UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Where once characters were coded as lesbian but the word was never uttered, TV shows now center their narratives around openly lesbian characters. Battles among audience members, the press, and members of the TV industry reveal a fierce debate about how to define femininity in the context of lesbian sexuality. Programs such as The L Word, Work Out, and South of Nowhere have been criticized for portraying lesbians as stereotypically feminine. These images however cannot be dismissed as simply reifying rigid gender roles; instead, I argue that these shows depict a particularly class-based expression of femininity. Characters are coded as high class, wealthy, and sophisticated through fashion, expensive cars and homes, and powerful jobs. Lesbian femininity in these shows is embodied in the characters’ successful achievement of cultural capital, which neutralizes their sexual difference. The shows’ signifiers are of class, not sexual orientation, displacing lesbianism as the primary marker of identity. At the same time, the unquestioned use of hegemonic norms of cultural capital reveals the limits of difference. Expanding Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital to focus on the materialist context of U.S. society, this analysis outlines the structures difference for lesbian sexuality on TV. I examine the construction of a specifically lesbian femininity among TV characters and personalities not as a queer reading but as an attempt to understand the tensions at work in what it means to be female and lesbian on TV. These dynamics cut to the heart of debates about LGBT visibility, representation, and the ongoing battle for civil rights.