A few themes crop up in every episode of Work of Art: inspiration, process, and autobiography. What’s interesting to me is that these are the themes that crop up all the time when I’m interviewed about writing. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked where I get my inspiration, or to talk about my writing process. I’m also amazed at how repeatedly I’m asked if Ash is autobiographical.

I know that lots of people are fascinated by artists. I think there really is something magical and mysterious-seeming about the act of creating something meant to be art, whether it’s a painting or a sculpture or a novel or a poem. And I admit that I’ve been completely fascinated by watching these reality show contestants make their art on television.

Are their final products good? I don’t know. Some of them are, but they mostly suffer from the thing that reality TV derives most of its drama from: time constraints. I think that it’s certainly possible to create on deadline (I’ve done it many times), but if your aim is to make something that is multi-layered and complicated, you can’t always rush it. Ideas take time to settle, and sometimes they turn into something totally different than what you started with.

Are these rocks inspiring?

What’s most intriguing to me about Work of Art is the fact that these artists go through a kind of speeded-up version of the creative process. Every challenge, they’re given a day or two to make something loosely inspired by a vague theme such as “nature” (Episode 9) or “male/female” (Episode 8). Each episode, the artists grapple with this snippet of inspiration and try to wrangle it into something physical: a statue, a photograph, a weird art installation involving nails and bleach. And each artist seems to channel that snippet of inspiration through their autobiography. There’s a scene in pretty much every episode in which one of the artists muses about how he or she can focus that idea through their own experience, whether it’s of being obsessive-compulsive, or of being leered at by men, or of growing up in an art commune.

It struck me that autobiography, here, is presented as practically the end-all-be-all of inspiration. Maybe this is because it’s a reality show, and reality TV focuses heavily on the personalities of the cast. But in actual, real-world reality, I don’t think that autobiography is everything.

I think that the artists on the show are actually trying to take an externally imposed idea (e.g., male/female) and make it their own. It seems as though the concept is then refracted through their personal experience, but I don’t think that the end result is actually autobiographical — at least not all the time.

In Episode 8, contestant Jaclyn Santos, who has become known during the show for her nude self-portraits, painted an image of a woman masturbating to represent “female” in the male/female binary. (Her teammate, Miles, made an installation representing “male.”) During the critique, one of the critics actually asked her if she had ever masturbated standing up. She seemed stunned and bemused by the question, but ultimately said, “Sure, yeah.”

Jaclyn's interpretation of female

The thing is, what does it matter if she’s done that before? I think a lot of the time we read an artist’s autobiography in their work, but that’s not always an accurate reading. In that episode, Jaclyn started off by photographing herself nude, and then making a painting from that photograph. She covered up the photos with draperies while she was painting because she didn’t want others to see images of her naked. I remember one of the artists wondering why she bothered, because everyone was going to see her naked in the painting in the end, anyway.

[Edited to add: On Jaclyn's official blog, she states that she hung the draperies in order to protect her painting from the flying sawdust in the studio, not because she was embarrassed.]

I disagree, though. By the time the photos — which definitely were of her body — had been translated into a painting, the image was no longer of Jaclyn. She had no self-consciousness showing the nude painting, unlike the photos, because the painting was not of her. It was a painting of a concept of “female.” Whether or not she personally had ever done the act depicted in the painting was pretty much irrelevant and only revealed that the person who asked the question was thinking with parts other than his brain.

My experience as a writer, working alone at my desk, is obviously very different from the experiences of the cast of Work of Art. But in the autobiography theme, I see an interesting parallel. I do think that personal experience is important in being a writer. I think the best preparation for becoming a writer is having a life. But that doesn’t mean that one uses those experiences directly in one’s work.

For me, at least, all of my experiences become tools that I use in the service of telling a story. The feelings that are written down on the page in a novel may have been felt by me, but probably not in the situation or context presented in the novel. I’m kind of bemused by these questions, as well, because if I wanted to write an autobiography, I would. I’ve written autobiographical essays before, and someday I might very well want to write a memoir.¹

Anyway, I’m not sure if I really have a point here, except that I’ve been hooked on this show. The prurient interest in Jaclyn’s personal experiences aside, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the creative process depicted this way on television. It’s packaged for a reality TV audience, sure, but even with that frame around it, I think there are some truths in there about making art, and about finding inspiration.

I feel as though the lesson of the series (if you’re looking for lessons), is that inspiration is a slippery beast, and sometimes it wriggles out of your grasp and escapes entirely, but sometimes, if you keep working at it, something unexpected comes out and sticks to the wall in the end. It’s not really such a bad lesson.

"Baptism" by Abdi Farah (Episode 9)

1. Of course, a memoir wouldn’t necessarily be “real,” either, but I digress …

Some folks have found Adam’s falsetto and uber-dramatic eyeliner a bit off-putting. Not me! After seven seasons of zero openly gay/lesbian contestants on American Idol, I am so psyched that Adam has made it this far in Season 8. Maybe his pouty lips and bedroom eyes are confusing all those teen girls into thinking he’s singing to them.

I am really looking forward to hearing (and seeing) Adam’s take on a Sinatra-era classic. Even his weird choices (like his bizarre version of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”) are, at least, interesting. But I am not looking forward to Danny Gokey. I admit there was something about him that I found off-putting from the very first week — maybe the self-consciously hip fashion he’s always wearing, maybe the fact that he has the gall to wear Tina Fey glasses. But the thing that annoys me the most about Gokey is that the judges seem to universally adore him even while he turns in consistently mediocre performances. I don’t get it. I mean, honestly, Lil Rounds was better than him, and I wasn’t even that big of a Lil Rounds fan.

Argh. On the other hand, I think it’ll be fun to see if Allison Iraheta can find a Rat Pack song to turn into a Pat Benatar number. I doubt that Allison’s going to make it much further into the competition, but I would be really happy if someone proved me wrong. I love her spunk and her rock vibe. I’m not saying I’d buy her first album, but maybe her second or third.

As for the other two guys in the final five, Kris Allen and Matt Giraud, I’m definitely more of a Kris fan. He seems sweet — but not in an annoying way, and I’ve liked his recent song interpretations. If I could fix it, my final five would count down like this:

5. Danny Gokey
4. Matt Giraud
3. Kris Allen
2. Allison Iraheta
1. Adam Lambert!

I’m pretty sure I’m wrong, but I think Adam does have a shot at the final two. What do you think? Who are your faves? Do you share my frustrations about Gokey?

And that’s where we’re at now. I think that next week, the dollhouse is going to start coming apart.

I think my reaction is perversely the opposite of what most critics have been saying. I have been enjoying the show. I liked the caper-of-the-week episodes that gradually reveal Echo’s memory leaking back into place. I like the slow build we’ve been getting with the personalities of Adele and Boyd and Dr. Saunders. I haven’t been such a big fan of Agent Ballard, but that might be because I feel like Tamoh Penikett should still be playing Helo on Battlestar Galactica (R.I.P.)!

But there have been some things that annoy me. None of them more than last Friday night’s doll outfit for Echo.

I mean, really? There was nothing more ridiculous than seeing Eliza Dushku attempt to run in those heels across a college campus. The lace! The tiny little fluttery skirt! And what bizarre kind of top is she wearing?

Now, you could argue that the outfit served a purpose. Echo was dressed for an “escort” gig, thus the outfit was part of her identity for that gig. When she left her gig wearing that outfit, she became a prostitute-turned-heroine. Visually, the outfit signifies a fantasy version of virginity (the sexy schoolgirl look) which echoes (ha) the nature of the dolls themselves — their innocence is also a fantasy.

Echo is Alice (the name of the escort persona — anyone think of Wonderland?) in this episode, an apparently sweet girl who happens to like bondage, but tumbles down the rabbit hole into the real world. Her outfit marks her as someone who looks both innocent and not-so-innocent. So in conclusion: You could argue there is a purpose to her dress.

Nevertheless, the outfit annoyed the daylights out of me, because the sexy schoolgirl who isn’t as innocent as she seems is just overdone. I mean, Joss did it over and over again in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Can we please move on?

Besides, you put Eliza in a sexy schoolgirl outfit and then put her on a motorcycle, and any effort at subversion is just lost. That is pure titillation, and the show has titillated enough already. I’m over it.

Some folks have been arguing that the show is not at all feminist, and I know what I just wrote adds fuel that fire. But actually, I don’t think we can draw any conclusions about the show as a whole yet. We’re only halfway through the season, and Joss Whedon has clearly mapped out a season-long story arc. We’re at the midpoint now — the turning point — and I think things are about to change.

I am hoping that Echo’s ridiculous outfit from last Friday marks the end of the isn’t-she-so-cute-as-an-escort stories. Because yes, even though I have enjoyed the show, I do have a problem with the dolls being the playthings of rich men. Of course I have a problem with that.

The reason I’ve kept watching the show — besides the fact that yes, I’ve found it entertaining! — is that I’m looking forward to seeing how the dolls take down their captors. I hope it’s good, because these dolls clearly need to kick some ass.

There’s a lot of anger and indignation going on all over the internet, and I don’t blame the L Word viewers and fans who feel like they were strung along only to be, um, shoved off a balcony and left floating in a pool of WTF.

(Pic via Dorothy Surrenders)

My own feelings about the show and its finale are more mixed. To be honest, I canceled Showtime after the fiasco of Max’s Willy Wonka baby shower a couple of episodes back. After reading Sarah Warn’s review/evisceration of the finale this morning, though, I have to admit I went over to YouTube and watched some clips of the finale. Well, let me just say that canceling Showtime was the right move.

I have watched every season of The L Word, though I’ve missed a few episodes. At the beginning, I kinda liked it, but I never truly loved the show. I respected it at first, because it did what no other show had done before: created a world by, about and for lesbians on television. Unprecedented, yes. Unforgettable? Unfortunately.

The show tackled a lot of controversial issues. As Entertainment Weekly put it:

TV’s first deaf lesbian, its first regularly occurring transsexual character, bisexuals of both genders, drag kings, the US military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, biracial identity, gay parenting, sex/drug/alcohol/gambling addiction, sexual abuse, midlife sexual awakenings, breast cancer…this show took on a lot.

But in my opinion, it failed extraordinarily in most of these story lines. Let me direct you to my articles on gender, race, and bisexuality.

There were, of course, parts of the show that I did really enjoy: Carmen, Bette, Tasha. Some of Alice’s story lines. Whenever Pam Grier got to utter more than one line at a time. Ultimately, I am glad that Bette and Tina got to ride off into the sunset together — sort of — but I am also relieved that the Farce of Jenny is over.

And then I thought: Yay, now that the Farce of Jenny is over, what can we look forward to? Sadly, there’s not much on TV about lesbians and bisexual women.

There was a point, a few years ago, when it was more common to see lesbians on TV. That was when both The L Word and South of Nowhere were still on the air. Now, we only have the bizarre stylings of Grey’s Anatomy when it comes to lesbian representation. Most TV shows center on the relationships among their characters, and I understand why producers might shy away from including a lesbian character. It severely limits her ability to become involved with other characters on the show, because a lesbian cannot have a relationship with a straight woman, no matter how much she might want it.

That means that in order for lesbians to be on a TV show, you have to have more than one of them on the show. For straight producers who are making shows for a predominantly straight audience, that might seem to be too much.

Even on shows like Lost, which is arguably driven by plot rather than romance, every one of those characters is involved to some degree in a romantic relationship that contributes to furthering the plot. A lesbian would have no place there, unless she had a girlfriend on the island.

Ironically, I think that part of the reason that more lesbians aren’t included on TV is because of The L Word. It made it clear that you can’t just have lesbians as asexual supporting characters anymore. If you’re going to have a lesbian on your show, she’d better have a life. That’s progress.

Now all we have to do is wait for TV producers to get over their fear of making their show “too gay” by including more than one gay person. Brothers and Sisters did it with their gay men. Joss Whedon did it with Willow and Tara. What’s the problem, Hollywood? What is so scary about lesbians that you can’t include us — like normal people — in your TV shows?

I have my own theories about why this is the case, but they are too depressing to write about on the day after the depressing end to the only show about lesbians on TV. Instead, I’m going to be thankful that this show did its part to bring lesbians together — even while griping about the show. The online and offline community that was created as a result of this show is something to be celebrated.

Cheers to that.

If you didn’t catch the most recent episode, count yourself lucky. If you, like me, actually watched it (OK, I fast-forwarded through several parts), the only things that will save yourself from nightmares are (1) reading scribegrrrl’s recap; and/or (2) burying yourself in books. You know, stories printed on paper, which can be found in libraries (aka oases of education and good taste) or bookstores (aka places that sell really good stories about lesbians, such as those written by Sarah Waters).

So I wanted to do my part. Here’s what’s in my reading list these days:

To get a little more detailed:

I’m currently reading Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely. I was planning to read this several weeks ago, but when I brought it home from the library (see lovely library sticker on the end there), Amy stole it from me and read it first. Luckily, she enjoyed it so much that she went out and bought the sequel, Ink Exchange, so at least we both have that to look forward to!

I recently picked up a copy of Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner, a postapocalyptic fairy novel (YA), after seeing it get great reviews all around the web, including over at Shaken & Stirred (a blog title after my own heart). I love the postapocalypse, and I have a soft spot for fairies, so I can’t wait to read this one. (OK, I sneakily already read the first chapter, which forced me to read the next two also. But then I stopped. I don’t like reading more than one novel at once.)

Next up, a couple of nonfiction books — Wolf Songs: The Classic Collection of Writing About Wolves, edited by Robert Busch, which I’m reading because Book 2 has wolves in it. And I like nature writing. This collection contains Aldo Leopold’s classic essay “Thinking Like a Mountain,” which is only three pages long but for some reason I still have not read.

The Heart Has Its Reasons: Young Adult Literature With Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969-2004, by Cart Michael and Christine A. Jenkins, is a reference I’ve been consulting for an article I’m writing.

Next is another YA novel, Ravenhill by Timothy Hillmer. It’s about a school shooting at a small-town high school — a sobering topic, to be sure. I’m really looking forward to reading it, though, because it’s written by my seventh-grade language arts teacher! Mr. Hillmer! He was one of my favorite teachers of all time, and I can say that now and not be brown-nosing, because I am way past seventh grade now.

The last two books are more nonfiction that I’m reading for Book 2 purposes. The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine by Ted J. Kaptchuk, and The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting by John Cummins. What could medieval hunting have to do with Chinese medicine and, um, wolves? [evil laugh] The plot thickens!

So, after stacking up all the books in my reading list, I felt a lot better. Also, having a cocktail helped. In fact, having a cocktail while reading is pretty much awesome.

What’s on your reading list? And/or, just how bad was that L Word episode? Does anybody really believe that straight men like to work as drag queens?

Do you think that fat gay women are more underrepresented in the media than gay women of colour? 

Here’s my answer:

I think that both fat gay women and gay women of color are underrepresented in mainstream media, and simultaneously they face loud and often obnoxious stereotypes that tend to limit what representation they do have. I don’t believe it’s productive to rank who is less represented than who — that quickly slides into a game of "who’s most discriminated against," and nobody wins that game.

We’ve all heard of the ugly fat dyke stereotype. To battle that, shows like The L Word have casts full of beautiful, feminine, stylish, thin women. It’s a one step forward, two steps back situation, because while the ugly fat dyke stereotype may be diminished because of shows like The L Word, this also has the effect of erasing fat lesbians from the screen. There’s yet another layer to this specific situation: American media’s widespread worship of thin women in general. It’s difficult to find a straight woman bigger than a size 2 in the media, much less a gay one.

In terms of gay women of color, they are hampered by the fact that being a person of color makes it more difficult to be cast in a mainstream show. I remember that at the 2008 TCA summer press tour, I was shocked by how few television shows included any people of color in their casts. The only network that included a noticeable contingent of people of color was the Disney Channel. Their audience is primarily children, and I applaud them for representing their audience faithfully, but I was truly disappointed by pretty much every other network.

There are lots of reasons for the lack of diversity, and that’s why we have places like AfterEllen.com and GLAAD and the NAACP, etc. — to bring mainstream attention to minority issues, and to demand that every minority gets a seat at the mainstream (entertainment) table.

When I was writing this blog post, I kept coming back time and again to the issue of responsibility. As a writer and a minority — both a person of color and a queer woman — do I have a responsibility to write stories that include people like me? My gut reaction (which may change after further thought) is that the issue of responsibility as a minority creator/producer is a complicated one, and is separate from the general goal of creating more inclusive stories in the world. What do you think?

But my excitement isn’t quite as fannish as it used to be.

My first taste of fandom was back in the mid-1990s when The X-Files was still good. I was totally drawn into that fandom, the mythology, the various debates between shippers and non-shippers (in fact, I think that X-philes originated the term "ship" to mean relationships), fanfic, mushy music videos about MSR, etc. And then I decided to do a whole bunch of academic research on it, which you can read here and here if you’re interested.

Fandom is really interesting. There are a lot of good people involved in fandom, and they are on the whole an extremely generous-hearted group of people. Sometimes nothing is more satisfying than connecting with others who share your (admittedly) fanatical devotion to something.

After The X-Files died its slow, painful death, I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to be a real "fan" again. I don’t mean this in a depressing, melodramatic way, but just that I felt like I’d been all fanned out.

I dipped my toes into some other fandoms just to test things out. I read some Harry Potter fanfic. I particularly remember an entire series of HP novels written from the perspective of Hermione Granger — I thought they were quite well done, and they did fill the void between the publications of those books. But I never got sucked into HP fandom. (I recently read Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli, though, and thought it was an absolutely fascinating glimpse into the HP fandom and the publishing phenomena of Harry Potter.)

By this time, I was totally sucked into Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It took me awhile to get over my ridiculous judgement of the series based only on its title, but once I did, I ended up buying all of the DVDs — all seven seasons. I’ve even watched them multiple times, and they’ve gotten me through more than one difficult time. But I never went beyond the TV shows.

I looked around online at various Buffy fan sites, but I wasn’t interested in reading fans’ reinterpretations of the characters or discussing the various romances on the show. Whatever Joss Whedon gave us was enough for me.

And I think that’s where I am these days with Battlestar Galactica, which I know has a huge online fandom. I know there are endless discussions going on about who the final Cylon is, what’s going to happen next, debates about politics, relationships, etc. But for me, what gets on TV is enough. I believe in the storytellers behind the series, and I’m happy with what they give me.

I think I feel this way partly from having had a career in entertainment reporting, when I had to think about TV a lot and write a lot of analytical articles about what things mean. I loved doing it, but these days, I’m analyzed out. I just want to sit on my couch, turn the lights down, and get sucked into the story playing out in front of me. I don’t want to have to think about it.

So that’s what I’ll be doing tonight with the premiere of BSG. Don’t call me when it’s on.

P.S. Of course I’m going to post a pic of Starbuck!

So since I have this blog now, and I’m always looking for stuff to blather on about, I’ve decided to start my own FAQ list. They’re not necessarily frequently asked questions, but they are questions I get that I think would be fun or informative to write about on the blog. If you have a question, feel free to email me at mlo @ malindalo dot com, or leave a question in the comments sometime.

First up is a question I often get from students who have visited AfterEllen.com while doing a research project, and concluded that I must know The Answer to this: How are lesbians and gay people typically represented in the media?

Unfortunately, there is no Answer. There are lots of smaller answers that add up to a complicated and ever-changing, well, stew of things. But if you want an extremely simplified summary of my opinion on how gays and lesbians are represented in the media, I will start off by saying that I know nothing about how gay men, bisexual or transgender people are represented, so please don’t apply what I’m about to say to gay men, bi or trans folk. OK? OK.

Extremely simplified summary of my opinion on how lesbians are represented in the media:

At this time, November 2008, lesbians are very vocally represented in the media by out lesbian celebrities (Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, Rosie O’Donnell, and more recently Rachel Maddow), but they are practically invisible in film and television. There are zero lesbian regular characters on prime-time network television, and the only lesbians on cable are on South of Nowhere, which will end in a few weeks, and The L Word, which will begin its final season in January 2009. The lesbian characters we see on television are almost universally feminine, thin, and white (with a few exceptions on The L Word). There is a distinct lack of lesbian characters who are not white, thin and feminine (e.g., you rarely see any genderqueer or butch lesbians on-screen, and you pretty much never see any women who are larger than a size 2, anyway).

What does this mean?

In my opinion, this leads to a world in which lesbians can be famous, but they can’t have sex. Ellen, Rosie, and Rachel are all hilarious in their own different ways, and they are all harmless when it comes to their sexuality because they have basically been desexualized by their humor and their androgyny, which is not understood by the mainstream. Melissa is a mother and spends more of her time on being domestic these days than being a rock star, so even her sexuality is more muted now.

The last time a lesbian had sex on television, she was fired from her show. And Spencer and Ashley do nothing more on South of Nowhere than kiss each other very delicately.

This lack of sexuality essentially strips lesbianism of its threat to heterosexuals. If you don’t think lesbianism is threatening, good for you! But a lot of conservatives disagree with you. They will say that it threatens the stability of the traditional family. And no matter how much straight men say they like to see two girls making out, they still want to imagine themselves as part of the picture. Actual lesbians don’t want to sleep with men, therefore, they are threatening to some guys’ egos.

A lot of networks (and movie studios, and basically everything else) are run by guys. You connect the dots.

Isn’t this totally depressing?

Yes and no. Yes because, well, yes it’s depressing. No, because it means that lesbians have had to create new and alternative ways of representing themselves, for themselves. For example, AfterEllen.com’s vlogs, the web series 3Way, and movies from lesbian filmmakers such as Angela Robinson all contribute to a growing cache of goodies made for lesbians, by lesbians.

And the longer I’ve been a part of reporting this scene, the more I’ve noticed that we are slowly but surely making inroads into the “mainstream.” Lesbians are all over reality television now, because we’re part of reality. And there’s tons of great fiction to be read that has been written by lesbians that includes lesbian characters. I am hopeful that this trend will continue, and someday we will actually have a lesbian character on television who actually has a (sex) life.

So … that’s the answer to FAQ #1. Got another question? Disagree with me entirely? Tell me in the comments or send me an email at mlo at malindalo dot com. Thanks!

Anyone who has studied popular culture or cultural studies will be familiar with the idea that entertainment reflects broader cultural beliefs. I also believe that the connection between entertainment and cultural beliefs is an active one–I do think that entertainment has the power to change the way people feel about issues. Americans have seen a man of color in the White House on long-running, popular television series three times recently: twice on 24, with President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) and his brother, President Wayne Palmer (D.B. Woodside), and on The West Wing, with President Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits). The media has even noted distinct and sometimes uncanny parallels between Matt Santos’ fictional election campaign and Barack Obama’s.

That means that Americans have gotten accustomed to seeing a man of color in the White House. (I might add that the only woman in the fictional White House in recent times, Geena Davis in Commander in Chief, didn’t fare so well. I’m hoping Cherry Jones in the next season of 24 does a little better.)

Anyone who doubts the power of TV to naturalize a previously rejected idea would do well to remember what happened after Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997. No, it didn’t make everybody support gay people, but it made a difference one person at a time. It made a lot of parents take a more open and accepting look at their own children. This year after she married Portia de Rossi, the outpouring of support for her was incredible to see.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. And I think it’s partly because her relationship with Portia is a celebrity relationship. We can still look at them from afar and admire them as colorful icons of Hollywood liberalism; they don’t necessarily speak to middle Americans as a reality. We need a lesbian or gay couple on prime-time television, on a highly rated TV show, and we need them to be main characters with prominent story lines. They must have real, whole lives, including relationships. And let’s be honest: these lesbians need to be popular characters.

Yes, I know there’s a great gay couple on Brothers & Sisters (also on ABC), but Brothers & Sisters has ranked at No. 37 and 38 in the ratings since it debuted. Grey’s Anatomy has always been a top 10 show, with several million more viewers than Brothers & Sisters gets. The Callica story line was set to be one of the most highly watched lesbian story lines on prime-time television ever. ABC’s decision to fire Brooke Smith and de-gay future story lines, in retrospect, seems like a forecast for Proposition 8 (which, incidentally, won by a slim margin in Los Angeles County, where those ABC suits work).

To all those ABC execs who decided to pull the plug on the Callica story line because of its “explicit” nature (since when does intelligently written, humorous metaphor = explicit sexuality?), I am ashamed of you. I thought you–the network previously known as Gay-B-C–were more enlightened. If, as the L.A. Times suggests, the reason for Smith’s firing was because she wasn’t thin and hot enough to play a lesbian on TV, then Hollywood really is as pathetic as everyone says it is.

But it’s not only Hollywood suits who are to blame. I read a number of the comments online about the Grey’s Anatomy de-gaying, and it was incredibly disheartening to see so many people disparaging Brooke Smith’s character because she was unattractive, or rejecting the Callica story line because it made them “uncomfortable.” I have no doubt that ABC took the opinions of those bigoted viewers to heart before they decided to de-gay Grey’s. And if Americans can’t stand to see lesbians in a relationship on TV, do you think they’re going to support them getting married in real life? Not by a long shot.

It makes me think that we’re going to have to wait long and hard for same-sex marriage to be a possibility in California again.

Harris is openly gay and he has his heart in the right place (he’s saying that there has been some progress but there still needs to be a lot more), but he is totally blind to the status of lesbians and bisexual women on TV. This isn’t surprising, and that is disappointing. Frankly, I’m tired of gay men speaking up to demand more gay representation but ignoring the fact that a lot of gay people are women.

A couple of gay people: Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

In his column (which otherwise does a good job of commenting on the representation of gay men on TV), Harris mentions women twice. Two times. Here they are:

(1) “The rest of the roster contains a disproportionately high number of really hot women who call themselves bisexual, which is pretty much what all gay people would look like if straight men were in charge of inventing us.”

How nice of Harris to dismiss the record number (at least four) of bisexual female regulars on network TV this fall by equating them with straight male fantasies. It’s true that “bisexual” female characters are often there solely to elicit drool from straight male viewers, but this year, things are a little bit different. (Plus, sometimes women drool over the bisexual chicks, too.)

Yes, it looks like the bisexual women on House (Olivia Wilde’s Thirteen) and Bones (Michaela Conlin’s Angela) might be about to embark on stereotypical experimental lesbian flings before settling down with men (although I’m holding out hope for Angela, just because Bones is so quirky). (And who knows if Carrie Rivai on Knight Rider is still queer.) But Harris has completely overlooked the burgeoning romance between Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Erica (Brooke Smith) on Grey’s Anatomy. Yeah, their romance has been developing veeery slowly, but so far, it looks like Shonda Rhimes — who is not, by the way, a straight man — is taking it seriously.

Plus, who said “really hot women” can’t be gay? Hasn’t Harris seen The L Word? Or Portia de Rossi, for that matter?

(2) “And there’s one statistic GLAAD didn’t list: the number of network shows, 10 years after Ellen and Will & Grace, that are built around a main character who’s gay. That’d be zero. Is it just me, or does that seem a little low?”

This is the second reference (albeit in passing) Harris makes to a lesbian on television. I’m not denying that it’s pathetic that there is no network show centering on a gay lead character. It is, in fact, beyond pathetic — it’s going backwards in time. But let me add a bit of context: This year on scripted network television, there are zero lesbians, period. Despite the sudden influx of bisexual women, network TV offers us not even one lesbian regular character. (Yes, there are some randomly recurring lesbian characters who never have more than a couple of lines. They don’t count.)

Yes, there are a lot more lesbian characters on cable (primarily on The L Word). But network and cable TV are not the same thing — a distinction that Harris has conveniently blurred. In his effort to dramatize the plight of LGBT folks on television, Harris has purposely misread GLAAD’s study on the subject. Harris writes, “GLAAD says there are 16 gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters regularly appearing on prime-time network TV this fall,” and then quips, “Does the phrase ’16 gay people on TV’ signify a giant leap forward, or just a new season of Project Runway?”

Um, no. This may seem like splitting hairs, but Project Runway — and the LGBT characters in the cable shows Harris also cites — are not part of those 16 characters. Those 16 are only on prime-time scripted network television, not on cable, and not on reality shows. Cable television is certainly an increasingly important chunk of television these days (and reality is a whole ‘nother discussion), but network TV is still watched by more Americans simply because it is more widely available. In addition, the most buzzed-about shows are still on broadcast TV (unless you’re AMC’s Mad Men this year) and get the lion’s share of media coverage.

Call me old-fashioned, but if you can’t keep your definitions straight (no pun intended), I can’t take your argument seriously.