lesbian "flings" in young adult media

One of my guilty pleasure shows currently is 90210, the remake of the popular 90’s nighttime soap opera about the mostly vapid lives of a group of rich high school kids living in Beverly Hills. Recently on the show, one of the main straight female characters began a relationship with another girl at school who was already an outted lesbian. The storyline was that the main character, Adrianna, was heartbroken over her break up with her boyfriend, and in her vulnerable state, Adrianna and her new friend Gia took their relationship to the next level. After a few episodes, Adrianna and Gia break up after Gia cheats on her with her ex-girlfriend. Within the next two episodes Adrianna is dating a different guy. This storyline is almost identical to Marissa Cooper’s from another wealthy teen drama; The O.C. Marissa dates a girl for a split second, but ultimately falls back into the arms of her “true love” and long time boyfriend Ryan Atwood. It seems as though the “safe” way to portray gay characters, especially lesbians, in the media is to frame it in a way so that the characters can experiment but ultimately, and almost expectedly, return to the hegemonic norm of a heterosexual relationship. By portraying these relationships as a type of fling, it takes away the validity of the relationship and in turn the validity of gay relationships within our society. These storylines also touch upon the idea of voyeurism and to-be-looked-at-ness in that the two female characters are portrayed so that the focus is on how “hot” the girls are together, as opposed to any romantic aspects of their relationship. This all relates back to the question of whether the exposure or depiction of a specific demographic in the media means that they hold power or are completely valued/ accepted by society.