Lesbian storylines on television: improving or hurting lesbian emancipation?

Great article, Anna! I especially agree with you on the last part - we can't rely on the media to further our emancipation and visibility. What we do ourselves is even more important. We should take what we can get from the positive representations and make sure we're heard by producers/TV makers when they show negative portrayals.

"In the end I’d say it’s still up to us to represent ourselves. TV is meant to entertain and make money, not further our agenda. Let’s focus on the good portrayals and draw strength from them."

While I do agree that in the end it's still up to ourselves, I disagree on the part that TV is meant to entertain and make money.

Though, yes, I am one of the few that actually does know that most stuff on television is not a representation of real life, a lot of younger people still watch television and a whole heap of young LGBT were not even able to emencipate themselves until they saw themselves being represented on television (no matter how bad or good it was).

A lot of them were even in denial about their sexuality, or cobwebs were not able to be cleared up from their mind until they saw a television show that had lesbian characters on them.

While I do agree that most storylines are too ridiculous to even be mentioned (mostly soap series), we do actually need the media. Especially when it comes to representation.

And here comes the devil's advocate...

Why not have the most ridiculous storylines for lesbians like they have been there for heterosexual couples (uhm hello women who marry their baby daddies... who raped them to get them pregnant in the first place).

We want to be treated equally don't we? We want to be treated normal don't we? Then why not give us those storylines. We can moan and groan all we want about representation, but why not treat just treat us equal and normal and just like any other couple on the shows with the ridiculous storylines.

Now of course, the whole ridiculous storylines thing mostly only come into play on soap shows, so to be fair, we are pretty much being treated equally enough as far as equal can go on soaps.

What I'm, very longwindedly am trying to say is - until we are equally represented everywhere we need any piece of visibility we can get. The good, the bad, the down right confusing, it's all the process of 'getting there'. Look at other minority groups. They didn't just waltz in over night, that has been a process, heck in some countries, and in some parts of the most liberal countries minority groups are still being ridiculed.

It is up to us, the others, to educate the people whenever something bad is being put on television. that is exactly how progress is made. So I will gladly have the good the bad and the ugly if this means that people will educated each other about it.

Ok, I think I've been long enough now. Do discuss ;-) I love a good conversation and anything replied to this will be taken in stride, anything not understood, just tell me and I'll try to be more clear.

Oh, and one more thing. I think Corrie has been very much not given the credit that it actually deserves. I especially think that it should be stopped being compared to Skins' Naomily. While I do not disagree with the sheer awesomeness that is Naomily - Corrie is very much a different show.

For one. it's a soap series that has been around since the 1960's. It is currently the longest running soap series in the world (with mention in Guinness and all), in it's almost 50 year run time (Dec 9!!) the relationship between Sian and Sophie is the soap's first lesbian storyline in those 50 years.

Most viewers of Coronation Street are in an entirely different demographic league as Skins was more aimed at a younger audience, while Coronation Street still has a lot of the 'older generation' followers.

There are probably several reasons why Sophie and Sian haven't had a bigger following. One specifically being that it is a soap series and soap series are generally received as being less than.

Sophie and Sian's storyline has been playing and acted out with more respect, equality, visibility (that is NOT for ratings) and truth then I have ever seen on a soap series.

it's a topic dear to my heart and you're raising some interesting points here.

My take:

I'm a serial monogamist when it comes to (mostly German) soaps, so one or another has always been part of my life for the last twenty years. And with them came Andrea & Babette/Billy & Anna-Lena (Marienhof), Carla & Hanna/Susanne/Stella (Verbotene Liebe), Saskia & Harumi, Paula & Franzi (GZSZ), Tanja & Franzi/Susanne (Lindenstraße), Christine Walter & every woman there was with her behind bars (Hinter Gittern) ...

I seriously doubt that a lot of those pairings and storylines have helped the "LGBT case" - that is dimished stereotypes or furthered our agenda or else. Most of them were too flawed and clichéd for that (as opposed to Skins or Corrie now, I'd say).

But, and this is a huge but, they helped me figure out myself and my sexuality. Things I couldn't or didn't want to name where there, every night, on my TV screen. I couldn't look away, literally and figuratively. And one day, I didn't want to look away any longer.

That's the power of soaps (and every fiction), I'd say. It doesn't have to be good to hold a valuable message. So, Rebecca & Miriam on "Verbotene Liebe": I don't care about the already silly plot points and the french pornesque setting. I love you two already :)