Representation

Over the last week, I have been overwhelmed with joy in all the LGBTQIA+ representation on television. Television is one of my favorite artistic mediums to indulge in. The new season of Locke & Key came out on Netflix this week. In this season, in a major series, they have a whole episode dedicated to a gay marriage which was amazing to see. Then I happened to flip over to check out Uncoupled which is a comedy series about a gay married couple going through a divorce.

Then, I was on Amazon Prime and reluctantly I decided to give the new A League of Their Own series a try. I say reluctantly because the original movie is perhaps one of my all-time favorite movies and I wasn’t sure if I could take some series doing it an injustice. I’ve watched the original movie probably 100 times. I am so thankful that I gave it a shot. All I can say is wow on so many levels. First, it wasn’t an exact copy of the original movie which I appreciate. You can never live up to that, so it gives you an opportunity to appreciate the series on its own and not compare it. Second, I am so appreciative of the fact that they don’t just skirt the gray lines of homosexuality but they deep dive into it. It is a time period piece based in the 20/30’s and they explore what it must have been like at the time to not just be a lesbian but also a trans woman. Kudos! Legit. Loving every minute of the series so far. Then the episode I just watched had a cameo of Rosie O’Donald which was really the cherry on top. She was one of the people who made the original movie iconic. In her cameo she is a a butch bartender in an underground gay bar. Like everything about that sentence I just wrote is amazing.

You know I haven’t been on Facebook in about two months because I couldn’t stomach the onslaught of political news about all the ways the Republicans continue to try to strip the LGBTQIA+ community of their rights. However, watching these series gives me hope for the future. When I was growing up I was not aware of any representation of who I was in mainstream media. The closest thing I had to it growing up was the 1955 version of Peter Pan, when it was played by Allison Williams, which I watched so many times I wore the VHS tape out. And the 80s movie, Just One of the Guys. Neither was true representation but that was all I had as a kid. Now to see these shows out here on these streaming services available for kids to see so they can grow up knowing they are not alone and not degenerates. This is a path toward normalizing something that has always existed and always will exist. So if you have not yet checked out the new series A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime, I seriously recommend it.

Cover Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash