The Lesbians Deserve A Rom-Com Series Of Their Own
Written by Daphne Bryant
Image courtesy of Bottoms (2023)
After finishing XO, Kitty Season 2 with my mom, I found myself in dire need of another cheesy rom-com series with the perfect mix of feel-good humor and insane drama. Specifically, I found myself craving a sapphic equivalent. And before you get defensive, yes I know XO, Kitty’s main character is bisexual, and there are multiple lesbian pairings in the show (I genuinely love that about XO, Kitty and even talk about it in this article). That being said, I think it’s pretty clear that they’re setting up Kitty’s love arc so that she ends up not with a woman, but with a man (a really hot and charming man, but I digress). Kitty is a queer girl, but her heart is in a heterosexual relationship.
I think the lesbians deserve a rom-com series of their own. When do we get to star in and be endgame in our own silly shows?! I don’t want another The L Word or Feel Good, I want campy teen/young adult drama: adolescent mistakes, genuinely silly humor, first kisses and gay awakenings, queer girlhood that’s healthy and more representation. I want BIPOC leads, lesbian relationships that aren’t unnecessarily toxic, plus-sized, nonbinary and neurodivergent baddies, BUTCHES, complex but not confusing characters, and for the love of God, can writers STOP writing lesbians that die in the end for no reason other than to bury their gays?
Casting for a show like this wouldn’t be an issue; there are so many out, young and queer actors these days. Ayo Edebiri, Bella Ramsey, Lili Reinhart, Kiersey Clemons, Havana Rose Liu, Rowan Blanchard, Madison Bailey, Sky Katz, Amandla Stenberg, Liv Hewson, Hunter Schafer, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Ruby Cruz, Jessica Madsen: the list literally goes on and on (and this doesn’t include those who keep their sexualities more vague, are less well-known or simply undiscovered), so I fear Hollywood has all the resources necessary to make the rom-com series of our sapphic/WLW dreams come to life.
If this is the case, however, why aren’t there any lesbian rom-com series’ that I can think of? The genre has had a lot of success on streaming networks: apart from XO, Kitty, there is also Never Have I Ever, Heartstopper and the iconic Bridgerton. In these shows lesbian storylines always find themselves in the supporting position, and I’m getting tired of it.
If I was a film girlie, you know I would have been made a three-season series in Boston or LA. The hard part is that making TV, and good TV at that, comes at a cost. You have to have the funds, you have to have the connections, you have to have the time, and you have to have the drive. Lesbian filmmakers and screenwriters might bring some (or even all) of that to the table, but the chances of actually getting our authentic and unapologetically sapphic stories on screen is slim. People are scared to invest in us and our truth; we always have to advocate for ourselves, always louder and more frequently than straight creatives do.
I don’t want this to discourage you; if anything, the fact should enrage and empower you. Enough with the depressing lesbian relationships, the senseless cheating, the suffocating heteronormativity, the lack of whimsicality and light-heartedness! I’m ready for a change, aren’t you?
