Lead Section Editor Sophie Poredos asks the question; are you a raging bisexual? If so, you may qualify as a villainess.
You roam the streets at night searching for your next victim, with your bared fangs and fresh blood staining your teeth. Once you find your whimpering fool hidden in a dingy alleyway, you flash your devilish smile (shade Mac Ruby Roo) and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. He is utterly beguiled with you, under your spell of seduction as you lure him back into your dungeon with velvet sheets, smelling of jasmine and sex. Before his fantasies are reached, and as his desire is peaked, you ultimately devour him, tearing at his skin. You are depraved, unhinged, and morally corrupt.
That’s the image I perceived of bisexuals after watching Jennifer’s Body, the Joker, and Lady Gaga’s cameo in American Horror Story: Hotel. Bisexuals are represented as unbelievably horny, to the point of behaving in depraved cannibal rituals, as well as the always threatening cheating partner, used mostly as a cheap plot device – I’m looking at you, Jules in The Kids are Alright.
As a bisexual myself, I had to touch my lack of fangs and critique my lack of silk sheets, a life of debauchery is (sadly) far from the one I lead. Where is my erotic and unhinged love story filled with fantasy and bad decisions?
However, this story is not an ode to the sexualisation of bi characters nor the unanimous belief that they engage in adultery. At current, the representation of bisexual characters in the media is horrendous. As a marginalised community, the continuous portrayal of one’s sexuality as ‘morally ambiguous’, creates a sense of otherness whereby the audience should be threatened by the mere presence of a bisexual person and their ability to ‘seduce their partner’. Such hypersexuality encoded into their character’s DNA creates a forced expectation that bisexual women will sleep around and a forced promiscuity that transcends into reality - don’t even get me started on straight girls who make out in clubs for male attention! In fact, Zivony’s 2018 study directly correlates this statement, as “18 to 31 per cent of people believed that bisexual women were inherently hyper-sexual, promiscuous, or unable to be in monogamous relationships”. [1]
Of course then, it makes perfect sense to translate the ‘unable to decide’ narrative into an ‘unable to behave correctly’ one-dimensional character, whereby bisexual people are represented as sexual deviants as well as the ‘villian’ typecast. Despite bisexuals making up the majority of the LGBT population, only 28 per cent of LGBT characters represented were bisexual in GLAAD’ Annual 2015 report. Whilst that number may seem deceivingly high, only 4 per cent of regular characters on primetime broadcast television series were LGBT characters. [2]
Like lesbian characters, bi characters rarely get happy endings. According to an analysis of U.S television shows from 1976 to 2016, 11 per cent of those productions contained lesbian or bisexual characters. However, 35 per cent of those died and only 16 per cent had a happy ending, reinforcing unnecessary cultural norms that bisexuality is a bad decision. [3]
For many years, I knew I was wildly attracted to women but never could figure out what that label was and I was closeted until my teens. And how could I? When the only identity I had was to follow the madly confusing (and hormonal) beliefs in my heart? I truly couldn’t turn to books or films, whose representation of bi women were sexy femme fatales (who just might turn out to be vampires or demons).
Problematic bisexual characters are not limited to women alone; many male bi characters are also represented as sexually deviant and bordering on abusive, more likely to engage in BDSM. On another note though, please dear mass media, bring back slutty men - watching Pedro Pascal performing as raging bisexual Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones, did unholy things to me.
Thankfully, us bi girlies do have some beautiful characters to relate to; Petra from Jane the Virgin and Rosa Parks from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, tastefully explore the misunderstandings of being an ‘unlikable’ or ‘cold’ woman, with their complex motivations making their characters more than just a ‘bitch’. Perhaps this alludes to the idea that the female gaze is a powerful tool in cinema and cannot be overlooked, especially when actresses have autonomy over their representation.
To all my unhinged bisexual readers, I salute you and your path to attraction to people as opposed to gender. Here’s a toast to living an unhinged villainess life, not because you are a bisexual, but because you deserve to express yourself in whatever capacity that may be.
ENDNOTES
[1] Zivony, Alon. Saguy Tamar. Stereotype Deduction About Bisexual Women, The Journal of Sex Research, 55:4-5, pg. 666-678, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2018.1437116, 2018.
[2] GLAAD, Where We Are on TV Report , 2015. https://glaad.org/publications/whereweareontv15/
[3] GITNUX MARKETDATA REPORT, Lgbt Representation In Media Statistics [Fresh Research], 2024. https://gitnux.org/lgbt-representation-in-media-statistics/
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