“One Big Happy” Gets Axed, Ilene Chaiken Gets Crowned: How Lesbian TV Fared This Renewal Season
It is the best of times and the worst of times, a season of sweet relief and a season of crushing blows, it is TV renewal season and it has been quite a day. (It’s also May Sweeps, so really it’s been quite a week. Charlie, the lesbian character on Supernatural, was murdered; and Nyssa, the lesbian character on Arrow, was married off to a man.) We spend a lot of time talking about how we’re striding into this golden age of queer representation on television, and while it’s true that we’ve made astronomical progress in the last ten years, it’s important to remember that queer women are still wildly underrepresented on TV, and so every tiny scrap of representation matters. (See above, re: May Sweeps.)
Let’s run down the good, the bad, the unknown, and the whatever of this renewal season.
The Good
+ Y’all, Ilene Chaiken inked a two-year seven-figure deal with 20th Century Fox. She will continue to showrun Empire and she’ll also work to develop new projects. One boss over at 20th said, “Ilene is about as gifted a showrunner as there is in this business.” She’s always going to be the murderer of Dana Fairbanks and Other West Hollywood Horrors to me, but also there has never been a show like Empire, and I mean that in terms of race and sexuality and also, I mean, any person who is responsible for bringing more Cookie Lyon into my life is a kind of hero.
+ ORPHAN BLACK IS BACK FOR SEASON FOUR.
+ Black-ish, which featured Raven-Symone as a lesbian character last week — a thing we’ll talk about in Boob(s On Your) Tube on Monday — has been picked up for a second season.
+ Fresh Off the Boat, another show centered around people of color that gave us a really stellar gay-themed episode this year, has also been renewed for season two.
+ You know Grey’s Anatomy is back for a 12th season, nbd. ABC has renewed it through infinity.
+ The 100 is coming back for season three, so Clarke and Lexa can figure out what the heck is going on between them.
+ Jane the Virgin will for absolutely sure return for a second season, which is super amazing news, and not just because it features Luisa, a lesbian woman of color whose new girlfriend is a professional wrestler named Juicy Jordan. It’s also a show full of kickass feminism and so many women interacting with each other about so many amazing things all the time. It’s my absolute favorite show of 2015.
+ No one knows if this summer’s Rookie Blue is season 6 or season 5B, but whichever one it is, it’s back! Gail and Holly, hurrah! (Same for Under the Dome; it’ll be back this summer with its widowed lesbian mama.)
+ These awesome female-led shows that don’t feature queer female characters (yet) have also been renewed: How to Get Away With Murder, Agent Carter, Madame Secretary, and Scandal. (Thank you for being a friend, ABC.)
The Bad
+ NBC pulled the plug on One Big Happy after a shaky, but promising six-episode first season. Here’s hoping the Peacock understands that it wasn’t the lesbian lead that caused the show’s ratings troubles. And here’s hoping Liz Feldman enjoys all the success in the world in the future. She deserves it.
+ NBC also killed Marry Me, which featured “soft butch flannel queen” Kay, one of my favorite new lesbian characters of the 2014-2105 TV season, and one of the very few black lesbian characters on broadcast TV.
+ ABC passed on the Fortune Feimster/Tina Fey tag-team, Family Fortune, which would have been a multi-camera sitcom (co-starring Annie Potts!) about Fortune coming out to her family. I’m really bummed about this one not making it.
+ Fox cancelled The Mindy Project, Riese’s favorite comedy and the show that gave us a new lesbian character of color named Dr. Jean and Julie Goldman and Laverne Cox on our screens this year. But! There’s a very real chance Hulu is going to pick it up.
+ We also lost supporting queer characters on Parenthood, Heart of Dixie, and Red Band Society, none of which got renewed. Parenthood got a proper send off, at least.
The Unknown
+ One of the characters on Weird Loners came out as bi this week (which, again: we’ll talk about in Boobs Tube!), but Fox still hasn’t announced if the show will get a second season.
+ Person of Interest hasn’t yet been renewed for a fifth season and it needs to be because if I don’t get to see Root and Shaw make out some more I am going to LOSE MY MIND.
The Whatever
GIVE HER BACK!
+ Supernatural is coming back for season 11, but hey guess what? They killed Charlie the lesbian this week, so until they resurrect her, I don’t care.
+ The CW has given Arrow a fourth season, which I want to be excited about because Nyssa al Ghul is a lesbian woman of color who also is a badass motherfucker, but the show killed off bisexual superhero Sara Lance earlier this season and married Nyssa off to Oliver last week, so.
+ Gotham completely forgot Renee Montoya exists and played the Bisexual Psycho trope all over the finale with Barbara Kean, so until I hear about some serious progress on those two fronts, that show is dead to me.
+ The Good Wife is coming back but they messed up to bad with Kalinda in the end and now she’s gone and so I don’t care about it.
That’s all I know for now. I’ll update the unknowns as soon as they’re known.
Here’s 35 LGBTQ Female TV Characters of Color Who Made 2014 A Very Queer Year
2014 was a remarkable year for queer women on scripted television. Five years ago, broadcast and cable networks clocked in at 32 queer female characters, total. This year, they boasted over 100. When I started covering lesbian media back in 2008, we didn’t have enough content to split between five writers for one weekly column; these days, we couldn’t recap every show with a queer female character if we had a full-time army of writers. TV still has a long way to go, both in terms of the quantity and quality of writing for LGBTQ women and trans women in particular, but we have come a really long way in a really short amount of time.
One of the main things to cheer about this year was that there were more LGBTQ characters of color on television than ever before. I counted 34 on broadcast, cable and streaming TV services. That’s more than the total number of lesbian/bi characters on TV in 2009, which is good news! It’s not great news, but it’s good news!
The reason it’s not great is because of those 34 characters, ten of them won’t be returning in 2015 due to being killed off their shows, written off their shows, or having their shows cancelled. There’s some overlap here. Nenna (Crossbones), Tara (True Blood) and Rayna (Matador) were killed off, for example, but their shows were also cancelled. The other thing that makes it good-not-great news is that of the remaining women, only six can really be counted as main characters. And, of course, fictional queer women of color only make up about 30 percent of the total number of fictional queer women on TV, and it’s still painfully uncommon to see a same-sex couple on TV where both women are of color.
Like I said, we’ve got a long way to go.
But, it’s encouraging that the number of queer female characters on TV has increased 300 percent in five years. And it’s encouraging that it is becoming commonplace to add queer female characters to new TV shows, and that these characters won’t always be white. And it’s super encouraging that streaming TV services are making broadcast network models of making television completely obsolete. Things are changing faster than I ever thought possible, visibility-wise. So, as we keep pushing forward for equality in mainstream media, let’s celebrate the 34 queer characters of color who helped usher in one of the most promising years of LGBT TV in history.
Adriana Mendez, The Bridge
FX didn’t renew The Bridge for a third season, but for 26 exciting episodes, Adriana gave Lois Lane a run for her money when it came to investigative reporting.
Arika, Dominion
I don’t want to spoil the dozen surprise plot twists and turns of Syfy’s Dominion, but I will spoil this one: Arika isn’t who she says she is, and that includes the part where she pretends to be into doing it with David Whale (played by Anthony Head Stewart, so: Old Man Giles, basically).
Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy
She may have called it quits with Arizona this season, but she’s not calling it quits on being one of the most kickass surgeons at Seattle Grace.
Camilla and Jocelyn, East Los High
This couple surprised us in the very best way on season two of Hulu’s original drama.
Carolyn Hill, Under the Dome
First, her wife died. Then, the Dome’s magnetization caused her house to knock her out. Then, she was almost shot for discovering a stockpile of food and supplies. But Carolyn survived Stephen King’s hellscape, and she’ll be back for season three!
Diana Barrigan, White Collar
USA finally pulled the plug on White Collar this year after a six-episode mini-season, and while the show never gave Diana the screentime she deserved, they also didn’t brutally axe-murder her to further the plot of the three main white guys on the show. Progress!
Emily Fields, Pretty Little Liars
She will go down as one of the most progressive lesbian characters in the history of television. This year, she even scissored a resurrected ghost.
Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife
Kalinda’s story was on the back burner for many of the early episodes of season six, but she’s back in the thick of things now. She’s even building a relationship with Lana that might actually be serious.
Kay, Marry Me
Tymberlee Hill‘s “soft butch lipstick flannel queen” is the best new original queer character of the 2014-2015 TV season, hands down.
Korra and Asami Sato, The Legend of Korra
Lena Adams-Foster, The Fosters
2014 was an emotionally devastating year for Lena, but at least she and Stef finally got rid of that sex-killing hospital bed Annie Potts bought them.
Luisa Alver, Jane the Virgin
Accidentally artificially inseminated the wrong woman because she was in shock that her wife cheated on her? Check. Slept with her step-mom? Check. Tossed into an asylum? Check, check. Luisa lives in Miami, but it might as well be Rosewood.
M-Chuck, Survivor’s Remorse
She’s the sister of an NBA legend in the making, but M-Chuck is the real superstar of her family. She keeps them together. She doesn’t pull punches. And sometimes she makes out with ladies in church.
Max, Black Sails
Max is a sex worker in a brothel in Nassau who finds true love with Eleanor Guthrie for a hot second before things get bad like they always do when pirates come to town.
Nyssa al Ghul, Arrow
The only good thing about Sara Lance getting murdered is it opened the door for Nyssa Al Ghul to finally make her way back to Starling City to settle some scores. She’ll be back in 2015, too, with Flashback Sara at her side!
Poussey Washington, Orange Is the New Black
We cannot get enough of this character, which was easily one of the most beloved of the year.
Renee Montoya, Gotham
A kickass Latina lesbian of color who re-won the heart of the woman who is engaged to the whitest white hero in the history male whitedom. And she did it while taking down bad guys and wearing heels! If you thrive on the tears of fanboys, Gotham is your eternal sustenance.
Santana Lopez, Glee
She won back Brittany. She won Rachel’s Broadway role. And in the (merciful) final season of Glee, she is actually getting gay married. Who’d have thunk it back in season one when she was just a lesbian throwaway joke? Four for you, Santana Lopez. You go, Santana Lopez. (And none for Ryan Murphy bye.)
Shana Fring, Pretty Little Liars
She turned out to be a maniac who died by falling three feet off a theater stage, but at least we still got to see her in flashbacks/the multi-camera funeral her family filmed from different angles and uploaded to YouTube.
Sophia Burset, Orange Is the New Black
Laverne Cox didn’t come close to having enough to do in season two of Orange Is the New Black. She was fierce as hell, but super underused. Season three is going to be her time to shine, we’re sure of it.
Tara Thornton, True Blood
Another casualty of 2014 on another TV show that lasted three seasons past its expiration date. Ah, Tara. You really were too good for this world.
Unique Adams, Glee
There are rumors that Unique’s class of New Directions won’t be back for the final season of the show, but I’ve Stopped Beleivein’ anything about Glee until I see it with my own bleeding eyes.
Reagan, Faking It
There’s a lot to love about this 19-year-old DJ who succeeded in pulling Amy away from her crush on her straight best friend, Karma, like that she’s awesome and a feminist and hot and also that she’s Not Karma.
Kate, Last Tango in Halifax
Thank the gods of Public Television that they brought this show (legally) across the pond for us. Kate and Caroline are one of the sweetest queer couples we’ve seen in ages.
Nenna, Crossbones
The show only lasted a minute, but it was a beautiful minute of Tracy Ifeachor playing a lesbian pirate.
Dr. Jean Fisherman, The Mindy Project
Jean made her entrance with a Sweeps Weeks-style lesbian kiss of a very straight Mindy, but we were willing to overlook it because there was so much to love about her character. Now all we need is more of her.
Brook Soso, Orange Is the New Black
It turns out Piper 2.0 might actually be even nuttier than Original Piper, which always makes for good game on Orange Is the New Black.
Reyna, Matador
Reyna was one of way too many lesbian characters that were murdered on TV this year, but at least El Ray pulled the plug on the show in a moment of sweet comeuppance after the end of the first season.
Natalie, Switched at Birth
In addition to being a woman of color, Natalie is the only deaf lesbian on TV since Marlee Matlin‘s Jodie Learner on The L Word. She refuses to wear a dress to prom, refuses to give up her Prom King crown, and refuses to stop making out with her girlfriend in her school’s hallways. She’s pretty badass.
Lt. Alisha Granderson, The Last Ship
Much like Ming-Na Wen‘s character on Stargate Universe, Lt. Granderson leaves her girlfriend on earth to go do stuff in space. Specifically, she’s looking for a cure for a virus that wiped out 80 percent of the world’s population. So, like Interstallar without Matthew Mcconaughey mansplaining everything the whole time.
Suzanne Warren, Orange Is the New Black
Uzo Aduba deserves every award nomination she’s pulled down for her nuanced, powerful portrayal of Suzanne in Orange Is the New Black‘s second season. She was the highlight in every single way.
Tituba, Salem
Is she canonically queer? Is she not? Let me just quote Rachel here: “I mean, what kind of a world do we want to live in, where we watch someone have gay witch sex and then try to second-guess it?” And there you have it!
Dani, Glee
She only showed up for one episode of Glee in 2014, but she did it in so much style.
“The Mindy Project” Debuts Lesbian Character Married To Julie Goldman, Bless It
Last night’s episode of my favorite currently-airing sitcom, The Mindy Project, introduced this season’s brand new lesbian character, Dr. Jean Fishman, played by Niecy Nash. You may remember Niecy Nash from Reno 911. If you don’t, you should probably cancel your plans for the day and marathon Reno 911 instead. At some point you’ll feel like you’ve had enough Reno 911 for the day, at which point Episode 305 of The Mindy Project, “The Devil Wears Land’s End,” will be up on Hulu and then you can watch it while you eat supper. There, I just planned your day for you!
The episode is traditional Mindy Project fare: Mindy’s self-absorption gets her and everybody around her into trouble, jokes are made at everybody’s expense, flexible and often progressive ideas about sexuality are expressed, those two bros work out their obvious sexual tension, etc. But this time WITH LESBIANS!
Watching last week’s episode of “Faking It”
The show kicks off and Mindy quickly gets in trouble when her phone’s Iggy Azelia ringtone goes off during Dr. Jean Fishman’s big introductory speech to all the doctors who do stuff at her hospital, and thus Mindy’s practice is punished with a shitty hospital schedule. In order to transform this dismal situation into a more delightful situation, Mindy takes Jean out to do girlfriends stuff, but Jean thinks it’s girlfriends stuff.
But Mindy’s still dating Ted the Republican from Six Feet Under and it turns out that Jean also has a girlfriend and her name is Deborah (obviously) and she’s played by our patron saint Julie Goldman. Hijinks ensue! You’ll have to see for yourself.
Scissoring? I could take it or leave it.
Last night’s story contained a thing I generally dislike — a lesbian kissing a straight girl who isn’t actually interested in her — but in this context, the whole situation still landed. (Plus the ep’s other storyline featured a guest appearance by Shonda Rhimes!) The lesbian storyline was granted the same level of often-disrespectful ridiculousness every story gets on the show, and GLAAD has indicated that Jean Fishman will be a recurring character. We had a black lesbian and a butch lesbian holding hands on a television show! I know Kaling has responded to fan criticism of various elements of her show in a way that many people on the internet aren’t impressed with and sometimes this episode inspired my girlfriend to make this face, but I laughed out loud more than once. Plus, a new episode of The People’s Couch starring Julie Goldman and Brandy Howard was on right afterwards, so if I’d had a banana peanut butter milkshake then it would’ve been a perfect 1.5 hours on the couch!