Let's Get Mad About... (Bi Erasure) (And First WCW) - Wednesday's Child

GREETINGS Y'ALL!

Aaaaand welcome to my first Woman Crush Wednesay. Today's crush is the beautiful Olivia Wilde, who plays Dr Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley on House MD. Like isn't she completely gorgeous?

Part of the reason I love her is the character she plays so well on House; Thirteen is a bisexual doctor who is suffering with (and as a result dying of) Huntington's Disease, a genetic disease that affects the central nervous system. Now this brings me very neatly onto my first Let's Get Mad About...

Let's Get Mad About... Bi Erasure

Now y'all probably think this is going to be incredibly sophisticated and a pristine argument. It's not. I'm going to rant, because I'm pissed off. 

Let's conduct a small social experiment. You have your answers, and I'll write mine. 

List five canonically straight characters. 

List five canonically gay or lesbian characters.

List five bisexual characters. 

Five straight characters

1. C.J Creigg, The West Wing

2. Gregory House, House, MD

3. Steve Rogers, Marvel Cinematic Universe

4. Jim Kirk, Star Trek

5. Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games

Five gay or lesbian characters

1. Charlie Bradbury, Supernatural

2. Connor Walsh, How To Get Away With Murder

3. T.J Hammond, Political Animals

4.Blaine Anderson, Glee

5. Charlie Kelmeckis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Five bisexual characters

1. Remy Hadley, House, MD

2. Frank Underwood, House of Cards

3. Piper Chapman, Orange is the New Black

4. Jack Del Mar, Brokeback Mountain

5. James Bond(?), Skyfall

How easy was it for you to complete each list? I got the straight characters down straight away, had a little trouble with the gay characters and had to google the bisexual ones. 

Even in the points where characters are openly bisexual, very few shows or films actually use the word bisexual to label the characters. It's something that happens regularly in everyday life as well, honestly. 

In House the representation of Hadley is excellent. Although she becomes the butt of some of House's jokes, every character is joked about in a similar fashion, due to House's misanthropic view of the world. The word 'bisexual' is frequently used to describe her sexuality, and she is shown to have relationships with both men and women. 

However, in Orange is the New Black, Piper is referred to as a 'past lesbian' despite having both straight and gay relationships - most think this is the definition of bisexuality. This is something that happens a lot for bisexuals - they're seen as 'too gay' to be straight, and 'too straight' to be gay. 

And in all fairness, bisexuals don't fit into the straight spectrum or the gay spectrum, they are a sexuality all of their own. They aren't gay one day and straight the next. Depending on the partner they have their sexuality doesn't change. 

Bisexuality is a fluid sexuality - you can fall in love with and be attracted to both men and women. It doesn't mean that if you're a woman in a relationship with a man you're straight and then when you get into a relationship with a woman you're a lesbian. If a person falls in love with or is attracted to both men and women it's a fluid sexuality, not rigid like heterosexuality or homosexuality. People fail to understand that point, and thus bisexuals are often overlooked or mislabeled as straight or gay. 

It's a sad fact, but it happens. 

So, that's my first Let's Get Mad About. It's been an interesting week, so I'm signing off now. Happy Wednesday, and as always, 

I'm with you 'till the end of the line, folks ♥