“I do not believe God is going to smite me for being a lesbian. But April is afraid to go public because her father, who “hates the gays,” won’t support her if she comes out.” Importantly, April doesn’t think being gay is at odds with her Christianity. What she doesn’t want is for her relationship to be a secret. She seems to be more bi or fluid, but doesn’t want to put a label on it yet. While some television shows from the mid-2000s have faced criticism for not showing queer couples demonstrating any kind of romantic affection (see: “Modern Family”), in “Teenage Bounty Hunters” we get to see April and Sterling “do cute couple stuff like woodworking, laser tag, and making silly kissy faces on the phone,” as Delia Harrington noted for Bi.org, part of the American Institute for Bisexuality, an organization that seeks to support people who identify as bisexual and promote bi visibility.Īpril knows she’s a lesbian, but Sterling isn’t so sure. Over the next few episodes the two date secretly. Sterling is mortified after she kisses April, but surprisingly, April reciprocates. When the show begins, Sterling (Maddie Phillips), one of a pair of twin protagonist high school students, is dating Luke, a sweet and hapless boy she’s been with since she was in elementary school, but midway through the show, there’s a twist, when Sterling realizes she is attracted to her class rival, April (Devon Hales). ![]() It takes place in a very white, very conservative, very Christian suburb of Atlanta. “Teenage Bounty Hunters” is sillier but still has important things to say. (If this newsletter post gets you to watch one of them, my job here will be done! Let me first reiterate my spoilers warning.)įirst, run, don’t walk to your nearest Netflix account and watch the zany dramedy “Teenage Bounty Hunters.” The show was produced by Jenji Kohan of “Orange Is the New Black” (2013) fame, a revolutionary show that spoke to the power that television can have in influencing public political discourse on the prison-industrial complex-and also featured a bisexual protagonist and a range of queer characters. I’m especially excited to talk about this topic, because they concern two of my favorite shows, which are criminally underrated and underwatched. Yet in recent years, and particularly in the wake of 2016, as Gen Z has become ascendant, we’ve seen more positive and nuanced portrayals of bisexuality. One of those stereotypes is that lesbianism and bisexuality among women exists for the sole purpose of titillating men, a stereotype that was alive and well during the mid-aughts “I Kissed a Girl” phase of bisexual representation on TV (see “The O.C.” and “How I Met Your Mother.”) Then there was the “ depraved bisexua l” trope embodied by Alison in “Pretty Little Liars,” (and a deeply offensive portrayal of a trans person) despite the show’s positive portrayal of a lesbian character, Emily. Broadly speaking, the late ‘90s and early aughts years of “Sex and the City” and “Friends,” and even “Will and Grace,” were chock full of offensive bi stereotypes and erasure. Though marriage equality and LGBTQ rights are of course not the same thing, the legalization of gay marriage does attest to a monumental shift in the perception of queerness over the course of one generation.īi representation specifically has also come a long way, and in television that journey has been a rocky one. Indeed, the fight for marriage equality is often cited among organizers as one of the fastest, most effective shifts in public opinions in social movement history. ![]() Today, at least among the progressive crowd, this kind of thinking feels completely backwards, a testament to how far the LGBTQ movement has come over the last two decades. For a show allegedly about sex positivity among women, that sure is closed-minded. The implication here is that bisexuality is shameful, slutty, threatening, and simply, not real. Bisexuality, Carrie quips, “is just a layover on the way to Gaytown.” Charlotte adds, “pick a side, and stay there.” Samantha, bless her heart, is the only one who doesn’t have a problem with it.Īs my friend (who is bi herself) texted, “They named every bi stereotype in one brunch.” “Of course it’s a problem,” pipes up Miranda. Yesterday my friend texted me about one episode of the show I’d forgotten about, in which Carrie is disgusted by the fact that a younger man she is seeing is, in her words, “ a bisexual.” Her friends back her up at a classic biphobic brunch with the gals. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the show, which I’d expected to feel much more outdated than it did-with some important digressions. I first watched the show in 2015, long after it stopped airing in 2004, thanks to a roommate who had a box set that I devoured during the depressive seven months I lived in DC, pining for New York City.
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