Non-cliche lesbian characters

[chilled monkey]

How many lesbian characters do you know of who have avoided the usual cliches? Who are your favourites? They can be from movies, TV, books, anything you like as long as they do not fall under the cliche.



Here are some of the ones I know of:-



Jackal and Snow (Book-Solitaire)

Jen and Amy (TV-Tru Calling)

Maggie Sawyer and Toby Raines (DC comics)

Hazel McNamara and Donna Cavanagh ''

Renee Montoya and Daria Hernandez ''

Gabby and Gina (TV-Birds of Prey)

Corky and Violet (Movie-Bound)

[Ginner WTluv]

Helen Stewart and Nikki Wade (Bad Girls - UK drama series)

They're probably my favourite anyway



~ Jen

Helen - Oh please Nikki, be serious!

Nikki - I want to make love you to all night long... is that serious enough?

** Helen and Nikki in "Bad Girls" **

[urnofosiris]

- Elin and Agnes from Fucking Amal of course.

- Robyn and Grace from the Butcher´s Wife, only a very small part, but I thought it was sweet.

-The girls from But I´m a Cheerleader, forgot their names.



The list is short, can´t think of any others right away.



Edited to add Nan and Florence from Tipping the Velvet.

Edited by: DrG at: 9/6/04 2:50 pm

[Warduke]

Randy and Evie from The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love



Camille and Petra from When Night Is Falling

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[WebWarlock]

A lot of the comic book characters appear in this list, www.gayleague.com/gay/cha.../index.php including our girls.



Kind of a neat read and thread.





Warlock

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Web Warlock

Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches

Talent on loan from Cthulhu

Edited by: WebWarlock at: 9/7/04 6:24 am

[The Angry Lion]

Marilyn and Deedee from Doctor T and the Women

My Country is the World. My Coutrymen Mankind-Thomas Paine

[Gatito Grande]

Vivian and Cay from Desert Hearts

Claude and Pink Hair (that's how I think of her character!) from All Over Me

Several couples from Go Fish



GG We're just talking the Dead/Crazy lesbian cliche? Cuz there are others . . . (not going there now!) Out

[chilled monkey]

Thank you all for your replies.



WebWarlock: Thank you very much for that link. I really enjoyed it.



Gatito Grande: I was referring to pretty much all of the cliches.



I'd like to add:



Hana Tsu-Vachel and Rain Qin from the video game Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix

[emma peel]

Without a doubt, Amy and Jenny from the groundbreaking "The War Widow" shown on PBS in the mid 1970's. Here's a link:www.imdb.com/title/tt0185002/#comment

PS- nobody dies, and they end up together.

[Hemiola]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned

Susan and her partner from "Friends"

[justin]

Also there's Debbie Buchman & Joan Golfmos from Mad About You

"VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised! - The Parrot Sketch

[blackeyedwillow]

tara and willow - buffy the vampire slayer (obviously!)

-wonderfalls (the main characters sister, and her gf)

maggie doyle- ER

[justin]

Origional Cindy from Dark Angel

"VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised! - The Parrot Sketch

[WebWarlock]

Quote:

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tara and willow - buffy the vampire slayer (obviously!)

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No.



They are cliched. Read the FAQ. One dead, the other evil and insane only later to jump on the nearest...well that is off topic.



But they do not qualify for this thread. They are not original enough.



Warlock

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Web Warlock

Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches

Talent on loan from Cthulhu

[Hyo Shin]

Angie and Kate in Goldfish Memory.

Xiao Qun and Xiao Ling in Fish and Elephant.

Mei-li Chen and Mei-li Ling in Murmur of Youth.

[justin]

Quote:

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Hana Tsu-Vachel and Rain Qin from the video game Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix

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I'm not sure that they can be counted as non cliche. After all Hana is an assassin who used to work for the Triad. Also at the start of the game she seduces a man so that she can kill him. So I don't think that this is really a positive portrayal of lesbian characters.

"VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised! - The Parrot Sketch

[blackeyedwillow]

fine..fine

i guess they don't..

[sam7777]

I'm not sure we can count couples from shows that were quickly cancelled and thus have incomplete stories as we can't say whether they would have been cliched or not. We all know a how couple can start out well and end horribly wrong.



chilled monkey: Great idea for a thread! This is a great resource to find stuff to watch.



I would like to add Maggie and Kim from "Better Than Chocolate". It's playing this month uncut on the Independent Film Channel on cable. I can't wait to see it again.

_____________________

I still see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 9/11/04 12:18 am

[chilled monkey]

justin: I see your point; perhaps I was a bit too charitable there. I agree that (from what we see in the game), Hana certainly isn't 'pure as the driven snow', but at the same time, my impression was that she wasn't totally ruthless and was at heart, not an 'evil' person. As to 'using her body for information', while that is certainly a negative attribute, the impression I got was that the only person she actually cared about in that way was Rain. So maybe not a positive portrayal exactly, but not all bad.



sam7777: Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

[MaClayMagic]

I'm going to add a soap opera couple from Eastenders. Binnie and Della who were not only an inter-racial couple but they got to leave the series together, still happy together, being driven off in a taxi to jet to sunnier climes to open a business together! No other soap over here has let their gay characters have such a happy ending. And I think they were the first couple to be shown in bed together on a soap!

Wake up, Neo...

[eponinethen]

Betty and Rita (Mulholland Dr., hard to say how their relationship ended though..)

Clarissa and her girlfriend (The Hours..)

Ellen and Laurie



(I like this thread, sort of.. I may be the only one but I don't think I have ever seen any lesbian movie/tv couple who fall under that cliche (except for Tara&Willow). Could someone please just give me a couple of examples so I get this better?)

Edited by: Warduke at: 9/12/04 8:43 am

[Warduke]

Eponinethen, read the The Lesbian Cliche FAQ for many examples.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Patches]

Camile and Petra (Pascale Bussiéres and Rachael Crawford) in When Night Is Falling (1995, directed by Patricia Rozema). Btw, it's a wonderful art-house production that never really got the acclaim and distribution I think it deserved) - Shameless plug; if you can find it, you won't be disappointed.



www.imdb.com/title/tt0114916/



If anyone's seen it and wants to argue the artistic merit of the 'death' scene and ending (or any part of the film); I'm game. It is so *not* cliché.



Peace!!

Patches

Our wedding vows: Life Love Everlasting, Always Intertwining. - Sunday June 27, 2004 :)

[sam7777]

On the second page and we are already repeating. Warduke already posted Camille and Petra From "Night is falling" on 9/6/04. Though I can sympathize as there really aren't that many Non-cliche lesbian characters and what few there are get lost in the sea of cliches.



Everything that I've read here about "Night is falling" has been positive and it certainly doesn't fit the cliche because no one (human) dies or becomes evil. In fact, the first negative thing I've seen on that film was from the IMDB link that you posted.



I'd also like to add Kotz and Roswitha from "Salmonberries".

_____________________

I still see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 9/13/04 10:52 pm

[bluehippocampus]

Jesse Sammler and Katie from Once and Again (TV). I know... the show was canceled (prematurely IMHO) and no one can tell how they'd have ended. But they look so good and cute together.



BH

Beauty in things lies in the mind which contemplates them - David Hume

[WebWarlock]

Quote:

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On the second page and we are already repeating.

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Not really a surprise though. Let's face it lesbian characters are rare, good ones rarer still and then good, non-cliche ones rarest of all.



I am surprised there were so many.



I think we should allow shows even if they were canceled. We have said before that intentions mean nothing, only what is on screen, so I'll take what is on screen, as opposed to some half-attempted promise, anyday.



In other words, isn't 2 years of Original Cindy as good as say 2 hours of a movie couple?



Granted Original Cindy might fall into yet another cliche, the "sexless lesbian" one. Sure she says she gay and she looks at girls, but you never see her with a girlfriend or even a one-night stand for that matter.



Liz on "Nip/Tuck" falls into this cliche.



Other than that I can't think of any more non-cliche ones out side of the gaming industry.



To wit:

Sallie and Teamhair from "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks"

Liath and Bodhmal from my various Unisystem books.

Chevel and Varleria from "The Book of Erotic Fantasy" by Valar Publishing



There might be others, but I can't think of them.



Warlock

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Web Warlock

Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches

Talent on loan from Cthulhu

[Hyo Shin]

Ahem... Original Cindy had her own girlfriend episode. A tragic one. But you can't ignore that.

[WebWarlock]

ok, so she is out too.



And the list gets smaller....



Warlock

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Web Warlock

Coming Soon to The Other Side, The Netbook of Shadows: A Book of Spells for d20 Witches

Talent on loan from Cthulhu

[sam7777]

Tim: Not all the couples posted here count so the list is not that big compared to 27 pages of cliches in the Lesbian death FAQ.



I agree to allowing shows even if they were cancelled as long as the lesbian characters have their own story and it isn't left hanging. The thing is that a 2 hour movie is more likely to have a complete portrayal that can be judged as a whole than a cancelled TV show. IMHO you can't judge a portrayal without being able to see the whole thing (imagine W/T without SR for instance). That said secondary characters on a short lived show where they didn't get to do much should not count IMHO. I can certainly say a lesbian character avoids the usual cliches if they appear for a couple of eps and don't do much but that's not the sort of portrayal I'd hold up as non-cliche except by default.

_____________________

I still see dead lesbian cliches

[MeleeQ]

Megan and Graham from "But I'm a Cheerleader" (I know it was already said, but I thought I'd add their names).



This is one of my favorite movies in general. Though the whole movie is generally a play on every gay cliche in existance, it's still trying to debunk the cliches a bit. One of my favorite bits in the whole movie was when Megan asks someone to teach her how to be a lesbian, and the reply is that there isn't one way to BE a lesbian, you're just yourself and have to keep being yourself.



That and the ending was damn cute.