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Sugarbutch Says: Butches On Television

Sinclair Sexsmith is the kinky queer butch top behind Sugarbutch Chronicles at sugarbutch.net, which is a personal sex, gender, and relationship adventure writing project. She is a gender and cultural theorist, Buddhist, feminist, and lover of literature.

For as long as I can recall, I have been obsessed with butches. Whenever I spotted some type of female masculinity on any character, on TV or in films or a performer or comic, I couldn’t help but to take note. My chest tightened and I held my breath a little. Their very presence can be a surprise, stopping me in my tracks.

I used to think it’s because I wanted to sleep with butches, but now I know better. I suppose it was that Do-Be-Do-Be-Do Complex, the question of whether I wanted to do her, or be her. Now I know: I wanted to be her.

Ten years since my own coming out, coming to a queer identity, coming to a butch identity, and dating femmes, it does seem like those coming out now have an easier time. An easier time is still not an easy time, but the coming out process, the queer identity development process, and being openly queer seems, from my vantage point, to be improving. And while the 20-year-olds don’t remember a time before The L Word, queer visibility is on the rise and I would expect to see more of a diverse range of gender identity portrayed in the media, too.

But, sadly, that’s just not the case.

Where are the genderqueers? Where are the women who step outside of the prescribed feminine gender role? Oh, we exist, alright; I know from much experience of being a genderqueer dyke out in the world and from running my personal online writing project, Sugarbutch Chronicles, that there are plenty of queer ladies out there who are seeking our particular gender complexities, too. But the genderqueers, the androgynous folks, the butches – we just haven’t quite broken into any constant or consistent representation in mainstream media.

How are butches represented on television? How is the butch identity commonly, or uncommonly, treated? How are our masculinity and sexuality portrayed? How, if at all, does television treat the issues of butch stereotypes? I wish I had easy answers to these questions, but there is so little to examine that it’s hard to figure out whether there are any actual trends.

Are there butches on The Real L Word, now that The L Word is over? No. Are there any butches on television? Well, yes, a few, and a few more in the recent past. Who are they? How are they presented, what are their identities like? What are their similarities, differences?

Let’s start with Ellen Degeneres. Obviously, you know who she is. You might not remember her famous coming out “Puppy Episode” of her first sitcom, Ellen, but I do.

I didn’t know then that she’d become such a poster-child for butches everywhere, with her posts on her show’s blog about her progressively masculine wardrobe, her increasingly shorter haircuts, and her dreamy femme wife, Portia de Rossi, but I knew enough to know that there was something special and unique about what she was doing on sitcom TV.

As far as I know, Ellen has never made a public statement about her gender identity or the identity words she uses, or doesn’t use, to describe herself. I doubt she would use the word butch to describe herself. And while some people saw her recent Cover Girl campaign incongruent with her increasingly masculine presentation, there is another perspective too: the involvement of a woman who is not traditionally feminine on such a national scale could actually be expanding representation of gender identity.

That is, of course, if you believe Ellen looks at all masculine in her Cover Girl shots, which, I might argue, she doesn’t. And she may be allowing herself to be feminized, as in the segment on her current talk show in which she allowed others to choose what she wore (in response to some complaints about how boyish she dressed). I appreciate how she took that feedback and twisted it into something fun, silly, and slightly ridiculous. It pointed to the fact that she looks more “natural” in boyish clothes, but it was also a very indirect way of addressing her own masculinity.

And, is it just me, or is she, at just over 50, more hot and sexy than she’s ever been? Seriously. Smokin’.

Regardless of how she identifies or whether she presents herself as masculine all of the time or not, she is a huge presence in the television world, and she is pushing the envelope, continuing to change and evolve her own look and aesthetic, and forging ahead, making it possible for others to come up after her.

Such as Dr. Rachel Maddow.

Butches on television would be vastly incomplete if it didn’t mention Rachel. She is perhaps the most visible butch in the US today – and she claims the word and identity openly. With articles from “The Butch is Back” in the Village Voice to “Rachel Maddow and Her Girlfriend Give Up TV On Weekends” in People magazine, Rachel is out and open.

That doesn’t mean The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC doesn’t femme her up a bit, removing her glasses, dressing her in women’s-cut suits, and adding TV makeup, but it is clear how she usually dresses by her other TV and magazine appearances. And as much as I’d like to think that compromising my own gender identity would be a dealbreaker, even in some tremendous career opportunity, it is unlikely that my personal career would ever involve a TV show on a major network, and if it did, well, who knows – perhaps the high-profile visibility would be an adequate pay off.

Ellen and Rachel are tremendously well-known, not despite their gender presentation and masculinity, but at least in part because of it. But they are not so similar: Rachel has an extensive activist and academic background, Ellen has been a comic and performer for nearly thirty years. Rachel has been presenting as butch for a long time, since her early appearances in media such as The Advocate, and Ellen as in the closet and opted to pass (perhaps Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell style) in her early years, and has taken longer to come to her current masculine presentation.

Their paths and processes have been very different, so it is hard to compare to draw any conclusions about how the butch identity (or female masculinity, or genderqueerness) are accepted on or by TV.

It is clear, though, that they both have to “femme up” for their shows. This is sometimes chalked up to the requirement of TV makeup that men, too, have to wear, but of course it has a different effect when on a woman.

Though Ellen and Rachel are the most prominent, they are not the only ones. Most recently, Katherine Moennig played a key character, Shane, on the famously loved and simultaneously hated show The L Word.

Though neither Shane nor Katherine identify as butch (as far as I know), and though I have multiple essays worth of material to complain about how their characters were written on that show, Shane and Katherine are both more genderqueer and masculine than typically TV actresses, and portrayed female masculinity openly on a major show.

Butch was often disregarded, discarded, and even spoken down on in The L Word scripts, treated as a stereotype and a backward movement, not as a conscious or intentional identity, or even as an optional identity. However, Shane was the one with the occasional swagger, the one with the boy’s name, the one who wore briefs instead of panties, and the one who always, always, got the girl. Throughout the show’s six seasons, my friends often expressed something like, “I wouldn’t watch it if it wasn’t for Shane.”

Katherine – and, occasionally, Shane – had to femme up for the show. But regardless of how much make-up Katherine was wearing, or how many dresses they put her in for The L Word promo shots, her masculinity came through, and fans and butch-lovers everywhere recognized it eagerly. Katherine, however, has made no official statement about her gender identity or orientation.

I could mention Daniela Sea in this article, who played the trans male character Max on The L Word, though her character is not butch but a trans man, which is different. Daniela described Max as butch when he was first introduced on the show as Moira. Daniela is openly queer and has described herself as butch in the past, does not identify as trans, and has commented that though she was supportive of the progression of her character’s transition, she wished there was more of a depiction of butches on the show.

The introduction of a butch character on The L Word was kind of surprising – I personally remember being quite excited about it – but that character didn’t stay butch or occupy any sort of empowering version of that identity, and, in fact, went on to reject it quickly, and instead portrayed a lot of macho stereotypes about masculinity. I was vastly disappointed with the way Max’s transition and masculinity were depicted.

Dani Campbell, on the other hand, featured on Tila Tequila’s reality TV show A Shot At Love, identified openly as “futch,” which she identified as a combination of femme and butch, and her gender presentation was almost entirely masculine.

I don’t know why she felt it necessary to dilute the word butch with the “f,” but I do support anyone in their own process of finding the particular word that fits. Regardless, when I saw her in her bikini top and board shorts doing cannonballs into Tila’s pool, and when she spoke of her firefighting career and sweet family life, my heart went out to her, and I was certain she was too good for Tila.

Dani’s gender identity did not seem compromised at all, in playing herself on a reality TV show. While her masculinity was probably encouraged and a bit exploited by producers of the show, it didn’t seem she had to “femme up” her presentation or or hide who she was, and she was not subject to fictional character weaknesses as Daniela and Kate’s portrayals were. Her time in the spotlight was short-lived, as was her attempt at a follow-up clothing line (also originally called Futch), but I suspect she won’t disappear altogether.

The second person on this six-person list who actually identifies as and uses the word butch is Skyler Cooper. She is relatively new to acting, coming to it after careers both in the military and in the tech industry. She is also a bodybuilder, continuing to keep up her own personal training pursuits, Sky Body Fitness (skybodyfitness.com) even as she is pursuing an acting career. She’s had a few prominent roles, like the lead role in Shakespeare’s Othello, the documentary Butch Mystique, and the lesbian television series Don’t Go (which was never picked up by a network), but so far, her roles have been limited.

I haven’t seen much of Skyler’s acting, but in the clips I have seen, she is tremendous, and I would love to see more of her. I can’t help but wonder, however, if her masculinity is going to hinder her career.

Would it be easier for her to get a job if she could “femme up,” like many of the others on this list? I sincerely hope not, but the range of gender representation is very narrow in Hollywood, television, and the celebrity world in general.

Folks like Ellen and Rachel and Katherine are pushing the limits, but the most successful butch and genderqueer performers have also been able to tone down their own presentation of masculinity if needed, and seem to be willing to do so. However, the visibility and range is broader than it was even five years ago, and certainly ten years ago, so here’s hoping that folks like Skyler, Daniela, and Dani will have more access to good roles and more understanding for the ways in which they identify and present themselves as their careers go forward.

Let’s keep celebrating and encouraging this wide range by supporting and watching their shows and endeavors.

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