In the cult series Halt and Catch Fire, the public discovered that entrepreneur Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) was bisexual when he seduced another man in a Machiavellian maneuver to break a contract. We are talking about almost a decade ago. The plot coincided on television with Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), the character from House of Cards, who became even more disturbing when the viewer discovered that, in addition to sleeping with women, he was also attracted to men.
These characters, like the constant vampire representations, associated bisexuality with an idea: the lack of morals, perversion, vice, that boredom and the need for new experiences leads to sex with both sexes. This was transmitted like this unless, as happened in the fantastic Insecure, a woman like Molly (Yvonne Orji) discriminated against an ideal suitor for having had sex with other men: then, as her friends reproached her, biphobia was associated with the lack of manhood.
“They are selfish characters, those who are untrustworthy, with hidden secrets, unfaithful, immature… and a large percentage are linked to problems with drugs, the law or mental health,” reflects Jordi Brizo, an activist from both the Assemblea LGTBI of Sant Cugar and from social networks. “Not only this but a large number of bi characters (including women) turn out to be vampires, witches, demons and all kinds of beings that culturally (in the best of cases) we associate with the lack of sexual taboos and (in the best of cases). the worst) we directly consider perverse and immoral.”
However, in recent years something has changed in the representation of male bisexuality, with a tendency to be more invisible both on the screen and in society. The Summer I Fell in Love, the Amazon teen phenomenon starring young people who look like they came from a Tommy Hilfiger catalogue, is an example. Belly (Lola Tung) always finds herself heartbroken in two and with doubts about which Fisher brother she likes more: Conrad (Christopher Briney) or Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno), who as viewers we know hooking up with another boy. It doesn't matter to the equation whether Jeremiah is also attracted to men of the same sex: what matters is whether Belly is in love with him and he is in love with her.
In September, for example, we saw the end of a fundamental character arc of Sex Education: Adam (Connor Swindells), who humiliated the students with pens at his school, went on to have a relationship with another man and then accepted his bisexuality and communicate it freely. It was another story that dismantled the eternal prejudice of bisexuality as a temporary box towards the consolidation of a homo or hetero sexuality.
Cabrizo adds other cases such as, for example, Nick (Kit Connor) from Hearstopper, a series with an even pedagogical point. It is interesting, according to him, "because of how his own self-discovery is approached, because of how they relate the biphobia that he experiences and because he is represented from tenderness, from naturalness, prioritizing his emotions."
He also especially enjoys Darryl (Pete Gardner) from the already completed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, because “beyond his character, a funny man who arouses a lot of sympathy, he represents a large part of the bi-male community that comes out of the closet with a certain age". The character's age is also a plus for the writer and activist: he gives visibility to an age group that is often ignored, as if bisexuality were something for young people. (And there was no shortage of bi hymns.)
And, finally, we do not want to overlook a native case: Pol (Carlos Cuevas), who first discovered his bisexuality in Merlí and later continued in Merlí Sapere Aude. “I think his sexual plots are very well treated and the orientation is only part of everything that makes up the character,” he defends.
The coincidence of Heartstopper, The Summer I Fell in Love and Sex Education in recent months cannot be overlooked: bisexuality finally obtains a sense of representation closer to that which homosexuals have obtained, and there are works that contribute to eliminate the stigma of bisexual people. This does not mean that, when talking about bisexual characters on television, the cliché remains more than alive.
You just have to look at the character of Loki, whose bi status is attributed to the eccentricity and boredom of eternity, or the recent The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix. The series tells the curse of a millionaire family that owns a pharmaceutical company that caused the opioid epidemic in the United States. What a coincidence that almost all the children, without a hint of a sense of ethics, covered up to the eyebrows and openly bad people, are bisexual, right?
"We deserve good evil characters, vampires, demons, vicious people and everything we want, the problem is that for a long time it has been the only representation that existed, and this helped create a very specific image of bi men in the collective imagination ”, analyzes Brizo.
He also wants to clarify that every person has the right to live their sexual orientation as they please: "Prejudice is presupposing that just because you are bisexual, you are all of these things (vicious, promiscuous) and that it is an intrinsic part of your nature."
