How are Lesbian Women Represented and how do they Represent Themselves in Music?

If you were a kid or a teenager in the early 2000s I am sure that when you go to the disco you sing the song "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. What is often forgotten about the song is its meaning and the idea for which female sexuality exists for the pleasure of men. The most criticized lyrics of the songs, because they invalidate queer women's love are: "I kissed a girl and I liked it/ The taste of her cherry chapstick/ I kissed a girl just to try it/ I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it” (because if you kiss a woman it is not the same as kissing a man so it is not cheating...); “It felt so wrong, it felt so right/ Don’t mean I’m in love tonight” (because of course you cannot love a woman). “No, I don’t even know your name/ It doesn’t matter/ You’re my experimental game.” Katy Perry herself acknowledged the problem around this song and fans are trying to convince her to record the song again with different lyrics.

So when do women start singing about women to express their love without invalidating queers women's feelings? This is what we will be talking about in this post.

Although she is a character in a movie how could I not mention Santana Lopez from Glee (2009). Glee is a TV Show that aired in 2009 which showed the life of a group of teenagers who participated to the Glee Club, a school club of singing and dancing. Santana Lopez is one of the main characters and probably one of the most iconic ones. Santana is a cheerleader and since she was raised in a catholic Latino family is afraid to come out as a lesbian to her family. In the beginning, she tries to play it off saying that she kissed girls especially her friend Brittany for fun and that she was not actually attracted to her. Later on, however, we see her character coming to terms with her sexual orientation. In one scene from season 3 (that you can see below) Santana is outed in front of the entire school by one of the main characters, Finn. What is worst about this is that because Santana is seen as catty, and Finn is well-loved in the show it almost wants the watcher to believe that Finn is in the right for doing what he did.

Later in the series, Santana decides to come out to her grandmother who unfortunately kicks her out of her house. It was the first coming-out scene I had ever seen on TV and it shattered my heart as it probably did for many other queer people. But do not worry because at the end, when Santana is getting married to her best friend Brittany the grandmother participates to the wedding.

In another scene Santana is confronted by a schoolmate after Finn outed her, who claims that he can "fix" her homosexuality, and as Santana rejects the guy she and the other girls from the Glee Slub start singing a song, gues which one? I kissed a girl. Replying to a homophobic comment with a song full of internalized homophobia? Make it make sense

The character of Santana was revolutionary in 2009: we have a lesbian Latina femme presenting woman, who has to deal with her outing and her grandmother's rejection. However, it came with its flaws: firstly, Santana was interpreted by a straight woman and secondly, there were still traits of internalized homophobia throughout the series (like in the scene above).

Getting more in the music industry I wanted to talk about two lesbian artists who were iconic in their generation: girl in red and Beth Elliott.

Girl in Red (name artist of Marie Ulven) was born in 1999 in Horten, Norway. She started writing songs when she was 16 years old and her fame started with the release of her song "I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend." She is openly lesbian and her songs mainly deal with her life: love and mental health. Users on Tiktok started to use the question "do you listen to girl in red?" to ask someone whether they are queer or not. This reminded me of gay lingo, which is a language spoken only by gay people in the Philippines.

Beth Elliott was born in 1950 and is an American trans lesbian folk singer, activist, and writer. In her songs she deals with her life, especially her romantic life and how she came to term with her transness. In one interview, she shares her transition story and how hard it was for her to Stanford’s experimental sex reassignment from which she was first rejected and then accepted a second time. At the time she was part of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), one of the first lesbian organizations to be established (the name was coined after the collection of poems written by Pierre Louÿs called Songs of Bilitis, character that was associated with Sappho, the female Greek lyric poet). When she first tried to apply to the Stanford's project she presented herself as a straight woman, because her friend had told her that there was a higher change of getting picked. However, the separatist part of the DOB kicked her out of the group. In the same interview, she states that she shun in the bisexual community rather then the lesbian since her removal from the DOB, but later on she reconnected with the lesbian community.

References

Barnes, R. (2023). Daughters of Bilitis. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Daughters-of-Bilitis.

Funk, M. (2021). Beth Elliott. Outwords. https://theoutwordsarchive.org/interview/beth-elliott/.

GLEE- Finn Outs Santana | Mash Off [Subtitled] HD. (2016). Youtube. https://youtu.be/SI8ULEas_PM.

GLEE - I Kissed A Girl (Full Performance) HD. (2017). Youtube. https://youtu.be/o48i8BiPYvA.

Glee - Sue brings Santana's abuela to her wedding 6x08. (2012). Youtube. https://youtu.be/c5WqQXNu_Ys.

I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend. (2019). Youtube. https://youtu.be/r3mbwraYU58.

Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (Official). (2009). Youtube. https://youtu.be/tAp9BKosZXs.

Santana comes out to her Grandmother. (2012). Youtube. https://youtu.be/sGASGDFUVEs.

Teen Love. (2016). Youtube. https://youtu.be/Z3fQOSqc4mY.