If First Kill isn’t being called a “queer show” then queer viewers believe the lesbian main characters “should be left behind.” While many lesbians have enjoyed the romance between Calliope, a vampire, and Juliette, a vampire hunter, queers, once again, aren’t okay with explicit lesbianism.
They’re more uncomfortable with lesbianism than my 83-year-old straight aunt.
Before readers claim that the characters could be bisexual or queer or whatever, let’s the set the record straight: Juliette said she’s only attracted to women in the show. Felicia D. Henderson, the showrunner, confirmed Calliope was a lesbian in an interview.
The only way the BTQ will accept First Kill is if it’s referred to as “queer,” and I’m proud that some lesbians are standing up to the lesbophobia. One twitter user wrote, “stop calling first kill a queer show. Or a sapphic show. Or a wlw show. Or an lgbtq show. its a LESBIAN SHOW. its okay to say it! lesbian isnt a dirty word!”
Coincidently, Off Colour wrote that the lesbian series “would be greatly improved by focusing a lot more on the other characters and lore, and leaving Juliette and Caliope behind.”
Sydney Turner, a queer writer, continued on Off Colour’s website: “The biggest problem I have with this show is that Juliette and Calliope are without a doubt the least interesting part of it. In the show’s theme it says that Juliette and Calliope’s love is deeper than Edward and Bella’s. I do not even know why they are in love.”
How revolutionary?! Lesbian characters and romances are underwhelming to queer viewers.
It’s no surprise that Sydney Turner uses “queer” while summing up First Kill, rather than “lesbian,” despite Juliette and Calliope explicitly being made homosexual. It’s also no surprise that they’re arguing that the lesbian characters should be “left behind.” The ol’ “lesbians are boring, unlike us Evolved Queers,” has been going on for a lonnng time.
Are Calliope and Juliette just a little too normal for those obsessed with being edgy?
Back in 2016, Christina Cauterucci wrote for Slate that, while she and her friends were, “generally speaking,” lesbians – whatever that means – they gleefully mocked what they’d call “capital-L lesbians.”
“We were urban-dwelling and queer-identified and in our 20s; the other women came from the suburbs, skewed older, and were, we presumed, unversed in queer politics…we shared a common sexual orientation, but little, if any, cultural affiliation,” Cauterucci continues.
“In the space between “lesbian” and “queer,” my friend and I located a world of difference in politics, gender presentation, and cosmopolitanism. Some of our resistance to the term lesbian arose, no doubt, from internalized homophobic notions of lesbians as unfashionable, uncultured homebodies. We were convinced that our cool clothes and enlightened, radical paradigm made us something other than lesbians.”
Sound familiar?
Calliope and Juliette are literally lesbian. The showrunners not only made that clear in the show, but they also stated it in an interview. But the only way the BTQ can enjoy a lesbian show is if they pretend it isn’t lesbian; if they refer to it with words that connote the inclusion of male attraction.
Like one twitter user wrote: “I mean yeah it’s a lesbian show. It’s also a queer show. And a sapphic show. And a wlw show. I get the point but also ?? Not everyone uses the same words as you.”
What they’re really saying is: “I don’t care if these characters have explicitly been referred to as lesbians by those who created the show. I don’t care that the word ‘lesbian’ is actively hated by the BTQ for its exclusivity. Referring to a lesbian as a lesbian is not as important as my right to dilute it with something else more ‘inclusive’, more ‘correct’.”
Queers think that lesbianism is incorrect. That’s why they refuse to use the word.
