When Rizzoli & Isles returns for its 5th
season, viewers’ hopes regarding the characters’ personal lives will differ
greatly.
In the year 2014, the term shipping has long gone beyond
fandom--even the mainstream press has taken notice of the fans who would like
to see Detective Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles in a romantic relationship.
We know it’s not likely to happen, but a girl/fan can dream. Two smart, capable
women who not only know how to get the job done, but support each other instead
of falling for patriarchy’s age-old scheme of tricking them into competition?
So good. Now, if those two women were lesbians? Priceless for many viewers.
Not all fans agree though. In a recent discussion, someone
voiced their disagreement, asking “Why does it always have to be about sex?”
The short answer is: It isn’t. It’s a common misunderstanding about the LGBT
community that “it’s all about sex”. It’s also about love, commitment, respect,
the daily life. Come to think about it, it’s not about sex at all, but the
complete lack of lesbian leads in cop dramas, at least outside of web series.
Then again, I think I understand where this fan was coming
from. Female friendship isn’t exactly overrepresented in the media, in TV shows
and movies. For a long time, it was a sign of progress when the all-male team
had at least a token women, then a woman leading a team of all men, even after Cagney & Lacey. We are all kind of
starving for portrayals of women who treat each other with respect instead of
calling each other names and stabbing each other in the back (as in every other
reality show out there, but of course it doesn’t happen in reality TV only).
Good portrayals of friendship between women are sadly
underrepresented. So are lesbian relationships. This is where the tug of war
comes in, and I think we should be aware of it to make it clear it’s not one
section of fans against the other. We all want female characters we love and
relate to.
It is getting better, but remember that we didn’t always
have Bo and Kenzi, Nikita and Alex, Alicia and Kalinda, the Women’s Murder Club etc. (and some of
these shows have already been cancelled)--or Xena and Gabrielle. The image of
two women helping each other out instead of stealing each other’s boyfriend
isn’t that ancient or self-evident in TV. The idea of two women in love? We had
to be very patient for that to find its place in mainstream TV, with Callie and
Arizona on Grey’s Anatomy, or The
Fosters’ Steph and Lena. Again, those are quality
shows and that might be enough reason to watch, but they aren’t necessarily the
first choice for fans of cop dramas.
The media might talk about shipping and show the occasional
fan art these days, but it’s still not always easy to explain to a straight
actress (or fellow fan) exactly why
we ship. I might be bewildered too if I wasn't a lesbian writer who spent many years in fandom. Imagine Scully and Mulder had never happened--or Beckett and
Castle--or Bones and Booth. Imagine nothing ever happened. Imagine all you
could do was, well, imagine, because in terms of Hollywood,
you just didn’t exist.
It’s for that reason I love to write original characters
that are respectful and supportive in both their romantic and friendship
relations with other women, because actually, you can have it both.
Jane and Maura belong to Tess Gerritsen in the first place,
then TNT and Janet Tamaro, now in the hands of Jan Nash. While they were never
meant to be a couple, I believe that once you put any kind of art out there,
it’s up to the viewer/reader/listener how they interpret it. Personally, I have
always seen them as straight friends (not only because I had been a fan of the
book series long before the show). Nevertheless, Rizzoli & Isles fandom has done a great job keeping the
conversation out in the open--to all our benefit.
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