Joely Richardson and Portia de Rossi in Nip/Tuck
When a show's been around for a while each new season needs a new angle to sell it. So nobody died with shock last week when the upcoming series of Nip/Tuck was promoted with a focus on the sex scenes between Joely Richardson and Portia de Rossi. "I think playing a lesbian turns men on," Richardson commented, showing uncanny insight. This startling revelation prompted the Sun to run a feature on TV's hottest lesbian clinches and it highlighted once again how a lot of programme-makers use girl-on-girl action purely as titillation, demonstrating no interest whatsoever in portraying gay relationships or experiences. The most shameless example I can think of is the episode of Ally McBeal where Ally and Ling (played by Lucy Lui) decide they have to lock lips despite the fact they hate each other's guts and continue to hate each other's guts for the rest of the show's run. Hardly surprising as Ally McBeal would sell its characters out in a heartbeat for a cheap thrill or gimmick.
It doesn't have to be this way. The authentic character-driven first kiss between Tara and Willow in Buffy shows how drama should be done. Although we know they are already dating, their first proper kiss is buried in The Body, the episode where Joyce, Buffy's mother, dies - a step Joss Whedon took deliberately to avoid the Lesbian Kiss Episode syndrome. The kiss itself is naturalistic and is part of Tara comforting the mourning Willow and it's in the context of a convincing long-term relationship - one of the reasons why it resonated with the audience, producing bulletin boards and fan-fic sites which are still running today, not to mention sundry YouTube tributes.
Buffy aside, there is a depressing inevitability about this kind of sensation seeking - it's a clear sign of desperation and a show running out of ideas. If a man you've never met before suddenly gives you flowers - that's Impulse. But if a woman does, chances are you're on a dicey cable drama struggling for viewers. There's a new index of shows on the decline - Snogging The Friend is the new Jumping The Shark.
