Last week, following a stream of online conversation around her Variety cover interview, culminating in a viral moment on the red carpet of the magazine’s Hitmakers Awards, Billie Eilish took to Instagram, presumably with her untwisted arm, to officially come out about her attraction to both men and women.
Scattered names across the queer community on social media labelled Billie’s response ‘iconic’, but there is arguably a more urgent conversation to be had underneath of a worrying pattern beginning to appear. Whilst not wanting to put a label on Eilish where she has seemingly chosen to use none, it is getting harder to deny the unfortunately frequent poor handling of bisexual coming out across media recently.
Billie Eilish, 21, has faced persistent questioning regarding her sexuality from the beginning of her career, only emphasised with the release of such songs as ‘wish you were gay’ (which literally has nothing to do with her own sexuality), the music video to ‘Lost Cause’ and associated the Instagram post simply captioned ‘I love girls’ or her character in the Prime series ‘The Swarm’ for which she has just received a well-deserved Golden Globes nomination alongside the original song ‘What Was I Made For?’ featured in Barbie. Despite this Billie had denied such assumptions consistently until now.
In November of this year, Billie simply expressed to Variety feelings of intimidation and attraction towards her female fans. An ‘attraction’ which in the context could have referred to vibe and energy rather than sexuality or romance but nonetheless an ‘attraction’ that queer women found familiar.
On the 2nd December, Billie could be seen questioned on whether she intended such a response. Online comment sections seem undecided on whether Billie’s demeanour and choice of reference in the interview could be considered an opening to the discussion of sexuality and coming out but the understanding remains present that Variety were in control of the flow of the conversation and did direct it that way in short order.
The interviewer in question, shows an attempt at creating a more comfortable even playing field as she filters natural hints at her own queer identity into the conversation, which seem to agree that the act of coming out does not have to be a spectacle and queer identities can just be.
Kit Connor, 19, to show another side, was the recipient of persistent unprecedented comments over social media last year. Through the noise, Connor expressed how he has long sat comfortable in his understanding of his sexuality, choosing to keep his identity to himself only out of a resolve to cling to the fragility and sacrality of a private life, living as a public figure. However, as accusations of ‘queerbaiting’ reached a peak, Connor found it necessary to break his social media detox to set the record straight on Twitter.
Following the release and raving response of Connor’s portrayal of Nick Nelson in Netflix’s Heartstopper, a serial adaptation of Alice Oseman’s beautifully inclusive graphic novel series of the same title, an unfortunate debate began on the authenticity of the project given the unannounced state of his sexuality at the time.
Kit Connor, too, had the experience of fans analysing his presentation in his everyday life, his physical appearance, offhand comments of crushes and discussion of his understanding of the experiences Nick goes through in the story of Heartstopper.
Nick Nelson’s arch in Heartstopper presents the true notion that coming out is an ongoing thing, with some moments harder than others and, overall, a journey that is at no point a straight line, even with amazing support at his side. Speaking on Nick’s first coming out in the show, which he filmed with Olivia Coleman as Nick’s mother in the first season, Connor felt a pressure to do it justice as ‘coming out is an extraordinarily important moment for a lot of people.’
Whilst bisexual erasure in our society may largely be a thing of the past, this uncomfortable forced nature of bisexual coming out in the media that has come to replace it is no less damaging. LGBTQ+ representation is becoming more and more frequent across TV and film, with such releases as Fellow Travellers, Red White & Royal Blue and much more this year, but the entertainment industry as a whole still has great strides to make
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