Hi guys, do you know any shows with relevant lesbian or bisexual characters that are either really good, or just older than 10 years… (The show, not the characters) Alternately, just some shows which are a little more LGBT focused than the “Standart”?
Once Upon A Time has a pretty well-done lesbian relationship in the seventh season. Season five had a lesbian romance episode, but the characters involved were then never mentioned again. Season seven did a better job, with the lesbian characters being recurring characters throughout the season
Station 19 started in 2018, almost old enough, I thought it was really good, of you like fire fighter procedural dramas. Had strong gay, lesbian and bisexual characters. Kind of a spin off of greys anatomy.
911 Lone Star, came out in 2020, three gay men and a trans man, I don’t think there were any lesbians, also a fire fighter drama.
Greys Anatomy, 20 years old and still going, one lesbian and one bisexual main character (I’m only at season 10, can’t speak to it past that).
Madam Secretary, came out in 2014, had one lesbian character- not really a main character though.
Adding to add:
Star Trek: Discovery is not old, but has great LGBTQ representation.
Take My Wife (2016) “A show about lesbians who are married, staying actual lesbians who are married, and no one gets breast cancer!” They have since divorced. Both main characters are stand up comics irl.
And speaking of stand up comics starting semi autobiographical sitcoms, One Mississippi (2015) is very good. 💖 Tig Notaro.
Speaking of Tig, the Handsome podcast with Fortune Fiemster and Mae Martin is great.
Speaking of Mae, Feel Good is not old, and we’ll not make you feel good, but it’s a semi autobiographical drama series about a bisexual comedian.
Watching Star Trek: Discovery is a waste of time though
All tv is a waste of time, that’s kind of the point. But congrats on your super hot take.
Discovery is a waste of time in the sense that it’s not entertaining.
The ending wasn’t great, I’ll give you that. But people who can’t scroll past the word discovery without shitting on it nearly always have let’s say, more demographically related reasons for their opinions. 😣
I notice you contributed nothing to this conversation. Did you come here specifically looking for DISCO to share your enlightening opinions?
I also could not get into discovery. But I came here to recommend DS9.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer… eventually. Can’t really think of any other good shows that old with lasting positive representation.
Ive watched the show 3 times already, and I’m planning on watching it a fourth time soon! I’m glad there’s other enjoyers out there.
Been rewatching it lately with my trans teen daughter. She’s been loving it. Showed it to my wife about 5 years ago as well as she’s never seen it.
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The L Word ran for 6 seasons, about 20 years ago. Wiki link
When I was a teenager (early 2010s era) I was so desesperate to find some lesbian representation and visibility, and then I watched a lot of lesbian movies. Here are some movies I watched back then :
TIPPING THE VELVET - Sarah Waters (2002)
The movie that every lesbian was watching at the beginning of our century. Sarah Waters also made FINGERSMITH , which is the movie that inspired “the Handmaiden”.BOUND - The Wachowski sisters (1996)
A wonderful mafia lesbian movie.SAVING FACE - Alice Wu (2004)
Lesbian and POC representation ! yay !BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER - Jamie Babbit (1999)
A comedy about conversion therapy. Yes.THE WATERMELON WOMAN - Cheryl Dunye (1996)
This one was on my watching list, but I didn’t found a cracked version back then. It’s lesbian & Black representation, that must be awesome to watch.ROOM IN ROME - Julio Medem (2013)
A movie about a casual lesbian sex story : how a powerful relationship can emerge from one night stands… That was interesting but I think I was too young to fully appreciate this kind of subject.GIGOLA - Laure Charpentier (2011)
A movie about lesbian sex work in the early 20th century Paris.CIRCUMSTANCE - Maryam Keshavarz (2011)
Keshavarz also made the recent queer movie “The Persian version”. Both are great.I hope that could help you :)
(and also, hello everybody, this is my first post !)THANK YOU!
You’re welcome!
I haven’t even watched all of these, but The Watermelon Woman was great and But I’m a Cheerleader is such a classic (and also so, so relevant now)
Skins UK attempted to deal with every topic they could get their hands on, including lesbianism (and homophobia iirc), with the drama turned up to 11.
I don’t know how it holds up today, but back then as a dramatic teen myself I loved it.
The way you phrased that means Friends counts.
Carol, Ross’ lesbian ex-wife, is surprisingly important to the show. Her divorcing him because she realizes she’s a lesbian is the first actual plot point established in the show about 2 minutes into the pilot, and her name is spoken before any of the six main characters’ names, and even before Rachel appears on screen. Sets up years of plot lines about Ross’ character, being divorced, the emotional fallout, raising a child in a broken home, and it sets up Ross and Rachel as a whole thing.
Relevant lesbian character in a show that is really good or older than 10 years. Carol from Friends.
Lost Girl was pretty decent. The main character is bi.
A couple of years short of your timeline, but Riverdale had a couple on the show.
not one I’ve seen myself yet but Wynonna Earp has been recommended to me. It hasn’t quite hit the 10 year mark though it started airing in 2016
It’s a wild and ridiculous show. Lots of fun to watch. It’s one of those rare shows that’s led almost entirely by women, and has incredibly raunchy humor.
I will always treasure the episode where the someone is explaining how their life was ruined by finding their prom date having sex with someone else during the party, and Wynonna realizing the someone else was with her.
People have given some good recommendations so far, but here’s mine:
Dear Brother A classic girl’s love story set in 1970s Japan, with a schoolgirl going to an elite private school, and falling in love with one of the school beauties, who is an absolute bad girl who takes pills and smokes. It ends sadly, but it is one of my favorite animated series.
Sailor Moon Classic 1990s anime focusing on a group of girls who transform into magical girls (named Sailor Scouts) who they can fight evil. Although it was originally censored in the U.S. at least, one of the key relationships, as the seasons go along, is between Haruka and Michiru, otherwise known as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. Both women are very in love with one another. Also, the final season features the Sailor Starlights, who are men in “real life” but when they transform, they become women. The protagonist, Usagi, is also a bisexual icon.
Revolutionary Girl Utena The two protagonists, Anthy and Utena, are undoubtedly queer (where they fall, as lesbian or bisexual is up to interpretation), with both coming to know each other after Utena finds herself involved in duels over the “rose bride” (i.e. Anthy). As time goes on, they become closer to one another, even though secrets and disturbing truths are revealed. There is some abuse of Anthy, and later of Utena, going on here, so be warned, but this is still a very good series. If you want to see something even more queer than this, then I’d recommend the 1999 film, Adolescence of Utena, if you have a chance to watch it as well.
Cardcaptor Sakura Along with featuring bisexual, gay, and intersex characters, the female friend of the protagonist, Sakura, named Tomoyo, is deeply in love with her to such an extent than she makes ALL of her battle costumes and films her during battle with her camera. This is such a classic series which was later continued in Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card.
Simoun A classic series with one side in ships which are only powered when two girls kiss one another. While there’s certainly some issues with fa service and the like, over all, this series has a lot of women loving women.
Sweet Blue Flowers A wonderful series featuring various lesbian and bisexual characters. One of the protagonists comes out as lesbian in the fourth episode and begins a relationship with another woman. She later realizes she has romantic feelings for her female friend, who later reciprocates.
Whispered Words Another wonderful series, this one involving a high school girl who is in love with her female friend but does not want to act on those feelings. At the same time, her friend has feelings for her.
Adventure Time Through this series, a bisexual vampire woman dates a young male wizard and later begins flirting with, and ultimately has a relationship with, a candy princess. Their relationship was later expanded in the Adventure Time: Distant Lands (a spinoff/continuation) episode “Obsidian,” with some great songs, with Olivia Olson voicing the vampire woman.
Steven Universe Created by Rebecca Sugar, this series follows a boy with a diamond in his belly, and his three guardians, who are Gems, who come from another world. It’s later revealed that two of these guardians are in a “fusion” with one another, symbolizing their romantic bond. There’s also various other queer characters, including pansexual, gay, intersex, and asexual characters.
Otherwise, I agree with the person who recommended RWBY. That’s it for series over 10 years old. I have more which are more recent if you are interested.
Unfortunately most lesbian/bisexual women in older TV shows weren’t about representation, but more geared towards either the male fantasy, or to make jokes off of/out of them.
Well, wasn’t old lesbian lady/aunt kind of a thing way back?
Yeah, and gym teachers, but it was always just a side character with no depth.
If you are interested in learning about queer representation on TV there’s a great YouTube channel from Matt Baume who talks about the history of it. He also wrote a book about it: Hi Honey I’m Homo
If you haven’t looking into it there was a surprisingly a lot of good representation in the 70s. This all dropped off in the 80s because of Reagan.
This all dropped off in the 80s because of Reagan.
This can be said about so many things…
Babylon 5 has two women start a relationship… sort of.
They set up a frienship that was supposed to turn into a romantic relationship, but one of them left the show, cutting that subplot short. They still try to work it in, as the last couple episodes before the character exit heavily imply they are romantically/sexually involved, but nothing is explicitly confirmed until the next season when the remaining character briefly opens up about having loved the now absent character.
It’s not much, but it’s still pretty big for the early to mid 90s.
I kinda wonder where that was planned to go if Andrea Thompson hadn’t quit the show. All of the rogue telepath/underground railroad/badass black eyes stuff/…Byron, I guess? stuff was supposed to be Talia, who’s powers had been enhanced by that boyfriend guy of hers, Ironheart or whatever his name was. “See you in a million years.” Except they had to replace her with Lyta, who had spent her time away being touched by Vorlons.
So Lyta got most of Talia’s part…except she and Ivanova weren’t involved, Ivanova moved onto another doomed relationship with Marcus. What were they going to do with Talia and Susan if Andrea Thompson hadn’t quit the show?
Was the recording of her personality from before she and Susan had gotten together, meaning Susan’s feelings were now unrequited?
And it’s even more complicated by the fact that Talia was already the replacement for Lyta. And that the revelation about her being a sleeper was never meant to happen unless she left. Oddly enough, that exit was actually recycling the plan for Takashima had she made it past the pilot, only she got replaced… by Susan.
Plus there’s Garibaldi. His interest in Talia mirrors Zach’s interest in Lyta. Garibaldi’s interest is never resolved because of Talia’s exit. That they tried to reestablish that idea with Zach and Lyta implies there was a plan. Given where things go with Garibaldi and telepaths (including Lyta) that might have been very interesting.
Instead, Zach’s interest gets folded into the Byron plot. But Byron is also a late addition caused by the whole cancelation and uncancelation around season 5. If they hadn’t lost multiple cast members and rushed key plotlines to fit them into season 4, things would have probably been very different.
It’s an interesting study in TV show design, isn’t it?
Ellen - before she was a talk-show host, Ellen DeGeneres played the main character in an Emmy award-winning sitcom. The show had LGBT characters, with Ellen herself (both the character and actress) coming out later in the show’s run.
I’m surprised I’ve not seen Will & Grace mentioned (I’m sure it must be here, but I didn’t notice it). That show famously featured many LGBT characters, including a lesbian couple who were Will and Grace’s main rivals.
Less specifically for lesbian characters, but featuring a gay couple as main characters, you’ve also got The New Normal, a fantastic show about a gay couple that was cancelled after one season, and, of course Modern Family.
I wouldn’t say that this programme was good, but Brookside famously featured the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on British TV (the watershed is the point, 9pm, where it’s assumed that children will no longer be watching TV). This was in 1994, when we still had backwards Conservative Party laws about it being illegal to “promote public discussion” of homosexuality. For context, it’s worth noting that even two years later, when Carol and Susan got married in Friends they didn’t kiss.
