Whether we accept it or not, our lives are filled with a series of coming outs. In the past we could only see a couple of coming out scenes on television, fortunately today the situation is different. I’ve collected some entertaining, inspirational and for sure not indifferent scenes from recent TV shows and movies.
Dana from the L Word
Why: Our pets couldn’t care less if we love a person from the same sex.
We could mention several coming out scenes from the L word, but I brought you Dana’s, who is struggling the most with accepting herself and coming out publicly, and tells the magic words first to her cat. Dana is a well known, professional tennis player, who barely spoke to anyone about her being a lesbian. It took her a long time to come out, not only to her family, but to her close friends as well. After her breakup with Lara, the heart-broken Dana practices the coming out on her cat.
Mr. Piddles stops purring for like 10 seconds, to focus his attention on his owner. Dana tells him she is a gay and immediately feels relieved and the cat starts purring again. This also proves that he doesn’t care at all what his owner’s sexual orientation is.
Luce from Imagine Me and You
Why: Typical example of a situation where they think we are just joking.
Rachel and Heck, the freshly wed couple invites Luce (the gorgeous Lena Headey), who prepared the flowers for their wedding, to their home. They would like to hook her up with Heck’s best friend who hit on her on the wedding. It turned out just before dinner that the perfect plan is not so perfect, because Luce is a lesbian. Initially Heck thinks it’s a joke, but when he realises it’s not, he comes up with an escape plan in just seconds:
Emma from You me her
Why: Sometimes you come out to a person very important to you, only after 10 years.
You me her focuses on a polyamorous love. The first episode is about Jack and Emma, married for 10 years, who want to brighten their relationship with bringing a third person to their bed. First they meet the 26 year-old Izzy separately - not surprisingly both meetings are very intense. At the end of the episode, Emma drops the bomb with a cold face:
Callie from Grey’s Anatomy
Why: It’s very touching when a reaction is just perfect for a coming out.
Callie discovered her feelings for women just after her divorce. Although she had struggles coming out to her family, this didn’t stop her from coming out to her ex-husband’s mom and telling her about her new love, Arizona. She had troubles finding the right words:
I like girls...as in romantically...turns out I like girls...women...and I met the most amazing woman... do you remember Dr. Robins from this morning...yeah we got married and aaa... we’ve got in an accident, car accident, really bad accident, and I almost died… but I didn’t… and Sofia, neither did Sofia, our baby...our perfect, beautiful baby...and I’m...I’m screwing all this up...look I know this is a lot and I understand that this is too much for you to handle, believe me, my own mother practically disowned me, so I understand… Oh God, I’m making you cry, please don’t cry...”
And Mrs. O’Malley focuses on the bottom line in her tears:
Lynn Redgrave as the final interview subject from Kinsey
Why: It gives us a perfect example how it felt like in the ‘50s to realise that our attraction to another woman is not an isolated deviance.
I’m closing this list with the ending of a movie about Alfred Kinsey (who’s a pioneer of the studies of human sexuality), personally this scene is one of my favourites. An elderly woman (Lynn Redgrave) is telling her story to Kinsey (Liam Neeson) about her suppression for years and how she found courage in herself with the help of Kinsey’s book (his book about male sexual behaviours was released in 1948, then in 1953, about women’s):
- We’ve been married for 23 years with 3 marvellous children. And as soon as my youngest left to go to college, I took a job in an arts foundation. I met a woman there, a secretary in the grounds office. We became fast friends… and I fell in love with her. This came out as quite a shock as you might imagine. The more I tried to ignore it, the more powerful it became. You have no idea to have your own thoughts turn against you like that. I couldn’t talk to anyone about my situation, so I found other ways to cope. I took out drinking. Eventually my husband left me. Even my children fell away. I came very close to ending it all.
- This is just another reminder of how little things changed in our society.
- What are you talking about? Things have gotten much better!
- Oh, what happened?
- What you did of course! After I read your book, I realised how many other women were in the same situation. I mastered the courage to talk to my friend, and she told me to my great surprise that the feelings were mutual. We’ve been together for three happy years now. You saved my life, Sir.
Translated by Zsófi Bártfai
