So I was sitting at home last night watching one of my favorite guilty pleasures, Fringe (a kind of X Files meets Michael Clayton, since an evil corporation, Massive Dynamics, seems to be behind all the weirdness) when the story, just for a minute, turns into a lesbian-bi/pansexual-transgender fest of possibilities.
Fantasy and sci-fi have always held fascination for LGBTQ folks for its genderbending positioning of brave new worlds. Besides the explosion in distinctly LGBTQ science fiction in the last decades, old cherished favorites like Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, remain staples of the queer literary canon. Sci-fi gives all writers and readers--not just the queer ones--a chance to think outside the straight box.
Fringe's Olivia Dunham(Ann Torv) has been having dreams that she is murdering people. In the course of the episode, she finds out that her mind is linked to a man who is a "negative empath". His emotions are highly infectious--so when he feels good or horny, other people do, and when he feels bad or angry, other people near him commit suicide or murder. Olivia gets to watch it all, since she is in his head, and it seems to her, at first, that she is murdering the guy's unintentional victims.
Cut to Olivia, under hypnosis, intentionally getting into negative-empathy guy's head. He goes into a strip joint, but the camera shows it as Olivia going into the strip joint (just as it shows Olivia-as-him in the previous dreams/murders of the episode). He/Olivia gets turned on by the female stripper. The stripper sees Olivia/him and gets turned on by her/him. They share a hot lesbian-bi-transgender kiss and go back to the stripper's place for sex. (Not shown--fuckin' wimp-ass TV show.)
It's all fun and games until somebody pokes an eye out--or slits their throat/has their throat slit. Because after sex, negative-empathy dude feels guilty, dirty, and wants to kill himself. But he doesn't kill himself; the female stripper feels dirty, guilty, and kills herself--suicide by someone else's negative emotions. Only the shot makes it look like Olivia killing her. Lesbo-bi-tranny hotness turns to lesbo-bi-tranny shame and death.
Dead after sex is a stereotypical horror/fantasy/sci-fi trope, but I'm at an over-sensitized point right now. Queerness paired with suicide or murder seems to pop up all over the place. The trail for the murder of 18 year-old transwoman Angie Zapata is now in its 5th day. That, and I've long known that suicide for LGBT youth is way higher than that for straight teens. I have just finished reviewing the movie, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh", where the bisexual bad boy kills himself in the end; then this morning I read Dayna Vance's post on an 11 year old boy hanging himself over anti-queer bullying in school. I have lived at points sufficiently low where I have considered suicide and I consider my marginalization from straight and gay cultures to be a significant contributing factor to those past thoughts.
Call me no fun to be with, but queer death is not something I can find entertaining right now. Sure Fringe is just entertainment. My geek nature will still draw me to watch it. But there is only so much that I can take from continuous, back-door, conservative-masking-as-liberal tropes against genderqueer sex and sex in general. A message accumulates: go ahead, have your fantasy--even for heterosexuals--go ahead and indulge your titillating, explorative trip outside the straight box. But in the end, the queer must die. The queer within you must die.
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Thanks for commenting.
But that's too bad that they presented it this way. Damn.
Side note: Left Hand of Darkness is an incredible book.
@odetteroulette--Ann Torv did play a bisexual woman in an English show called "Mistresses".
The Left Hand of Darkness is classic.
Although that roof top scene was pretty trippy.
I do so love the show.
You put words to it. Thank you. After seeing Kissing Jessica Stein and Monster in the same week, I felt sincere frustration at the mainstream perception and projection of bisexuality.
And good shows (and art and literature), even great ones, can contain nasty little tropes that get replayed over and over again throughout the culture.
@julie--hey, dear. It's great to hear from you. I've been checking up on your blog, even if I don't take time to comment. XO.
Years ago, I was part of Queer Nation demonstrations against "Basic Instinct" when it first came out. We spent a lot of energy and press condemning the film and encouraging a boycott against it. On the release day in Chicago, Chicago Queer Nation demonstrated right in front of one of the premier theaters. Two friends of mine, a gay man and bi woman, QN members, sneaked their way into the theater to watch it, what with all the crowd distraction. Told me later that they laughed and laughed all the way through the show. I was like, why did you do that--even if you snuck in and the studio didn't get your money, why would you watch that crap knowing about it beforehand?
Flash forward a couple of years, conversing in a bar that was mostly lesbian--was surprised when some of the lesbians there told me they loved the film. It's weird--it's also a defense mechanism--when some of the most horrendous homophobia you see on film becomes a camp classic, in the way it is received by the queer community.
So, what to think about "Fringe". I suppose I'll keep watching till something equal or worse happens. That feels like something I could go to GLAAD with. I think it's better to harass them than just change the channel.
We can turn dross into gold. From another glossy porn depiction of lesbians, to a camp classic. It is funny to watch these days...
It's a pretty safe bet that when this episode idea came up and the gimmick of how Olivia would be seen as the person in her "dreams" the writers around the table tried to figure out all the different, shocking or cool ways to do it. It's an even safer bet that when the idea of the lesbian scenes came up...they thought that would be a good idea to create more awareness and "office talk" the next day abut the show. Sad commentary...but ratings are ratings.
However, as great writers try to go as deep as possible in the subtext, the scene with the emotional empath and the stripper was just to show how he felt dirty about himself because the only way he felt he could have sex with someone was because of his empath power. Not a lot of subtext there in the writing...matter of fact the writing was pretty on the nose. But the directors subtext was to let you feel the horror of what the protagonist (and you as the viewer) feels when being unwillingly apart of something so horrendous.
The comment you made :
"But there is only so much that I can take from continuous, back-door, conservative-masking-as-liberal tropes against genderqueer sex and sex in general"
I really don’t believe that applied to the scene in question. But does that happen in some TV and Films. I'm sure it does and for that reason I don’t blame you one bit for being pissed.
It's just that the history of this kind of trope, as Organian and I have discussed, is as old as the hills. Transgressors of sexual boundaries, and this was such a moment, get slapped back in the end; not just with a reprimand or whack on the fanny, but death. At the very least, it's cliche. I don't know anything about the episode's screenwriter other than he is a Pulitzer Prize winner. Doesn't he want to avoid cliches? Doesn't he want to be daring and original? ("Max, you dummy, he just wants to get paid." "Doh!")
Now, this is where I get on my political high horse regarding art and entertainment. Murder of queer people by pathological people who have just had sex with them (Jeffrey Dahmer) or are thinking of having sex with them (Allen Andade) or pretend to want sex from them just to lure them (Matthew Shephard) is a very real part of queer oppression. Queer people committing suicide because they are overwhelmed by other people's negative emotions and messages is real--it's real right on down to 11 year-olds now. That's part of queer oppression, too.
Do we have art and entertainment that is aware and sensitive to that reality or do we have the same old crap, different episode, dressed up as daring, cutting edge, and outre/fringe?
By the way, I mention queer oppression specifically in the post but sex workers also get the same, old, real-life danger without respect from the majority and sexploitation plus death in mainstream entertainment. Lo and behold, the scene in "Fringe" is just one hackneyed, sex/queer phobic, prejudice reinforcing cliche piled on another.
Am I asking too much of television? Stop asking for too much and you get reality TV. And more dead queers and sex workers.