Ask OFM with Eleni Stephanides: Queer Media

Got a queer question? Ask OFM! 

What queer media would you recommend my new girlfriend and I watch? Nothing against the heteros, but we’d like to see ourselves mirrored in what we’re reading and watching as well.

I’m so glad you asked! I want to start by acknowledging how far we’ve come in this past decade or so.

Back in 2003, the only movie my still-closeted self knew of with a lesbian in it was The Truth About Jane—which happened to be on when, channel flipping through my family’s boxy 90s TV set at the age of 12, I first realized I was gay—not in words, but on a cellular level. (The words would take years to catch up; internalized homophobia kept them at bay in the meantime ).

In many of the films I watched in the years thereafter, almost all of the lesbian relationships seemed, in some way or another, fraught or tragic. That, or the two girls were doomed to premature death after a brief series of clumsy, shame-ridden experimentations behind closed doors.

Queer women seemed to be killed off at disproportionately high rates, which a March 2017 DIVA article described as “a parlous hit rate given that lesbian and bi characters were as rare as ostrich burgers at a lesbian potluck until recently.”

This was frustrating to see when you consider that, beyond serving as mere entertainment, movies and television help us to live our lives; many of us look to them for guidance and mirroring.

“Once certain stories get embedded into the culture, they become master narratives—blueprints for people to follow when structuring their own stories,” wrote Julie Beck in an article for The Atlantic.

This is arguably difficult to do though when we don’t see ourselves reflected in them.

I don’t have an exact year, but I want to say around 2014 or 2015, I noticed this trend start to change. First there was Orange is the New Black. Then, shows with queer women characters were exploding: Casey on Atypical, Michelle on Dead to Me (played by Natalie Morales).  

Netflix shows from the Haunting of Bly Manor to Mind Hunters added more to the mix. Suddenly there were so many I ran out of hands to count them on (where before, they could fit on two). The LGBTQ women also weren’t just token characters anymore, but richly drawn and well-fleshed-out.

I recall commenting (excitedly) to a friend recently about how movie and show plots these days don’t revolve entirely around the character being gay anymore.

“Their queerness is casually slipped in. That’s how things get normalized!” I exclaimed.

An example: In an episode of the show Grace and Frankie, the woman working at the nursing home says: “ I’m not a fan of working here, but Invisi-lines don’t pay for themselves, and my girlfriend says I need them.”

In that one simple sentence,
this otherwise “straight-passing” woman reveals to viewers that she is in a lesbian relationship. I loved it.

All that’s to say, dear reader, there are a plethora of offerings available to you and your new girlfriend. Here are some of my personal picks: romantic comedy Lez Bomb (think Meet the Parents, but with two lesbians) features plenty of funny and relatable scenes for anyone who’s ever struggled to come out to their family.

Snapshots is probably one of the most poignant movies with lesbian characters that I’ve seen. In it, a girl’s grandmother reminisces to her about a woman she once fell in love with at her lakeside vacation house, while the two of them were both married to men. There was something Titanic-esque in its wistfulness, old timey feel, and portrayal of a passionate, impossible love cut short too soon.

In Cloudburst, it was nice to see two older lesbians, whose stories are not told as often. And the documentary Bean, about a young woman who donates her kidney to her immunocompromised girlfriend, will be sure to warm your heart.

Admittedly, we’re not fully there yet when it comes to encountering more humanizing representation in the media. “Even as queer characters start to get bona fide love stories, there are still subtle codes that reinforce the implication that we’re always a little bit less than worthy of true fulfillment,” wrote Erin Tatum in  Everyday Feminism.

Still, this queer right here is beyond excited about the advances. She and my teenage self are dancing in gleeful circles with one another, while rainbow fireworks burst through the sky above and Fletcher’s revamped (far more empowering, improved) version of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” blasts in the background. 

The year 2022 will continue to bring more richly drawn LGBTQ plotlines—which means, reader, plenty more opportunities for date nights wherein you’ll see yourself mirrored.