Where Are We on TV? – An Update (part 2)

By Chantal on Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 22:30

[This is part two of ‘Where Are We on TV?’ Read part one here.]

Welcome to the second installment of Where Are We on TV? – An Update. This time around, we will cover countries I through P.

First up is Iceland. While researching I was unfortunately unable to find any out and open characters or celebrities currently on television.

Ireland

Though with the ‘luck of the Irish’ on their side, there are not many people currently on TV. The one I do know about is Anna Nolan. She is a television presenter and was actually the runner-up of the first Big Brother.

Italy

In Italy we still have Marina and Esther on Terapia d'Urgenza. We’ll of course let you know where that is going.

Kazakhstan is next on the alphabetical order, but it doesn’t have current lesbian/bisexual characters/celebrities on television. Unfortunately, joining it are Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco and Montenegro.

The Netherlands

And now we’ve ended up at the Netherlands. We all know how the relationship on ONM ended up, though Miljuschka Witzenhausen is still on there, but let us look a little further.

Barbara Barend is on the current season of Wie is de Mol? (‘Who Is the Mole?’) and will be a weekly fixture, unless of course she is voted off the show.

Mirella van Markus currently presents the educational talkshow Helder (‘Bright’) on Dutch TV channel Nederland 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Photo credit: mirellavanmarkus.nl

And we’ve arrived in Norway! Despite my research, I was unable to find anyone currently on television, but I’m sure you all will correct me if I am wrong.

Unfortunately we have to conclude this part of the update with the finding that no known people or characters are on Polish or Portuguese television.

Check back next week for the final part!

Tags: dynamic, entertainment, lists, overview, series, tv

Some Questions and a comment

Submitted by Wisno on January 31, 2010 - 10:25.

How do you go about gathering your information?

By character do you mean fictional or do you also include the out women who appear regularly on tv as program hosters,on sports teams, etc?

What about lesbian-inclusive documentary material? Is this also included? Norway just ran a three part series on the current status of the gay community which included lengthy and meaningful interviews with lesbians.

While it is wonderful to find out which European countries produce dramas with regularly appearing lesbian characters, many European tv channels buy and send series produced in the the USA, UK and Australia. These series are just as influential in giving lesbians exposure as their own natively produced programs . Two examples from here in Norway, are the L Word and Grey's Anatomy.

Still it is great to find out which particular countries have a lesbian storylline we can look for on youtube with English subtitles! And thist combined with the plot summaries from the best in Europe at the moment is another valuable service to the lesbian community that you women at Eurout provide us. Thank you.

Thanks for your questions and

Submitted by Saskia Joreen on January 31, 2010 - 13:21.

Thanks for your questions and comments :)

The focus for this series of articles has been on lesBian fictional characters and out women (call them 'celesbians', if you will) who appear on TV regularly. Most of the time, this is indeed when they are presenters of a show or program. Documentary material wasn't included in this overview because the article has more of an entertainment focus. Overall, we try to be as exhaustive as possible with lists and overviews like these, but sometimes certain programs will be missed. So that's why we rely on our readers to correct us when we're wrong and that they will share any relevant 'Hot tips' with us :)

Also, I completely agree with you on the importance of non-European productions that give lesBians media exposure! If we only had our natively produced programs to rely on, there wouldn't be much to look at ;) As far as the Netherlands go, anyway.

Terapia D'urgenza

Submitted by H.S. on January 31, 2010 - 12:26.

First thing, hi everybody!! This is my first post :-)

Sorry to disappont, but as far as I know, "Terapia d'urgenza" is not going to continue after the dozen or so episodes that have already been aired. Production was discontinued, officially, due to really low ratings (unofficially due to "some" controversial storylines...)

If someone has different information, I'll be more than happy though!!!

Hi H.S., welcome to eurOut!

Submitted by Saskia Joreen on January 31, 2010 - 13:26.

Hi H.S., welcome to eurOut! :)

Thanks for the tip about Terapia d'Urgenza, sorry to hear it's been cancelled! :(

is there more?

Submitted by Cath on January 31, 2010 - 15:23.

yes, wasn't that the Italian version of Spain's Central Hospital that had such large airing gaps in the middle? -- A quick google search says it got canceled after Season 1 and with a bummer of a clffhanger, too (very inspired by Spanish television - hello, Silvia!).

Also re: Italy - shouldn't those girls from BIg Brother, whether gay-for-headlines or actually interested in each other, at least get a mention for making the topic an issue again on Italian TV?

And I can't imagine that there are no out lesbians on Norwegian TV, not after that list last week (or was it 2 weeks ago already). Calling Bente for pointers! :-)

...and loking forward to the 3rd part next week. Thanks, Chantal!

We didn't include the Italian

Submitted by Saskia Joreen on January 31, 2010 - 16:08.

We didn't include the Italian Big Brother girls because technically they're not on TV anymore, at least, not as a 'lesbian' couple anyway.

You're right about the Norwegian out lesBians though, thank you for pointing that out. We of course have Norwegian presenter Else Kåss Furuseth, television personality Christine Koht, and journalist Linda Eide. You can read more about them and other prominent Norwegian lesBians here.