Pansexuality On The Small Screen: Schitt’s Creek
Beware! Here Be (Some) Spoilers.
Created by and starring Eugene Levy (American Pie) and his son Dan Levy, Schitt’s Creek has been around since 2015 but has recently started its fourth season (with the first three dropping on Netflix last year). The comedy has a simple premise: a rich family loses all their money and possessions, save for a small town, Schitt’s Creek, which was purchased as a joke. Now, the town is all the family have and they are forced to move there, living off of the good will of the locals.
Now, rich people struggling with small town life might not sound like the most unique and attractive premise but the series has a lot of laughs and heart. At only 13 episodes per season and 20 min approx run time, it’s easy to burn through and I’ve done exactly that.
What made me sit up and take notice with this series, apart from joy that is Catherine O’Hara as former soap star, Moira Rose and her “unplaceable accent”, is that one of the main characters is described as pansexual.
Red, white or rose? Why pick one
Its rare enough to even have a bisexual or pansexual character on television, but for someone to use the word? Like a Bigfoot sighting, you’ve heard of someone who saw it once but they can’t really give you any confirmed evidence. In this instance, David, played by co-creator Dan Levy, is the coddled and entitled, camp and fashion forward son of Eugene Levy’s Johnny Rose. Early into the first season, David has befriended the sole worker at the motel that the family have to live in, Stevie. During their bonding time, Stevie ends up having a veiled conversation with David about his sexuality. In the analogy, she uses wine for preferences, saying that she likes red wine and thought that he also liked red wine. To which he responds that he does like red wine, but also white, and rose — which does confuse Stevie, until David clarifies that he has also enjoyed a red that used to be a white. This alone wouldn’t be that remarkable, it falls under the giant umbrella of instances where sexuality has been implied but not said directly. However, there is a mirroring scene that is sliced with this one, in which Johnny is at a party and explains to someone that his son is pansexual. Like, he actually uses the word and everything!
With a show about a rich family in a country town, you would expect that the fashionista son would be the victim of a storyline where he ends up outing a young local man who hides behind patriarchal ideas of masculinity. But. This. Does. Not. Happen. At least not so far. Instead, David ends up pursuing a relationship with Stevie, following a one night stand. It’s refreshing to see this played out, never for laughs and with an openness of dialogue that both hits the mark and doesn’t sound preachy.
It’s difficult for any writer to show pansexuality on screen and do it well. Often the crux of it is sexuality through sexual acts, that a person must be shown doing in order for it to be understood. Here, because Dan Levy is relying on the audience to make the same assumption as Stevie, he is able to move into developing David’s character sooner. His relationship with Stevie is very normal, it’s treated like any other couple on a TV comedy. That in itself is refreshing.
David doesn’t have any kind of romantic relationship, interaction or even whimsical flirtation with a person of the same sex in the first season of the show. This gives David’s pansexuality a stable base as he doesn’t fall into any of the trappings commonly associated with bisexuality and pansexuality, such as cheating and sexual pervasiveness.
It’s important to note that this is one iteration of pansexuality. There are pan and bi people who enjoy multiple partners, a higher or nonexistent need for sex, but in this scenario, the Levys do well to give David a sexuality without it being his crux or singular attribute.
The show doesn’t stop at one bi/pansexual character
As the show progress and grows, the development of all the characters leads to many more varied situations and relationships. Far from David’s past relationships or pansexual attraction being ignored, it is dosed out with a few different partners over the next two seasons.
One of these is another example of bi/pansexaulity and comes in the form of a typically beautiful, furniture maker. This guy shows interest in both Stevie and David, who are not a couple at the time, and they both end up dating him, initially unknown to one another. The openness with which this guy dates the two of them shows progress for representation, never letting the actions of either pairing to occur in the shadows as though it is shameful or based on secretiveness. To do this would be too much of a trope given the setting.
If you’re not sold of Schitt’s Creek based on the pansexual representation and exploration alone, be assured that this show is very funny. There are lots of small jokes, as well as the episodes sitcom situations. One of the most attractive qualities is how the show thinks highly of the people in the town of Schitt’s Creek. They are “characters” in the sense that all of them are in a comedy, but they are often the ones that are most respected. They are smart and capable, granted to varying degrees, but are unified in knowing how their lives operate and not letting themselves be looked down on. For the most part, the Rose family also don’t look down on them, at least not for every long. Acclimation into the town serves the story better than the two groups constantly being at odds because of what they don’t have in common.
We can only hope to get more seasons of Schitt’s Creek and hopefully and increasingly diverse and intersectional range of bi and pan characters in TV and film.
