I write romance with happy ever afters or HEAs. I read a lot of books, and I watch a lot of television. Recently, I’ve begun to get angry while watching certain programmes, especially on the BBC because it appears that same sex couples cannot have a happy ever after, even for a few days. This afternoon, I’m watching WPC56 knowing the gay inspector of police is going to be exposed and it’ll probably end badly. Alright, it’s set at a time when homosexuality was illegal, but all the same the pair could go on quietly meeting.
On Sunday I watch Call
the Midwife with my tissues at the ready. Like many others, I’ve been
hoping that Patsy and Delia would set up their home and be happy – but no –
Delia has an accident and loses her memory on the day they were going to move
in together. A few weeks ago Caroline, the stuffy but wonderful head teacher,
married Kate in Last Tango in Halifax.
That marriage lasted a day with Kate dying the day after, leaving Caroline to
cope with her loss and looking after a new born baby. A lot of tweets compared
the two events and asked the same question of why it was necessary and I ask
the same thing.
Why can’t we have the gay version of Hilda and Stan and Jack
and Vera – couples who have their problems but who love each other and have a
love that lasts for years? I’ve read stories of many real life gay couples who’ve
been together for decades. Today is the birthday of John Barrowman, who has
been with his husband Scott for well over twenty years. Same sex couples have
always existed in secret and in the open, living quiet lives with each other,
but this doesn’t seem to be allowed on television and don't get me started on the teasing (and I can think of other names for it) of the relationship between Dean and Castiel in Supernatural.
Strangely, I started writing after the death of one half
of a gay TV couple – Ianto Jones – the coffee making, suit wearing,
devastatingly handsome lover of the omnisexual Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood.
The out pouring of anger
about this event is legendary. The shrine to Ianto Jones remains in Cardiff Bay
nearly six years after his death. I, like many others, wrote Children of Earth fix-it stories where
Ianto lived on revived by nanogenes or the Doctor turning back time. Here was
another example of a same sex couple not getting a HEA – but this is Russell T
Davies and he’d already killed off Owen and Tosh, so he had a track record of
using death to create drama, and for those who watch Cucumber, you’ll have seen that Henry and Lance were doomed from
the start.
I can only think of one couple who got to walk away from
a programme and that was Syed and Christian on Eastenders, although I don’t think there was no mention of Syed
when Christian appeared recently. Maybe you can think of another. I’d be happy
to know that some couples didn’t end up with one of them dead, like Tara in Buffy, or even the fat one in the gay
Anglican couple in Doctor Who!
It’s taken me forty minutes to write this piece and I was
right. WPC56 has ended with the two men
found in bed and arrested. I hate this. I know it happened, and I know we have
to represent the past, but it’s the same in the present. I’m angry and sad at
the same time. It’s taken long enough for gay people to be represented on
television in a positive way, so why can’t same sex couples have a HEA like
they do in the books I read and write. It’s long past time that TV caught up.