Bye-bye, bi TV

WHY ARE BI WOMEN SO POORLY REPRESENTED IN BRITISH TV? JACQUIE LAWRENCE GOES BEHIND THE SCENES TO FIND OUT

Once upon a time Channel 4 had a specific budget and space in the schedule for LGBT programming such as Dyke TV, Queer Street, Coming Out Night and Out. Hard to believe now, perhaps. I was awarded the enviable moniker of Filth Pedlar Of Channel 4 by the Daily Mail for my perceived contributions to the cause. For five years I commissioned hundreds of hours of lesbian and gay programming and, to my shame, only one hour of these was dedicated purely to bisexuality. To add to this mea culpa, it was a programme entitled Greed as one part of a series that reclaimed the Seven Deadly Sins. To be fair to the then-pedlar of filth, it was a polemical series and the bisexual protagonists did a great job of persuading over a million viewers then that bisexuality was a legitimate sexual preference and lifestyle.

Great drama let down by its bi representation: “former lesbian” Piper (right) and girlfriend Alex in Orange Is The New Black

PHOTOS JOJO WHILDEN/NETFLIX, BBC/NICKY JOHNSTON, SHOWTIME

The last C4 project I commissioned was Rikki Beadle-Blair’s drama series, Metrosexuality, which featured a cast covering a full range of sexual choices – in all their complexity and glory – including bisexuality. This was, however, a rare flash of positive representation and so, just over 15 years later, I wondered if bisexuality was faring any better in television drama. And, as an Americanist, I thought it both a challenge and pertinent to consider bisexual representation on both sides of the Atlantic.

According to GLAAD’s annual Where We Are On TV report, the number of bisexual women on both American cable and network drama has risen steadily in the last three years, from 16 in the 2012-2013 season to 31 in the 2014-2015 season. That is 31 recognisably bisexual female characters in drama series, all of which are huge hits.

We’re talking the gamut of genres here, from medical dramas such as Grey’s Anatomy and Nurse Jackie, to criminal and legal series like Bones and The Good Wife, to the musical drama Glee and the vampire drama True Blood. Shall I go on? Thankfully, we have television acquisition executives with the critical faculties to buy up these shows for UK channels, otherwise we’d be feasting on the dry bones of the UK’s current lean pickings of bisexual-themed drama.