9021-‘mo: The Gay Storyline

I’ve been tough on 90210’s portrayal of the LGBT community and here’s why: the Adriana storyline felt like a cop-out – another excuse to get two girls to make out onscreen and lure in viewers during sweeps period. There was no thought put into how teenage peers would realistically react to a friend coming out, the struggle to disclose one’s sexuality to parents and other authority figures, or the aftereffects of being labeled as somebody under the giant LGBT umbrella of terms. Adriana was a lesbian for – and I’m being generous – maybe half a season, and it irked me especially so because the show’s creative team advertised a true-to-life gay storyline.

“This isn’t a fling,” said Rebecca Sinclair, 90210’s executive producer, in October 2009. “We’re coming at this [relationship] from a genuine place and not going, ‘Let’s do a titillating story that will grab some promotion.’”

Except that’s exactly what happened. The show garnered some press, Adriana made out with Gia (aka: Rumer Willis, who would be just about the last chick that I’d lock lips with if I ever were to dabble down a different path), and then she ran back to her man-loving ways, the way that all good bisexual girls eventually do (or so the stereotype goes). The impression the show gave was that sexuality was something you could forget about instantaneously, and any LGBT teenager knows that is not possible.

I absolutely applaud that the showmakers advocated for sexual exploration and bisexuality, but to ignore the after-effects of somebody’s closet march does nobody any good. Or maybe, despite drunken hit-and-runs and teachers raping students, this is just the perfect high school.

Regardless, 90210 will hopefully make it up to me this fall when they launch a full-blown gay storyline (and it doesn’t hurt that it’s starring major beefcake Trevor Donovan). The show spent a year establishing character Teddy as a ladykiller and we will soon find out what’s truly behind his skirt-chasing ways.

"We thought he was just a womanizer," said Sinclair. "But then ... we started to wonder about the deeper life of the character. Was he a womanizer, or was he really covering for something?"

Sinclair seems to realize that the two-step shuffle Adriana made out of and then back into the closet isn't representative of what it is really like to come out as a non-hetero teen. But it seems like this storyline is going to explore the deeper aspects of that transition.

"Though, thankfully, we live in an age where lots of teens are comfortable with their sexual orientation and are able to come out when they’re in high school or even before, we didn’t want to ignore the reality that for lots of kids the road to self-acceptance for a gay teenager isn’t easy," she told Entertainment Weekly last week. "This is going to be a dramatic, at times painful, but hopefully ultimately cathartic journey for him."

I won't reveal much else from that interview because it does contain its fair share of spoilers, but the main plotline revolves around the pressures of being popular, an athlete, a famous guy's son and a closeted homo. Basically, this has the makings to be one of the most entertaining – and heartfelt – fall plotlines. Glee can stop waving sexless Kurt in my face, because I'm all aboard the Teddy bandwagon.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons