Stereotypical Bisexual Culture
Bi culture in the media is many things. It’s the inability to sit ‘straight’ in a chair, awkward peace signs, and the infamous bisexual bob. It just takes one internet search to discover that bisexual characters are often designed, stereotypically, to look and act a certain way. Maybe it’s accidental, maybe it’s not. Luckily, TV shows are starting to move away from this in their casting and writing.
Take Nico Minoru (Lyrica Okano) from Marvel’s Runaways as an example. She’s a queer Asian-American woman. Following her older sister’s death, she transforms her image, embracing her Wiccan powers and gothic side. Most of the time she can be seen wearing her trademark all-black wardrobe and is a powerful member of the runaways. Throughout the three seasons, she dates brainy Alex Wilder and then bubbly Karolina Dean. Overall, she’s a multi-dimensional character and subverts the very white-centric culture of teenage witchcraft. It’s refreshing to see that a diverse range of ethnicities are starting to be represented in LGBTQ+ media, and not just white queer characters.
Continues over the page…