Vicky Syred – BiBloggers

Glee article in recent BCN magazine

I recently had an article published on the Bi Community News website, so I thought I'd share it on my blog as well. It was written before Glee returned to Sky for its fourth season.

Ask most fans of Glee about its representation of bisexuality and very often one episode gets brought up: Blame it on the Alcohol. In their infinite wisdom, the creators of Glee decided it'd be a great idea to take an established gay character, get him drunk and have him snog a girl, sober up, decide to date her for a bit, doubt his sexuality and then after kissing her when sober go back to being gay again. All in the space of one episode.

Lovely.

However, from the second episode of Glee there has been positive representation of bisexuality that the creators have at times seemed not to want you to know about and her name is Brittany S. Pierce.

Ever since Brittany debuted on screen as a bit part during Showmance, she's been unashamedly eyeing up boys (including Mike who she's rumoured to have dated in the first season) and girls (especially but not exclusively Santana, who she’s now in a long distance relationship with) alike.

There were only a couple of lines delivered by Brittany in the first season which explored her sexuality:

After Santana said "Sex is not dating", Brittany agreed, saying "If it were, Santana and I would be dating." This had been meant to be delivered as a joke, but after saying that the two of them exchanged awkward glances.
During Bad Reputation, she wonders why she’s only fourth in the Glist (a ranking of sexual depravity of the members of New Directions) when "I've made out with, like, everyone in this school. Girls, boys, Mr Kinney the janitor."

In the second season when Brittany's actress, Heather Morris, was taken on as a regular cast member the show started exploring her sexuality. After a make out session with Santana during Duets, Brittany suggests they sing Melissa Etheridge's 'Come to My Window' for that week’s assignment for Glee. As Santana was still a closet lesbian at this point, she refused, but the fact Brittany even asked shows she was comfortable singing a romantic song to another woman in front of the rest of the Glee club.

When Santana finally admits she loves Brittany during Sexy, Britt is dating Artie. Although Brittany freely admits she loves Santana back, as she was already with someone else, she says she can’t break up with him because she loves him too and it "wouldn't be fair to him". This successfully challenges the stereotype that bisexuals can’t commit to any one person.

At the time, although it was pretty obvious to me that Brittany was already comfortable with loving people regardless of their gender, the writers themselves couldn't seem to decide what to label her. After giving Santana a 'Lebanese' T-shirt, she asks if the reason Santana’s upset with her is because she’s a lesbian and Brittany thinks she’s bi-curious (pause for groan).

Since then, however, the writers have given Brittany lines to show quite how open she is about her own sexuality:

During I Am Unicorn, when talking to Kurt about her running as a candidate for class president, she says she realised she was a unicorn too [with Santana's help!], and followed this with "maybe a bicorn".
During The Spanish Teacher, she joked that she was "bilingual".
In Props, after Santana told a teacher in the teachers’ lounge that they were both gay, Brittany pointed out that she wasn't "totally gay" (pause for another groan), but that this didn't make a huge difference to Santana’s point.

I’ll admit that the lines they’re getting Brittany to deliver aren't always perfect. However, Brittany is now in a long term relationship with a girl, Santana, but the show isn't afraid to point out that she herself isn't gay. In similar situations, other TV series have chosen to identify the character as gay, regardless of who their past relationships were with:

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow had a committed and long term relationship with Oz and also was in love with Xander. However, during and after her relationship with Tara, she said she was “gay now”.
Hollyoaks is a repeat offender:
- When Sarah Barnes entered into a relationship with Lydia, despite the number of men she’d been with before, she proclaimed to everyone that she was a lesbian.
- Ste Hay was in a relationship with Amy Barnes for years and they had children together but after he started sleeping with Brendan, he apparently decided to come out as gay.

At the end of season three, it was revealed Brittany will be retaking senior year whereas her girlfriend has graduated. It’s not clear where Santana will move on to but it’ll be interesting to see how Glee handles a long distance relationship between the two of them and whether they stay together or not.

bi erasure bisexuality diatribe guardian Touch of Cloth

Anne Oldman: Latest in a long line of victims of bi erasure

Really Guardian? I was only two weekends ago defending your editorial integrity.

Then you spring bi erasure on me.

In your recent interview with Surrane Jones, her character in 'A Touch of Cloth' is described as "herbal tea-drinking lesbian caricature Anne Oldman" even though the character states in the TV show itself that she is in fact a bisexual.

Yes, I have already reported this factual error to your readers' editor, in an email dated 20th November. I haven't received an auto-response so I don't even know if you've received it, hence this post.

Try again please.

Edited to add:

The Guardian responded to my comment (on 4th March 2013) about this article:

Hannah says that Suranne referred to the character, Anne, as a lesbian, in terms of telling her she would be getting a new girlfriend in the next series, and that there would be more "lesbian ringtones". Hannah took this to refer to a running joke in the show, where each time her phone rings a song by an iconic lesbian artist such as KD Lang is heard. Anne is in a live-in relationship with a woman in the show and Hannah thinks the "bi" reference is one of the many puns, such as the one you cited, there to get a laugh:

"So you're a lesbian?"
"Bi, Jack."
"OK, I'm going!"

So in that sense, and primarily as a joke, she does define herself as bisexual. She is, however, only seen having relations with women.

So, that would be bi erasure then Guardian?

bisexuality Glee tv

Brittany Pierce: a positive portrayal of teen bisexuality

To start off with, one thing needs to be said: Brittany Pierce in Glee is an out and proud bisexual. Not convinced? OK, let's hear it from her:

During I Am Unicorn, when talking to Kurt about her running as a candidate for class president, she says she realised she was a unicorn too (with Santana's help!), and followed this with "maybe a bicorn".
During The Spanish Teacher, she joked that she was "bilingual".
In Props, after Santana told a teacher in the teachers' lounge that they were both gay, Brittany pointed out that she was bi, but that this didn't make a huge difference to Santana's point.

Right, on to why I think Brittany is one of the most positive portrayals of bisexuality on TV. First of all, the show acknowledges she's bi even though she's currently in long term a relationship with someone of the same sex (Santana). Contrast this with Willow, who despite having been in a serious relationship with Oz from season 2 until the start of season 4 of Buffy, was labelled as gay during and after her relationship with Tara. Also contrast this with Marissa Cooper of The OC, who was labelled as gay when she was in a relationship with Alex, but went back to being straight when Alex left.

Second of all, she's never had a problem with her own sexuality and she's also been very open about it. There hasn't been any big coming out moment for her because she didn't hide it in the first place:

During Bad Reputation, after Artie finds her in the choir room after she "forgot how to leave", she bemoans being so low on the Glist despite the fact she's made out with everyone, clarifying she meant with girls as well as boys.
During Born This Way, after Santana says Brittany doesn't love her back, Brittany retorts "I do love you, clearly you don't love you as much as I do or you'd put this shirt on and you'd dance with me". This indicates Brittany has no qualms about being seen to dance romantically with a girl (a girl declaring her sexuality, no less).
During Rumours, after Santana sings 'Songbird' to her, Brittany offers to "go first", by asking Santana to go to the prom with her on Fondue For Two.

Now, since I wrote a post about Santana's sexuality and how it makes the most sense for her to be a lesbian, I have had a few objections to my stating Britt is a good portrayal of a bisexual, I will address these in turn.

Her sexuality is associated with her stupidity.
I don't know where this comes from because when it comes to her personal relationship with Santana Brittany has often been very smart:
- In Born This Way Brittany makes Santana a 'Lebanese' T-shirt because she knew that Santana wouldn't be strong enough to do it herself.
- During New York, when Santana said to Brittany "you're my best friend", she replied "I do too", indicating Brittany knew Santana actually meant "I love you".
- During Mash Off, she's able to calm down Santana when she was on the warpath by singing "stop the violence".
- In Saturday Night Glee-ver when Santana says she wants be famous by any means necessary Brittany shows her exactly what that means: by releasing a sex tape and fetching her a testicle to chew on.
Her character plays into the stereotype of bisexuals being sluts.
Yes, Brittany has slept with a lot of people, but then so has Santana. It's a phase which some teenagers go through and then get over. She hasn't slept with anyone other than Artie or Santana since early on in season 2, so I'd say she's grown out of it.
There's not been a big story about her sexuality.
She's never denied her sexuality, so that rules out a big coming out story. If anyone had offered to straighten her out like they did Santana then she'd have brushed it off. This also wouldn't have made it a big story. So I don't really know how they'd make a big story centred around her sexuality.

Another positive thing about the portrayal of Brittany's sexuality is that during Sexy, when Brittany realised that Santana was in love with her, and therefore asking for a serious commitment, she decided she couldn't continue seeing Artie and Santana at the same time. Because of this, she committed herself to Artie as she was already in a relationship with him, therefore belying the stereotype that bisexuals can't commit. Since breaking up with Artie at the end of season 2, she is now in a relationship with Santana

Now that Brittany will be retaking senior year without Santana around, I'd be interested to see how the other students interact with her. It's possible that without Santana to scare them off, Brittany may start to get bullied, and it'd be interesting to see how she handles this, particularly if it includes jibes about her sexuality.

bisexuality Glee tv

Brittany Pierce: a positive portrayal of teen bisexuality

To start off with, one thing needs to be said: Brittany Pierce in Glee is an out and proud bisexual. Not convinced? OK, let's hear it from her:

During I Am Unicorn, when talking to Kurt about her running as a candidate for class president, she says she realised she was a unicorn too (with Santana's help!), and followed this with "maybe a bicorn".
During The Spanish Teacher, she joked that she was "bilingual".
In Props, after Santana told a teacher in the teachers' lounge that they were both gay, Brittany pointed out that she was bi, but that this didn't make a huge difference to Santana's point.

During Bad Reputation, after Artie finds her in the choir room after she "forgot how to leave", she bemoans being so low on the Glist despite the fact she's made out with everyone, clarifying she meant with girls as well as boys.
During Born This Way, after Santana says Brittany doesn't love her back, Brittany retorts "I do love you, clearly you don't love you as much as I do or you'd put this shirt on and you'd dance with me". This indicates Brittany has no qualms about being seen to dance romantically with a girl (a girl declaring her sexuality, no less).
During Rumours, after Santana sings 'Songbird' to her, Brittany offers to "go first", by asking Santana to go to the prom with her on Fondue For Two.

Her sexuality is associated with her stupidity.
I don't know where this comes from because when it comes to her personal relationship with Santana Brittany has often been very smart:
- In Born This Way Brittany makes Santana a 'Lebanese' T-shirt because she knew that Santana wouldn't be strong enough to do it herself.
- During New York, when Santana said to Brittany "you're my best friend", she replied "I do too", indicating Brittany knew Santana actually meant "I love you".
- During Mash Off, she's able to calm down Santana when she was on the warpath by singing "stop the violence".
- In Saturday Night Glee-ver when Santana says she wants be famous by any means necessary Brittany shows her exactly what that means: by releasing a sex tape and fetching her a testicle to chew on.
Her character plays into the stereotype of bisexuals being sluts.
Yes, Brittany has slept with a lot of people, but then so has Santana. It's a phase which some teenagers go through and then get over. She hasn't slept with anyone other than Artie or Santana since early on in season 2, so I'd say she's grown out of it.
There's not been a big story about her sexuality.
She's never denied her sexuality, so that rules out a big coming out story. If anyone had offered to straighten her out like they did Santana then she'd have brushed it off. This also wouldn't have made it a big story. So I don't really know how they'd make a big story centred around her sexuality.

Bi Community bicon bisexuality personal

Inspiration from Bicon 2012

So, I just spent the last 5 days at BiCon 2012 in Bradford. It inspired me to do various things, one of which is to blog more. It also made me decide to start posting everything in the one blog rather than keeping this just for music, TV and film and using my other blog for the more serious things.

With this in mind, as this is the blog that gets the most traffic, I'm going to make this my one and only blog after a name change and repost everything from 'Analysis and Geekery' here, with the original dates so it doesn't look like I wrote them recently.

Also, I'm going to use this for personal posts as well, which is what I used my Livejournal for, back when I had one. On that note, I will post about other aspects of my time at BiCon in a few days. :-D

Other things I was inspired to do from going to BiCon 2012:

Spreading the word about BiWessex and new ways to do this,
Finally finish that Brittany post which I promised I'd write a month ago, and
Start writing for Bi Community News.

I'm sure there were more but I can't remember what they were right now!

Bi Community bicon bisexuality personal

Inspiration from Bicon 2012

I'm going to keep my Tumblr going separately though, as no one needs to see all that content here. ;-). If anyone wants to see me post lots of photos of pretty men and women (mostly women) and fangirl about Warehouse 13, Glee, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time and LOTS of other shows, you're very welcome to follow me there!

Other things I was inspired to do from going to BiCon 2012:

Spreading the word about BiWessex and new ways to do this,
Finally finish that Brittany post which I promised I'd write a month ago, and
Start writing for Bi Community News.

I'm sure there were more but I can't remember what they were right now!

bi erasure bisexuality Glee still love the magazine though honest tv

The Wrong way to challenge Bi Erasure

The other day, BiCommunity News tweeted a link to a year old article about Santana's sexuality in Glee.

The gist of the article is that the writer is disappointed that Santana was getting labelled as a lesbian and not a bisexual because of her history with boys. A choice paragraph is as follows:

Even clueless Brittany tries to help Santana’s self-identify by making her a T-shirt that says “Lebanese” (oh how I want one of those, early birthday present anyone?). Now hang on one cotton-picking minute. It’s not the first or the last time that someone in the show alludes to Santana being a lesbian, but everything Santana has done and said so far screams bisexual. A bisexual girl who doesn’t like labels (welcome to the club), and is firmly in a closet, but most definitely bisexual.

Now I'll admit, bi erasure happens. As a bisexual woman, I hate it, because I'd like to see my identity reflected in the shows I watch. I didn't like it when Anya in Survivors was labelled as a lesbian by The Radio Times when she never called herself as that and I don't like it when soaps take a character who previously had long term relationships with the opposite sex have a relationship with someone of the same sex, and suddenly they're labelled as gay.

However, this isn't the case with Santana, the author correctly quotes Santana as not liking labels, but during the very same episode Brittany gave Santana the Lebanese T-shirt (Born This Way), Santana identified herself as a lesbian. Also, when Santana said she wasn't interested in labels (during Sexy), she was so far in denial that she couldn't even admit to herself that she was in love with Brittany.

It's true that Santana had had trysts with boys before she was with Brittany, but they never seemed to matter to her like Brittany did and still does. And I don't mean just that she wasn't in love with them, she didn't seem that in to the sex, having looked bored after sleeping with Finn (The Power of Madonna) and only wanting to be with Puck if he could get her things (breaking up with him for not having a good enough credit rating in Acafellas).

Again in Sexy, after Brittany tells her she can't break up with Artie, Santana retorts:

Of course you can. He's just a stupid boy.

Not exactly words I'd expect to hear from a bisexual girl!

In fact, for me, this is the conversation that cemented in my mind that Santana is a lesbian but Brittany is a bisexual, because Brittany loved Artie at the time and didn't want to hurt him and Santana didn't care about any of the boys she'd been with. If you want to read more of the coming out speech from Santana, I posted it here.

Putting aside the author's presumption to decide Santana's sexuality for her, what disappoints me most is the fact that she didn't write about what an amazing character Brittany is and what a positive portrayal of a bisexual teen we have in her. By doing so, it seems to engage in bi erasure which is apparently what the author was railing against (I will put this right in a later post as I think the portrayal of Britt deserves its own post).

By complaining that a lesbian character was labelled as a lesbian and citing this as an example of bi erasure the author has managed to weaken the whole argument for challenging bi erasure, which is a very real and important issue. Because of this, I'm disappointed the article was published in the first place, and even more disappointed that whoever handles the Twitter account for the magazine chose to tweet a link to it almost a year later, particularly as Santana has now publicly declared she's a lesbian.

bi erasure bisexuality Glee still love the magazine though honest tv

The Wrong way to challenge Bi Erasure

The other day, BiCommunity News tweeted a link to a year old article about Santana's sexuality in Glee.

The gist of the article is that the writer is disappointed that Santana was getting labelled as a lesbian and not a bisexual because of her history with boys. A choice paragraph is as follows:

Even clueless Brittany tries to help Santana’s self-identify by making her a T-shirt that says “Lebanese” (oh how I want one of those, early birthday present anyone?). Now hang on one cotton-picking minute. It’s not the first or the last time that someone in the show alludes to Santana being a lesbian, but everything Santana has done and said so far screams bisexual. A bisexual girl who doesn’t like labels (welcome to the club), and is firmly in a closet, but most definitely bisexual.

Again in Sexy, after Brittany tells her she can't break up with Artie, Santana retorts:

Of course you can. He's just a stupid boy.

Not exactly words I'd expect to hear from a bisexual girl!

bisexuality equality lgbt marriage equality sexuality

Response from my MP about Marriage Equality

Further to my previous post about my email to my MP, I have now received a reply, which is below.

I'm rather disappointed because it addresses none of the points raised in my email and is instead a standard email which seems to be written for people who are opposed to marriage equality.

Not great when the constituent you're writing to has told you they're bisexual.

Dear Vicky,

Thank you for your recent email regarding the very important issue of gay marriage.

Actually, I didn't email you about gay marriage, I emailed you about marriage equality.

Please be assured I take this matter very seriously and have taken the opportunity over the past few weeks to discuss the numerous potential ramifications with both colleagues and constituents.

What about the BENEFITS? Because, like I emailed you about reasons why everyone should be allowed to marry.

I am conscious that many of my constituents hold profound religious beliefs and I have no intention to support any legislation which would force any church to hold marriage ceremonies which are in contravention of their theology.

I have no intention of forcing any church to hold marriage ceremonies, and I didn't mention it, but OK.

However, I do believe it is important that we should encourage commitment within relationships and am broadly supportive of initiatives that seek to do so.

Because everyone needs a piece of paper to encourage them to commit, and no one ever gets a divorce...

As you will be aware, this issue did not feature in the Queen’s Speech which will be welcomed by many people who perceived this as an attack on the Church of England.

No, but I am aware that it wasn't in the Queen's Speech because the issue was still under consultation.

I do feel it is critically important that the Government is properly aware of the level of concern on this issue.

Right, thanks, but why are you saying this to someone who supports marriage equality?

I have been struck by the number of constituents who have contacted me with their views rather than, as is so often the case nowadays, sending me standardised, computer generated emails, but have taken the trouble to set out very clearly their personal and considered objections to the suggestion that rules governing marriage may change.

Really, am I the only one who sent you a personalised email about the benefits of allowing same sex couples to marry?

The consultation on same sex marriage has now closed and I look forward to hearing the results in due course. Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

And thank you for taking the time to reply with a standardised letter which addresses none of the points in my email.

With best wishes,

Caroline Nokes