TV coulda-beens

In the latest Cat on the Prowl, Cat Davis and her guest Andy Goldblatt brought up one of my favourite subjects: TV characters who seemed gay (but never came out). Oddly enough, both their picks were children... Penny from Inspector Gadget and Punky Brewster... but there are tons more to talk about (and plenty of non-animated, non-minor, non-icky ones).

So here, in no particular order, are five characters I think should have been gay.

1. Jo Polniaczek, The Facts of Life

If this show were on today (instead of 1979-88), Jo would have to be a dyke. No two ways about it. Television producers could not get away with a motorcycle-driving, trash-talking, dress-shunning teenage tomboy and not have her come out. All that bickering with roommate Blair was so obviously a result of unresolved sexual tension.


The writers threw a bevy of boyfriends Jo's way to convince us she was straight -- she was even married off in the final season -- and her butcher qualities were written off as the "unfortunate" consequence of a lower-class upbringing, but discerning fans weren't fooled. Many a lesbian in her 30s or 40s cites Jo as one of her first girl crushes.

2. Deb Morgan, Dexter


Here's a more contemporary example. Debra Morgan, sister to the title character, found herself involved with a serial killer in Season One (before he kidnapped her and tried to get Dexter to kill her) and a much older man in Season Two (clearly the expression of some serious daddy issues). I think she'd have much better luck with women. She's a total catch -- she's a cop, she works out, she's unbelievably loyal to her brother -- and she clearly has good taste. After all, she described Dexter's girlfriend Rita (played by Julie Benz) as "fuckin' perfect."

3. Ash and Scribbs, Murder in Suburbia


Emma Scribbins and Kate Ashford are detectives and partners. No, not in the good way. But they should be and here's why. They're perennially dumping or being dumped by bastard men, and yet are perfectly happy in each other's company. They often bicker a la Jo and Blair (see above), and yet are loyal friends who'd probably take a bullet for each other. They see themselves ending up in an old age home together in fifty years, and yet they don't see that they should just forget about the bastard men altogether and shack up now.

4. Sarah Connor, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I'll admit I've never seen this show. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of my all-time favourite movies and Sarah Connor, as played by Linda Hamilton, one of my favourite characters. Lena Headey's take looks good too, but I just can't get past the teen-boy angst factor. I'll tell you what would make me watch it, though -- if Sarah were gay.

Think about it: Lena's already played gay more than once, so we know she can do the job. Sarah, with her buff bod and hard-edged personality, would attract dykes in droves. Being all too aware of how short life is (having personally altered the future to buy humanity a little more time), she wouldn't get bogged down by questioning or worrying about what people would think --- she'd just go for it.

5. Sarah Henrickson, Big Love


Another Sarah, this one younger and much more concerned with social pressure. Sarah is the teenage daughter of polygamists Bill and Barb (and Nicolette and Margene), so she's no stranger to keeping secrets. Plus, she's the only one on my list who's actually had a (sort-of) brush with lesbianism. In Season One, Sarah befriended Heather, a baby dyke in denial (although that's not explicitly stated or shown) who pined for her big time. In Season Two, their perceptive frenemy Rhonda tried to blackmail Heather by threatening to tell Sarah about her feelings.

Sarah rebels against her family's unconventional way of life, but not quite enough for my liking. I'd rather see her throw off the burden of their beliefs altogether and confront Heather about her crush. As it stands, whatever it is between them hasn't been resolved, so it's entirely possible something more will happen in upcoming seasons. Fingers crossed.

More on Go Fish 2

Guinevere Turner told Bridget McManus that the sequel to Go Fish will feature "all of us, the people" (which I took to mean the original cast) as well as "young, hot girls who can actually act." Sweet! No hints as to plot, though.

Actually, I find I'm not as curious about the storyline as I am about the style of the film. Will it be similar to the original? Will it be in colour or black and white? Will there be a conventional narrative this time? I can't imagine it would be easy to get financing for another movie that colours outside the lines, and besides, now that they're all older and have more experience, they may not be interested in that kind of experimental style anymore.

All Bridget asked about were ball caps. As in, will Guinevere be wearing them throughout as she did in the first film? She didn't technically get an answer, but judging from Guinevere's dismay at the question, I'm thinking no.

Elsewhere in the interview, when Bridget asked how she would like to be remembered when she dies, Guinevere said, "You know, I just think about what I want on my tombstone, which is, 'You're welcome.'"

Late Bloomers

Late Bloomers (Julia Dyer, 1996) seems to be doomed to obscurity. I don't recall ever seeing it mentioned on AfterEllen, even when they did a piece on lesbian weddings in TV and film. They did talk about April's Shower and A Family Affair, films I didn't enjoy as much. I hate to say it, but I think Late Bloomers would be more popular if it had hotter actresses. With no stars attached, there's not much to set it apart from other lesbian movies with similar storylines.

Two women, one of whom is married to a man, begin to develop a romantic attachment. It's the first time the "straight" one has ever been attracted to a woman. She's torn between her marriage and this new, exciting connection. Sound familiar? Of course it does. We've seen it before (and since): Imagine Me & You, When Night is Falling, High Art, The Gymnast, D.E.B.S., But I'm a Cheerleader (though sometimes the husband is a boyfriend).

And as in most of those films, there are more people involved than just the three in the love triangle. In Late Bloomers, Carly and Dinah work at the same high school (as a secretary and math teacher, respectively) and the community at large doesn't take well to their relationship being "flaunted" in front of impressionable students.

Once the scenario is established, it's pretty easy to see where this is going. It's a rom-com, and a pretty lighthearted one (even the most serious scene, in which the teachers and parents gather to debate the issue, is undercut with so much humour that it's hard to feel any kind of tension) -- so a happy ending is more or less guaranteed. The girl gets the girl.

But I'll tell you one thing this movie has that the others don't: naked basketball. Dinah is a coach at the school and teaching Carly to play is the background against which they fall in love. Later they play in Dinah's yard, nude, after dark. On a cold night, judging from their visible breath. Makes me feel bad for the actresses -- I imagine shooting a sex scene is bad enough, but a naked sports scene?

Which leads me to something that really bugs me about this movie. Most of the physical interaction between Dinah and Carly is off screen. We see shadows on the wall, we hear heavy breathing, we see a few kisses, but that's it (except the naked basketball, of course). I'd have no problem with that if it weren't for the fact that we do see Carly's teenage daughter Val actually having sex with her boyfriend (as in, we cut into the scene mid-thrust) not once but twice. That's not what I want to see in a gay movie, not when we don't get to see the actual gay stuff.

My other beef (and this bugs me a lot more than the sex issue) is the ending. The first two-thirds of Late Bloomers is pretty smart; the characters' feelings and motivations are demonstrated by their actions and expressions rather than spelled out through dialogue. More than that, it's believable. Rather than the highly stylized, spy-vs.-spy world of D.E.B.S., this movie seems to be taking place in Real Life, or as close to it as the movies ever get. But the ending is way too pat and perfect to be realistic. The girls don't just end up together, they get married, and every single person they know shows up to wish them well and apologize for ever being even slightly uncomfortable with their relationship.

Not only is this transformation too complete and too fast (not unlike Carmen's family's rapid and unexplained change of heart in Season 3 of The L Word), it's just plain sappy. The poetry readings and declarations of love drag on and on, undermining all the subtlety of the first chunk of the film.

Despite the ending, I like watching Late Bloomers for its sense of humour. The music choices add to the comedy, like "Wishin' and Hopin'" playing over the montage of Carly's basketball lessons -- "do the things he likes to do," say the lyrics, "and you will be his" -- while Carly is clearly falling for Dinah. Why couldn't the whole thing have been light and funny like that? If I may borrow Sarah and Lori's rating system, I'd give this film a "Trying Too Hard" bunny.

It's worth a rental, but I won't be adding it to my permanent collection.

Lesbians spinoffs that should have been

Diff'rent Strokes begat The Facts of Life. Happy Days begat Mork and Mindy. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys begat Xena: The Warrior Princess. Sometimes the spinoff show withers and dies, but sometimes it outshines the original in ratings and accolades. It all depends on which characters the Powers That Be decide to set apart from the rest and what scenarios they place them in.

To my knowledge, there has never been a lesbian spinoff -- i.e. a show created around a lesbian character plucked from a pre-existing show -- unless you count the upcoming L Word spinoff (and that chicken ain't hatched yet, as far as I'm concerned). This is a crying shame. So here, in no particular order, are five characters/pairs that should have got their own show:

1. Carol and Susan (Friends)

Appearing in a dozen episodes scattered over six seasons, this pair may just hold the record for most enduring lesbian relationship on TV. (But I'm far too lazy to research that.) They were minor characters, showing up occasionally to act as foils for Ross (Carol's ex-husband), whose animosity toward Susan (the woman who stole his wife) got big laughs.

But even though they were only there to generate or complicate storylines for someone else, it was always clear to me that these women had lives of their own that we never got to see -- jobs, a son, friends of their own. They should have had their own sitcom that mined all the potential humour of being gay women in New York City.

2. Kim Legaspi (ER)


Kim was a psychiatrist who acted as a catalyst for series regular Kerry Weaver's coming out; the two fell in love and Kerry struggled to keep it a secret from her staff and her hospital superiors, afraid that being gay would hurt her career. Kim ended the relationship when it became clear that Kerry put the job first, and before long Kim left the hospital altogether.

This pairing had a huge lesbian fan base (thanks in large part to Elizabeth Mitchell, who played Kim, being drop-dead gorgeous). More than a few of us wonder what happened to Kim when she walked out of Kerry's life. She was a bit of a lothario and wasn't above playing fast and loose with ethics and the law in order to help her patients. She should have had a primetime drama that showed her making a new start in a strange city, trying to get over Kerry and find true love. There could be lots of brooding and hot misguided sex.

3. Deirdre and Monet (Will & Grace)


In a single episode, this pair made me laugh more than the titular characters did in whole seasons. Will and Grace became apartment flippers and accidentally incurred the wrath of Deirdre and Monet, rivals in the field. This sitcom didn't do much lesbian material in its eight seasons, since its two gay male leads were not fond of dykes, so the showdown with a lesbian power couple was a breath of fresh air. The dynamic between flakey Monet and charismaric Deirdre was hilarious. Edie Falco stole the show when Deirdre put the moves on straight-but-powerless-to-resist Grace in an attempt to destroy her partnership with Will.

If these conniving-but-loveable characters had been spun off into their own show, they could have ruled a real estate empire from a chic East Side apartment, with Deirdre having to rescue Monet from various madcap adventures (several of which would involve near-infidelities that Deirdre would grudgingly forgive, as she did Monet's crush on Will).

4. Jean Kelly (Ellen)

This was another one-off character, a waitress whom Ellen met on a road trip while she was trying to get over a (temporary) breakup with Laurie. Jean was cute and flirty and definitely interested in Ellen, but nothing ever came of it because Ellen decided she had to try again with Laurie. Poor Jean! She deserved to get a happy ending too. That's why she should have got her own sitcom that focused on her job at the restaurant, a greasy spoon that's way behind the times, and the conflicts that arise when Jean, a vegetarian, tries to prevent the customers from ordering meat.

5. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)


Buffy, like Friends, did actually spawn a spinoff, but it was mopey vampire Angel who got to break out instead of my favourite character on the show, Willow the lesbian witch. Not that I would have wanted Willow to leave part-way through, as Angel did -- she was far too central to the storylines, and besides, she wasn't even gay till Season 4. My imaginary Willow spinoff would pick up after the end of Buffy and let her get out from under the slayer's shadow. (I always much prefered her to the title character anyway.)

Actually, I heard talk that a Faith spinoff was considered, though how far it ever got I don't know. From the sounds of things it would have been very similar in premise to Angel, Faith being all redemption-minded like he was -- she would go around doing good deeds and dealing with the aftermath of having been kind of a bad guy for a while. I totally would have watched it because Faith was my second favourite character on the show, but I think Willow had more potential for exploring new territory.

Who would Willow be if she lived apart from the Scooby Gang? What kind of choices would she make if she was in charge and not just Buffy's "big gun"? And most importantly, would she stay with her kickass slayer girlfriend Kennedy, who was clearly not the best match for her despite some serious sparks?

I think spinoffs might just be the key to greater lesbian visibility on TV. It's hard to get a gay show on the air, but wouldn't it be easier if the characters had already been well received on a successful show? Maybe Nikki & Nora would have been picked up if the title cops had previously appeared in an episode of, I don't know, Boston Legal. I bet execs would be a lot more comfortable with lesbian content that had the proven track record of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer or a Friends behind it. Of course these shows have been gone for too long now; they don't have the same cachet. Writers and producers need to move on these characters as soon as the shows end. Come on! Let's get some more girls who like girls on the air!

Jill Bennett's gay roles

Today I saw the trailer for And Then Came Lola, the unfinished feature film starring out actors Jill Bennett and Cathy DeBuono. I don't know how good this movie's going to turn out to be, but I don't care. I know I'm going to buy a copy as soon as it's released on DVD because that is how much I adore Jill Bennett. She's gorgeous, she's opinionated, she's smart and funny. You know the cliche about watching someone read the phone book? That was invented for Jill Bennett.

Hence this week's list: five gay characters Jill has played in various media.

1. Andrea, 3Way -- 3Way is an online comedy series about three lesbians sharing a house with a straight woman. Andrea butts heads with both Geri, her girlfriend's ex, and Siobhan, the straight woman who never wanted Andrea or Geri in the house in the first place. Jill's character is deliciously ascerbic, sometimes to the point of meanness, and delightfully uninhibited, even when it comes to her own exes. The chemistry between Jill and her co-stars makes this unconventional series fun to watch.

2. Sharon, In Her Line of Fire -- Okay, this movie is never going to win any awards or show up on any best-of lists. It's pretty lame. Its only saving grace is Jill's presence as a fiesty reporter whose verbal sparring with the vice president's stone-faced bodyguard escalates when they're marooned on a remote island together. Sharon is hot (because Jill is hot, duh) but she more or less functions as a typical "damsel in distress" in this highly predictable action-drama. She's the girl the hero fights to save, and the only original bit is that the hero's also a girl.

3. Michelle, Dante's Cove -- This role is about two things: sex appeal and campy extremes. Definitely not about plot or character development. Dante's Cove is a supernatural-themed gay soap with tons of porny interludes. While Michelle only had one really hot scene, a makeout session with a character played by out actress Michelle Wolff (the male characters get to have way more sex), Jill did get to put in white contact lenses and be all possessed and evil, soap style.

4. Casey, And Then Came Lola -- I don't know anything about this one because the movie's not even done yet. The synopsis says it's about "a talented, but distracted photographer (Lola), on the verge of success in both love and work, [who] could lose it all if she doesn’t make it to a crucial meeting on time." Is Casey the girlfriend? In one promo picture, she's cuddly with Lola, but in another, she's on the verge of kissing Cathy DeBuono's character. I look forward to working out the sides of this triangle.

5. Various, We're Getting Nowhere -- I know this is stretching it, but in order to make five, I had to include Jill's awesome AfterEllen.com video blog with writers Dara Nai and Karman Kregloe. (It's entirely possible that she's played other gay roles; I just don't know of them.) The blog started out recapping/critiquing/parodying episodes of South of Nowhere, then moved on to America's Next Top Model and then The L Word. Jill got to camp it up as Bette Porter, Jenny Schecter and a bunch of other borrowed characters and she was never less than extremely entertaining.

Strait-Jacket

I'm not really a big fan of horror movies, but lately I've become a fan of horror film blogger Final Girl, who does this thing called Final Girl Film Club, which I thought was a cool idea, so much so that I decided to participate, which led to watching the 1964 movie Strait-Jacket, something I never would have done on my own, and writing about in this post.

Strait-Jacket was directed by William Castle and stars Joan Crawford as Lucy, a middle-aged woman who reunites with her daughter Carol after twenty years apart. Why the estrangement? Well, you see, once upon a time, Lucy came home and found her husband in bed with another woman. And cut off both their heads with an axe. And did I mention kindergartener Carol witnessed the whole thing?

So Lucy has spent two decades in an insane asylum, but having apparently been released with a clean bill of health, she rejoins Carol and tries to acclimate to the outside world. Things seem to be going pretty well -- Carol being awfully forgiving of the whole father-murdering thing -- until people start getting decapitated again.

As I watched this movie, I was oddly reminded of Halloween. Think about it: a child witnesses a family member having sex; there's a murder soon afterward; someone goes away to a loony bin but returns years later to relive parts of the fateful night over and over. There's even a psychiatrist who comes looking for the former patient. But this isn't a slasher film. In the end, Strait-Jacket has far more in common with another horror classic: Psycho.

Unsurprisingly, Strait-Jacket was scripted by Robert Bloch, author of the novel on which Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is based. He took split-personality killer Norman Bates, gave him a sex change, kept the mother alive and relocated the action from the motel to a farm and a nearby town. The end result is a film with less suspense (we get way more clues about Carol than we do about Norman) and thus a less dramatic reveal (including a shot that virtually reproduces Norman-as-Mother rushing at Lila with weapon upraised).

In Psycho, it's all explained in the denouement, and the viewer looks back over the events of the film and goes, "Oh, okay, now I get it." In Strait-Jacket, though, I felt the explanation took away from the effect of the preceding however many minutes. The final sequence seems to say that Lucy is in fact 100% cured, that by doing a little art therapy and then sitting around in a padded cell or whatever for 20 years, she completely got over what happened that night. The hallucinations she experienced, the sights and sounds that seemed to haunt her, turn out to be tricks played by Carol to make Lucy think she was still bonkers, to make her act strangely so that others would be more likely to place blame on her.

I can't help thinking that no matter how great a doctor that Anderson guy was, nobody flips their lid to that extreme without some lasting effects. We're supposed to believe Lucy isn't at all haunted by guilt or remorse? Or that after living in seclusion for 20 years, she wouldn't have real trouble fitting back into society? Why does it all have to have been the product of Carol's machinations?

In the same vein, Lucy's final summation of Carol's motives -- she framed her mother for murder in order to get her locked up again -- doesn't quite make sense. It doesn't seem like it was cold logic that drove Carol's actions so much as serious psychiatric problems. It's not a clear case of split personality like Norman Bates's, but Carol definitely has identity issues, having taken on the characteristics of Lucy-the-killer. And let's not forget that Carol witnessed not only a grisly homicide but also her father having sex. No wonder she's cuckoo!

Music and sound were used to good effect in the film, the score veering from pastoral to tense and back again to set the unsettled mood. The loud, irritating noise of the windmill (under which the first of the post-asylum axings takes place) reminds us that everything's cyclical -- history repeats itself. Carol became like Lucy and is headed straight for an institution. And Lucy, for all that she's supposedly healthy now, tells her brother in the final scene that she's going back too, to help her. No matter where you go, you end up right back where you started.

That theme, along with the two female leads, sets Strait-Jacket apart from its more successful predecessor. But in the end, I can't see this as an improvement on the original. It's kind of like a child who can't ever get out from under her parents's shadow and live her own life.

See what I did there?

[ETA: Final Girl's review is here.]

British TV for lesbians

I've been struggling with how exactly to get this blog off the ground, and then I realized -- why not follow Dara and Karman's example and do some lists? I love lists. Lists are good.

So here are five U.K. television shows of interest, in no particular order.

1. Metrosexuality -- Before it became a popular term for style-conscious straight guys, it was a TV show. Over six episodes, an extended network of friends deal with various relationship-related problems over two consecutive weekends. The main focus is Kwame, a teenager who's trying to get his estranged gay dads back together while also working on his own love life, but there are two lesbian couples among the many minor storylines. Cindy and Doris are enjoying some time alone without their kids until Cindy's ex-boyfriend comes into the picture; Jaye and Flora are two young women just hooking up for the first time. The show is fast-paced and colourful and features an incredibly diverse cast; an all-around fun watch.

2. Absolutely Fabulous -- On the surface, this long-running (five series and a handful of specials) comedy has more of a gay male sensibility, what with its emphasis on fashion, design and campy fun. The main characters (especially Patsy) would make excellent drag queens, if they weren't already biological women. But I've always caught a certain lesbian vibe from them as well. Patsy and Eddie are always jealous of each other's boyfriends and never happier than when they're together. Patsy definitely functions as a wicked stepmother to Eddie's daughter Saffron and as a son-in-law to Eddie's mother. And of course, they did actual get married in New York in one of the specials, although they were extremely reluctant to seal it with a kiss. "You pucker." "No, you pucker!"

3. Sugar Rush --Now this show is lesbian through and through. It's about Kim, a teenager with a major crush on her best friend, Sugar. Problem is, Sugar is boy-crazy, not to mention a bit of a juvenile delinquent. It's funny and sweet and, at times, heartbreaking -- especially if you ever had a puppy-love experience in high school. I find the acting particularly impressive for a teen show.

4. Queer As Folk -- The U.K. version didn't last nearly as long as the North American one, so the lesbian storyline never got much of a chance to develop (but then, considering what Lindsay and Melanie went through, maybe that's a good thing). And to tell you the truth, I haven't seen it in years... but I do recall that the girls are a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sideline. On both sides of the pond, this show is primarily for the boys.

5. Bad Girls -- Apparently this prison drama is about to become the subject of yet another American remake, so we'll have to see how it stacks up. I've only seen the first three series of the original, those being the ones that featured inmate Nikki's increasingly complicated attraction to prison official Helen. There are a few other gay characters as well. This show runs the gamut from dark and brooding to borderline ridiculous -- it seems awfully easy to escape from (and sneak back into!) Larkhall Prison -- but there's always something interesting going on.

I recommend giving all of these a glance, but it can be tricky if you're North American. I think AbFab might be the only one widely available on DVD in the U.S. and Canada.