her fear of intimacy. She stripped down to nothing and climbed in Betty’s hospital bed in the closing minutes of the finale. Many mainstream critics and plenty of lesbian fan found Tea’s journey fascinating and refreshing, but a vocal majority abhorred the another portrayal of a lesbian character questioning her sexuality by sleeping with a man.

We lost HawthoRNe‘s lesbian nurse Kelly due to cancellation in 2011, as well as Alice, the Bunny from NBC’s The Playboy Club, a show that saw more hype than airtime, as the network pulled it after only three episodes. We also sent House‘s resident bisexual Thirteen off with a nod to an off-screen girlfriend as Olivia Wilde left the show to pursue a blossoming movie career.

THE INTERNATIONAL SIDE

If 2011 had a TV theme, it was lesbian and bisexual viewers saying to network executives, “You won’t? YouTube!” No longer content with the landscape of American television, innumerable viewers turned to online video services this year to watch lesbian storylines from Spain, Germany, Great Britain and Canada.

British TV has always been a favorite with Americans, and this year was no different as lesbians flocked to Skins and Coronation Street. The latter saw the dissolution of Sophie and Sian’s relationship when Sacha Parkinson decided not to renew her contract for 2012, but the build up to her departure kept fans at rapt attention. Sophie and Sian’s relationship was perfectly indicative of true love, from the tempestuous ups and downs to the promises of forever. The pair even planned to tie the knot before Sian discovered that Sophie had been unfaithful to her. We will forever keep our fingers crossed that Sian returns to Corrie. After all, characters never really leave soap operas.

Skins introduced us to the genderqueer Franky Fitzgerald in series five, and as she took a fascinating journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance, her very femme arch-nemesis-turned-best mate realized that her feelings ran deeper than friendship. Franky refused to define her gender by her fashion and she refused to define her sexuality with labels. She dressed how she wanted to dress, she kissed who she wanted to kiss – and she never apologized for being who she was.

Canada’s Lost Girl was also a favorite of American viewers. The sci-fi show follows the life of Succubus Bo, including her blossoming relationship with human doctor Lauren. The two finally consummated their relationship in two, only to be forced to slam on the brakes when Lauren’s girlfriend awoke from a years-long coma. Their relationship is far from over, and American viewers who watch TV without the benefit of the internet will be able to watch it from the very beginning when Syfy airs the series from the beginning in January.

Two other shows that caught the attention of AfterEllen.com readers this year were Tierra de Lobos and Hand aufs Herz. Even though the majority of non-German and non-Spanish viewers watched the Crisabel and Jemma storylines with the help of fan-made English subtitles, both couples landed a top spot on our 2011 Cutest Couples poll. There was never subtext between Cristina and Isabel or Jenny and Emma; both shows featured full-on, beautifully-acted, main text – some of it so delicious that Americans didn’t even need English translations.

THE REAL SIDE

In recent years, we have seen a growing trend of out and proud gay ladies moving to the top of their entertainment-related fields. With Oprah finishing up her talk show in 2011, Ellen DeGeneres has become the uncontested queen of daytime. With the departure of Keith Olberman from MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has become the go-to voice for liberal politics. Suze Orman continues to rule the world of money advice; Cat Cora continues to dominate the realm of cooking advice; and Sara Gilbert continues to be a voice of queer reason on The Talk. Plus, Rosie O’Donnell returned to television late this year on Oprah’s OWN.

2011 also saw the second season of Ilene Chaiken’s reality series The Real L Word. The show followed Whitney, Romi, Claire, Francine, Cori, Kacy and Sajdah through the highs and lows endless shenanigans of living, laughing, fighting and f–king in West Hollywood.

THE FUTURE SIDE

2012 is shaping up to be an interesting year for lesbian and bisexual visibility on TV. The losses of 2011 will certainly be felt in the coming year, but the silver lining is that most of the queer characters we lost were recurring or supporting ones. Already we’re excited that Life photographer Joyce Ramsay could be back on our TVs next year when Mad Men returns to AMC. Maya St. Germain promises to be a fixture in the winter season of Pretty Little Liars. Portia de Rossi‘s Lindsey Bluth-Funke will return when Arrested Development kicks off again. With any luck, Carol Leifer‘s My Best Friend is a Lesbo will find its way into the 2012 fall pickup schedule. And Rachel Maddow will no doubt be omnipresent in the election year.

Cautious optimism is almost always the order of the day when it comes to lesbian and bisexual characters on television. The gay rights movement felt a multitude of hard-won victories in 2011, and we hope to see those victories reflected on the small screen in the coming year.

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