My Personal Need for a Lesbian “13 Going on Thirty” (Sorry, Mark Ruffalo)
As a kid, I grew up watching several different iterations of Troy and Gabriella falling in love on TV. If you don’t get my High School Musical reference that’s perfectly fine (albeit, surprising). Troy and Gabriella were the main love interests in the hit movie-musical, High School Musical. They sang karaoke together at a New Year’s Eve party and fell in love during the chorus. Or maybe it was the bridge. It doesn’t matter. The point is, it was a straight love story. In fact, just about every popular movie or tv show involved straight people falling in love. Don’t get me wrong, I love High School Musical and Sixteen Candles and 13 Going on Thirty as much as the next, but as a young lesbian I felt alienated by the primarily straight characters that dominated film and television.
Am I saying that 13 Going on Thirty would be an exponentially better film if Jennifer Garner’s love interest was a woman and part of her journey as a 30 year old is embracing the out-of-the-closet life style that she wished she had at 13? Actually, yes. As I wrote that I decided it was a really good idea and I would have loved to watch that as a teenager. All I ever wanted was to relate to someone like me on-screen. The only thing that I believed to be true about being gay was that a lot of people thought it was wrong. Especially in the south, where I spent the entirety of my teenage years. The area that I grew up in forced me to hide my sexuality, so I looked to movies and tv for solace. I wanted to watch an openly gay character fall in love and hang out with their friends and family and enjoy life — because if they could do it, maybe I could too.
Thankfully, queer representation has significantly increased since I was in middle school. Now, there are openly queer characters on kid shows, mainstream television shows, romantic comedies (thank you Kristen Stewart and Alice Wu) and dramas (well…we’re getting there). More importantly, what we have now is quality representation: well-written queer characters that are more than a joke for straight audiences. This representation is essential to fostering empathy and compassion. For young queer audiences, I think representation on-screen can give possible answers, confidence, and hope. I should also mention that queer representation has a ways to go. (I am still waiting for the day when a lesbian-love story takes place in the 21st century.) There is still a lack of queer artists off-screen and queer characters and artists of color in general. My hope is that Hollywood will continue to improve, so that all kinds of love stories are told for all audiences.
