Gay is in. The masses tuned in to Heated Rivalry; fangirls are back in droves, shipping every pair of men who interact on their screens; and RuPaul’s Drag Race wins an Emmy nearly every year. Lesbian is pointedly not in; it is as out as it has ever been. Recent years have done wonders for queer representation in movies and television, and gay men have become palatable, desired even, on the big screen. Lesbians and queer women, however, remain sidelined, ridiculed, fetishized, and their shows unfunded and canceled.
It is hard to make the comparison between lesbian and gay media without it feeling like a degradation of one and the uplifting of another. The outbreak of gay media is wonderful for everyone; it’s a step forward in the right direction, but it is disheartening to see the continual and age-old dismissal of women within film and TV spaces. Media about women already exists under a microscope of expectations that are impossible to meet. Still, by removing men entirely from these romantic equations and centering the story solely on women's experiences, the problem is magnified, and the target audience dwindles. For the love stories of men, audiences have been primed; gay men, straight women, queer women, and the occasional outlier alike are all tuning in. Lesbian stories do not come with the same embedded audience; the majority of viewers are made up of queer women, and their relationships are received with less love by outside audiences.
At present, Bridgerton is a prime example of this. The book-to-TV adaptation has been consistently less than faithful, something most fans have accepted and, at times, reveled in. Many of these changes have been made to make relationships healthier or more inclusive. In this, many people advocated and theorized about one of the main characters, Benedict, being gay. At the same time, the show explores his sexuality, but it is not the focus of his story. However, his sister, the star of the upcoming season, Francesca, has been confirmed to have a female love interest, sparking public outcry. There have been mass comments, upset by the historical accuracy, and the chief complaints revolve around book accuracy — an argument that hinges on upset that her story will no longer focus on her struggle with infertility, as if queer women, especially of the time, could not have experienced the grief of not being able to have children with the person they loved. The whole debacle leaves a sour taste, especially when the conversation only shifted when it became a lesbian season and not a gay one.
In response to this aversion to lesbians, the shows are often canceled. As a whole, television featuring queer stories is canceled more often, but lesbian shows seem to be the victim of it more so, even when they are high in viewership and praise. Shows like Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This and Hulu’s High Fidelity both sparked outcry when they were canceled after only one season. Other shows, like A League of Their Own, were critically acclaimed and still did not receive a renewal. TV like Disney’s Willow or Netflix’s First Kill, fans have agreed, were not top-notch television; the writing, producing, and, in some cases, acting were lacking, and they hinged on fitting into the cheesy and young-adult realm. Lesbian shows, however, are unable to stay afloat purely on the kitschy factor alone, where gay shows are allowed to float on their existing fan pool, with content that is admittedly mediocre; shows like Heartstopper and movies like Red, White, and Royal Blue thrive. Consistent lack of praise makes it easy to avoid and excuse not investing real time, energy, and money into lesbian stories, preventing them from thriving the way other projects do.
To this point, there could not be a lesbian Heated Rivalry, not for lack of budget or books to be adapted. Heated Rivalry’s production had ten dollars and a dream, and the book is a dime-a-dozen in tropes. Rather, audiences don’t care to invest the time and depth in a story about women in the same way. The books these adaptations come from do not fly off the shelves the way Rachel Reid’s do. Instead, lesbian media has perfected the art of the niche, the camp, and the cult following. But I’m a Cheerleader and Bottoms are some of the most iconic movies of all time, which portray campy, bright stories of lesbian love that have been quoted to death. That’s the problem, though, these portrayals do not exist in the way that they do for queer men, without a layer of camp so thick it cannot be taken seriously, or tragedy so sobering it leaves no hope.
Lesbians aren’t allowed to be happy; there is no white wedding at the end, or light at the end of the tunnel. Queer stories often fall into the “bury your gays” trope, in which they are killed off rather than given a happy ending, but lesbians, it seems, get shoveled more than most. In terms of book adaptations, Killing Eve, despite the book ending with the two female characters living together peacefully in St. Petersburg, ends its series adaptation with Villanelle's violent death, leaving no hope for the women’s happiness or future. If lesbians aren’t so calamitous, it causes genuine heartache. If they’re not busy being so camp, it's impossible to impose reality on them; they’re likely being reduced to a fantastical fetishization.
People are very comfortable fetishizing lesbian relationships, and when they are never depicted seriously on screen, it’s not a hard thing to do. When they’re constantly being degraded, it’s hard to take them seriously. It creates a vicious cycle where, somehow, women and lesbians always lose and are left once again watching themselves become the butt of the joke and the unwilling stars of uncomfortable fantasies. Gaining rapid popularity is yet another book-to-series adaptation: Elle Kennedy's Off Campus, a series that is a prime example of this phenomenon. Though largely left out of the show, this fetishization is a constant in the book. It happens an actually astonishing number of times. It continues throughout the entire series, one of the worst moments being when a character films two unknowing girls kissing and imagines it ending up on the internet. For media directed at non-queer audiences, the idea of two women being together often exists solely as a turn-on for the men and is not involved in any plot purposes. In contrast, stories with actual depth for these women are ignored and criticized.
In a world that seems to be increasingly comfortable hating women, getting a woman in the writer’s room and on the storyboards is hard enough; having content that takes men out of the equation completely and focuses on female independence and decisions unburdened by men becomes a herculean task. These constant portrayals of lesbians as camp, as tragic, and as existing for performance alone make it feel like a losing battle when trying to suggest people watch more lesbian centered content. Truly, the only way, however, to get better content is to watch the movies, and stream the TV shows, and to support changes like those in Bridgerton, and get excited for new movies like Ripe and Her Private Hell, and the stories we so crave on our screens, even when, at times, it feels like screaming into the abyss.
About the Author: Stella is a Junior Humanities Major. Her movie recommendations are Shiva Baby, Bottoms, and Debs. Her current favorite discussion topics mostly revolve around the Batman comics and the upcoming Supergirl movie.