Lesbian cheerleaders. They could be the reason why I ever started to watch the series Nip/Tuck years ago.
The American show about two plastic surgeons, which ended earlier this year, has always been one of my favourites. Mostly because of the humour, the surprising storylines, and the general absurdity of the show and its characters.
When it comes to lesbian representation and visibility, the show always did pretty well. The first season started off with not only the lesbian cheerleaders (click here for a description of that storyline) but also with regular character Liz (Roma Maffia), who is the lesbian anaesthesiologist of the surgical team.
Liz has always been kind of unlucky in love, which could be expected in a show that has actually never portrayed a lasting, healthy relationship for any of its characters. I remember being happy for Liz in the fourth season, where she finally has a girlfriend, Poppy (Alanis Morissette). However, things with Poppy don’t last because Poppy keeps pressuring Liz to undergo plastic surgery to ‘become her best possible self’.
With introducing Olivia (Portia de Rossi) as Julia’s (one of the surgeons’ ex-wife) new love interest in the fifth season of the series, this looked like a very promising one for lesBian visibility. Having three lesBian characters on a mainstream series at once was unfortunately not a joy that lasted very long. As much as I love the show and its creator (openly gay Ryan Murphy, the man behind other great shows like Popular and Glee), I have to admit that whatever Nip/Tuck did for lesbian visibility before, it kind of destroyed all that when they killed off Olivia and made Liz want to marry a man. And not just any man – it’s one of the leading characters on the show, Christian. A character known as being a womanizer and a sex addict, who sometimes shows his vulnerable and more human side.
I’m not one to judge lesbians that end up falling for a man. In my opinion, sexuality can be fluid. I’ve seen enough of Nip/Tuck to know this marriage won’t last anyway and I’ve seen enough of the characters to understand their motivations. Well, kind of. Liz is the first one to question her sexuality when she sleeps with Christian and discovers she has feelings for him. She concludes that she’s not bisexual after having tried another man; she’s simply only straight for Christian and gay for everyone else. Christian doesn’t seem to be in love with her but loves her as a friend, as she is the only woman that seems to love him in spite of his flaws. Selfish as always, he asks Liz to marry him when he hears he’s going to die of cancer – he doesn’t want to die alone and be remembered as a jerk.
After having watched and enjoyed years of Nip/Tuck I am willing to put up with this storyline to see where they take it, even though I firmly believe Liz would be better off with a woman, and that the Liz/Christian pairing is very weird (which, I guess, is true to the nature of this show). I’ve realized, though, that a lot of people don’t watch the show through my eyes. Many people just see a lesbian that ends up falling for a man, reinforcing the stereotype that lesbians are just waiting for the ‘right guy’ to come along. Since there are no other lesbian storylines on the show anymore to balance this out, this development in Liz’s storyline is highly problematic from a lesbian point of view, especially when she keeps on insisting to call herself a lesbian in spite of her feelings for Christian. It paints a confusing picture for the viewer of what ‘a lesbian’ really is, even though this surprising and weird plot twist fits very well into the absurd nature of this show.
I’ve asked myself why I don’t want to watch a movie like The Kids Are All Right, where one of the lesbians has an affair with a man, while at the same time I do want to watch a TV show that pretty much shows the same thing. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. The big difference for me is that Nip/Tuck is a series, which has allowed viewers to get to know the characters as three-dimensional ones and which has told more than one lesbian story over time. Not to mention it starred two very well-known out actresses (Portia De Rossi and Rosie O’Donnell). The show has managed to build some credit with me. It’s like having a good friend that you enjoy spending time with; it’s easier to forgive them for making a mistake. It’s easier to give them the benefit of the doubt to see if they will change their mind (even though the show is no longer in production, I still haven’t seen the two most recent seasons).
Despite my ‘relationship’ with Nip/Tuck, it doesn’t mean I applaud or support everything it does. Even though it’s too late to do anything about how Nip/Tuck has represented lesbians, when shows we love do stupid things it’s important to let them know just that. It’s important to let them know what we do want to see. Complain, write letters, write e-mails to networks and producers. I mean, playing around with Brittany and Santana’s sexuality on Glee is cute, Mr Murphy, but when you feature the openly gay character of Kurt, why not have an openly lesbian character as well? Is there an unwritten rule that says TV series can only have one openly gay character? Maybe there actually is, but in 2010 it’s time for mainstream TV producers and networks to step up and give us lesbians what we still desperately need – more, and proper, visibility. And until they do, we need to ask for it. Over and over again, until they get the message.
Related article on eurOut.org: ‘Lesbian storylines on television: improving or hurting lesbian emancipation?‘
16/11/2010 at 19:47
I say hey, we like what we like. you probably didn’t fall in love with Nip/Tuck because of the Lesbian representation, or it was what caught your attention in the first place, but you didn’t stick around for that JUST because of that. otherwise you would have probably been long gone.
I know there’s this whole discussion going on about representation, a discussion I frankly kind of like to be kept out unless it REALLY catches my attention other than to say that it will probably never be enough.
On either sides of the line. When there IS representation, it’s not nearly enough or it isn’t done properly. When it IS done properly and yet the couples break up for a legit reason (hello Calzona! they WILL be back) and we know it won’t last long, it still isn’t enough for people. People sometimes break up and get together people.
Even when it seems to be the perfect film in that space of time for the story the people want to be telling and the vision the creator had in mind, there’s always something people will pick out and criticize.
I don’t think anything will ever be enough for anyone. Everyone has their different tastes in life and everyone thinks a certain way about representation on television.
It is the same where people have been watching a television for years on end for the ENTIRE show and yet they’ll drop it in the blink of an eye because one of the characters is not on the show even if it doesn’t take away from the development of the actual show.
But that’s just my two cents :-)