Ways 'Neighbours' can be improved

While the lesbian storyline may be a step forward, it has come off, so far, as being dealt with no better than any of the 'issues' that get randomly scattered across such shows. Do I dare go so far as to suggest the writers are trivialising homosexuality? Not quite, but they seem to be unnecessarily upholding certain stereotypes at the expense of more important ones.

Let me explain. Despite what the Neighbours writers consider 'topical', if you're going to tackle homosexuality, then go the whole hog. As far as I'm concerned - and much of the viewing public - lesbians, as portrayed on television, are just considered too cuddly to be confronting. Neighbours, trying to bring Ramsey St. into the 21st century (after all, that's when homosexuality started, right?)have decided to go for the safest, least-amazing depiction of homosexuality (and one that may only exist in the imaginations of reality-porn writers): the soft teen lesbian.

I'm sure the writers thought they were breaking stereotypes by having a pretty teenage girl turn out to be a lesbian, but really it's more cliched than the man-hating-dyke. For a start it feeds the heterosexual, meat-eating, red blooded male-ego that reveres anything that loves women as much as they do (as long as she's not ugly). The characterization is also wonky. The way Lana is portrayed and written also plays into the hands of the stereotype, which says that lesbians are fickle and too easily able to 'change sides'. Having Lana kissing boys - albeit to apparently cover-up the truth - fuels those who would suggest that lesbianism involves much less commitment than male-homosexuality does, partly due to the lack of penetration.

But, of course, penetration doesn't come into it on Neighbours. Except, of course, if we're discussing Harold's erectile dysfunction.

Part of me wishes they had gone all-out and made their first gay character a teenage boy, who would surely suffer more bullying, teasing and humiliation were he outed than a girl. Yeah, that's right, I said it. While I don't doubt that coming-out, male or female, is very tough, to be a gay-male at a typical Australian high school must be harder than to be a lesbian. There is a certain, if mocking, hero-status that (attractive) females are given when they engage in any kind of pseudo-lesbian behaviour. We see it at pubs, clubs, parties and in the media all the time. Contrast this with the rampant, violent homophobia symptomatic of male social groups (regardless of the homoeroticism - AFL football, I'm looking at you). Male homophobia is based around the 'potential rapists all are we' that Propagandhi sung about. That conceit that all gay men want to have sex with all straight men, as if there were no discretion involved in choosing partners.

And it is for these reasons that I think they have messed up Lana's detractors. They've unwittingly made Lana into a stereotype when they needn't have, and haven't allowed her bullying peers to be the stereotypes they should be. Clearly the writers of Neighbours haven't set foot in a real high school for many a year (neither, for that matter, have the actors) and seem to get all their ideas about peer-pressure from repeats of Degrassi Junior High and Ready or Not. Homophobic bullying is subtle, terrifying and pervasive, not a whole yard of people chanting 'Lana is a lezzo'.

Also, what's with making Boyd anti-lesbian? Clearly his character type hasn't been worked out either, since if Boyd were a real person he'd be exactly the kind to love (the popular neo-depiction of) lesbians. In fact, that whole thing where Boyd and Stingray were talking about homosexuality and Stingray pretty much says 'whatever floats your boat' was terribly written. I guess we have to remember Kate Langbroek at one time wrote for Neighbours.

So, that's my rant. Lana is the only lesbian to set foot in Ramsey St. (she doesn't live there, mind you) and thus has the unenviable onus upon her to represent an entire group. But Neighbours knew what they were getting into. And it's not working so far.

And no, I don't watch Neighbours.