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At this point, I don't think it should matter if people like or don't like Emison. Even those who dislike Emison should be mocking what has occurred with Emily. The double standard is jarring. We have seen 3 liars with love interests through out this half of the season who are now possibly heading back to former love interests. We have seen Allison with a guy through out the season. Then there is the lesbian character who has no love interest through out this half of the season after already having her storylines presented with a double standard through out the program's duration. When the lesbian is not in a romance while the other women are torn between multiple male love interests, it takes an astonishing level of straight privilege not to see anything wrong.

This is a very good dismantling of that argument. I get very uncomfortable with Max hate and even more uncomfortable when I read the reasoning, if it can even be called that, for not liking her.

Chemistry is subjective. I am not as drawn to aesthetic chemistry on it's own. Some viewers are and that Rogers is good looking would enter the equation more for them. Rogers does have a nice butt but to me that is not something that would change my mind in believing Eleanor and him don't have chemistry. Maybe the show realizes that there is no spark based on personalities which is why they are making the priority to sell it on how good looking they are. The sex scene, which seemed based more in how hot their bodies are, seemed to be almost fishing for that audience which is more interested in looks than personality. It felt more like Cinemax and less like Blue Valentine. This does not mean Eleanor or Rogers wouldn't have chemistry with someone else. That other person needs to be a charismatic character. The reason Max, Flint and Silver work opposite anyone in their sequences is heavy charisma. That is why scenes between Max and Silver in season 1 and Flint and Silver this season are practically combustible. That is why Vane pops on the screen opposite Flint and why there is more palpable chemistry between Max and Eleanor talking about a chair than Eleanor and Rogers in front of the bed. When Flint sat with Rogers at the end, there was a red hot searing intensity that Flint provided that made me think lets have them hook up.

This can be said for Rogers and Eleanor. It makes the Vane and Eleanor romance look more chemistry laden in comparison and it makes the Max and Eleanor romance look positively through the roof. I have never been big on the two people are good looking and that is all romances and Rogers and Eleanor fit that to a tee. There is no spark there. It is interesting some characters, such as Max, Silver or Flint, can have chemistry with anyone. That some characters, Eleanor, Anne, or Jack, are reliant on who they are with. Then you have a character like Rogers where all he has looks. Too bad he is based on a real character because he is really making this show a chore when he is on screen. He is the sort of anti-Max or anti-Silver. I agree with the desire for Max to be fallible because I feel every character should fallible. However she has been fallible more than once so I have no comprehension why that is being treated as some anomaly.

A million times yes to this criticism. That alone is bad enough but to not even have a decent actor playing the role while Rob Brown, who is a talented actor, is in the background only for the sake of giving exposition - I just can't. It almost made the show unwatchable and I am a person that has made it through episodes of The Strain and Dog With A Blog - the latter happens when your nephews will only watch Airplane if you first watch their favorite show. That Dog, by the way, has more charisma than Sully Stapleton. I can't believe they are wasting a talented actor like Rob Brown as the 5th main person to spout exposition while the Harlequin Romance guy is comforting the heroine.

This is such a bad show but how can one resist the Celluloid Closet type subplot. The main intent of the episode seems to be Fet, the alpha male, saving Dutch, the woman in distress, and showing her that she needs an alpha-male lover in her life. The former female lover, Nicki, is depicted as a worthless, self-destructive "phase" that needs to be grown out of. Or as Ruta Gedmintas laughably said. http://www.afterellen.com/tv/453905-ruta-gedmintas-dishes-bisexual-love-triangle-strain Never stop letting me down heterosexist TV!

I have also noticed the Faking It/Chasing Life similarities. I posted this before the latest episode of Faking It - on the Chasing Life forum. People who run programs can take it personal. I don't definitively know that is the case here but here are two things that catch my attention. 1. Faking It comes under heavy criticism for having female characters kissing each other for attention. The latest season of Chasing Life has Brenna, a character as with Amy who does not label herself and is attracted to both sexes - though unlike Amy she doesn't come across as a retcon, kissing her best female friend Ford. They are not attracted to each other. Brenna instead does this to please a man who she can't kiss due to health reasons. The kiss, which figured in promotions, is shown to be positive and the right thing to do. The next day at school Brenna and the man, Finn played by the same actor playing Felix in Faking It, are pleased when others congratulate Finn on such a wonderful thing happening. This really caught my eye. It was as if Chasing Life was saying when it comes down to it, it is really about men's desires being fulfilled by a woman even when it something like a same sex kiss between women. Is this a response to the anger towards Faking It? 2. There have been 4 lesbian characters on the 2nd season of Chasing Life. They travel the spectrum from stalking to psychopath. The latest was presented as being repulsed by women who date both men and women and was scolded by Brenna's male love interest Finn for being a bigot - Finn is shown as a perfect guy bravely fighting cancer while never saying or doing a wrong thing. He is a saint as with the straight male character Liam on Faking It. Will Felix on Faking It be the same? What we do know is lesbians, going by Chasing Life's 2nd season and Faking It are clingy, obsess over ex's, and are repulsed by women who show interest in men. I also think there is something missing in the discussion when it comes to this issue. Most romances on network television and cable television are between a man and a woman. Television has long leaned heavily to having women who want a woman also be attracted to men. It is progressive that those women are not being labeled as lesbians who can't help liking a man or a straight woman on a fling as much as they used to be. Still people want to see romances they can relate to and when so many of the few women who like women on tv end up with a guy, it is lost visibility. When a character like Greer, a character beloved by fans and with an intense romantic chemistry with Brenna, on Chasing Life goes away so the program can get Brenna with a guy it makes sense the audience would be disappointed. The same goes with Amy after Reagan leaves - a certainty in my opinion - so they can hook Amy up with Felix. That this only seems to happen with women who like women on tv - bisexuality among men on tv is rarity and the term fluidity almost solely comes up only about women who like women - only adds to the disappointment. Biphobia is a problem but demonizing lesbian characters and not understanding the concern for visibility when it comes to romance between women does not help. On the Chasing Life thread someone mentioned Degrassi. While that show is cheesy, it gets it. It comprehends visibility. It depicts bisexuality and pansexuality with a sharp eye. The guys running Chasing Life and Faking It could learn a lesson from that program.

Mike Yard's work last night was some of his best. The shame was that young comic almost single-handedly ruined the panel. The insults of Kim Davis's looks are the weak path to take. Yard cutting through everything and just getting down to what Kim Davis and her supporters are about, bigotry, is the far better path to take. His bluntness is so welcome.

They made Reagan out to be terrible tonight so that when her and Amy break up the audience will support Amy and Felix together which is where they are almost certainly heading. I see nothing indicating any interest by the writers in an endgame of Amy and Karma. That seems to be some extended queer baiting to keep certain viewers holding on to hope. Reagan being worried over Amy being attracted to men combined with Reagan being terrible is the program's gameplan to comment on how only awful people would be bothered that Amy would go with men - not for a moment comprehending the continuation of the trope of how everyone's sexuality on tv is fixed except women who are attracted to women. If Amy's plotline was given to Liam it would be something special and new for tv. Since it is Amy's it is a common plotline and it continues MTV's trend of being unable to have female characters attracted to only women.

http://www.afterellen.com/tv/450893-rita-volk-karmy-reamy-season-2b-faking/2 I'd say queerbaiting 101 but I wouldn't be shocked if Volk was originally given that message - at some point the show did suddenly seem to make Volk's character interested in men again. The apparent definition of sexual fluidity is women who are attracted to women but also like guys. It sure would be nice if maybe other groups were shown to be "fluid" and had these "journeys".

Can Calise Hawkins come back again soon? Few have come close to touching on the lack of humanity in Donald's Trump's comments as Wilmore's opening segment did.

The concerns of the transgender community should never be dismissed based on a program's capability at conveying other queer lives. A terrific reaction would have been if all queer sites displayed concern over that noxious trope used on Pretty Little Liars. Instead there was a sort of why are they whining response and a distortion of the concerns, one in which the people running the show tried to say outrage was against a transgender character being on television when it was about how that character, the first transgender character on the show, turned out to be the show's villain in keeping with decades long depictions on tv and in film of transgender characters being mentally ill and villainous.

They could have, as with the other liars, made it clear. That is what the show could have done. An example of the double standard depicted is the Aria/Ezra and Emily/Allison sequence. Emily and Allison are shown kissing. Cut to Ezra and Aria who are kissing, legs are shown entangled, Aria asks if that hurts, Ezra says he can handle it, then the final shot has Aria, wearing nothing, straddling Ezra as she lifts the sheet to her neck and she lowers herself down to him. It is not difficult to make it clear. I pointed out earlier that Chasing Life made clear Brenna and Greer made love. It wasn't a lengthy lovemaking sequence. 2 to 3 seconds. However, with those few seconds, no one there is going I don't know if they made love or not.

I think we are supposed to believe that Emily had sex with Maya and Paige and it is likely we are supposed to assume Emily had sex with some of her other girlfriends. While it would be fair if they went the same route that they did with lengthy love scenes for Aria/Ezra and Spencer/Toby*, it still isn't like they need a lengthy love sequence to make it evident that there is a sexual relationship. Nor do they need Emily having a sequence where she discusses making love to one of her girlfriends. The show Chasing Life, which I have been down on but that is for that thread, made very clear that Brenna and Greer made love. It wasn't some minute long sequence. The sequence faded out after a few seconds. However there was no doubt they made love. That said, the ugliest moment in the representation of Emily was her and Nate kissing. This comment by Jack Shaftoe could not be more right. *My preference for this show would be for all the liars to have their love sequences treated equally and for none of the sequences to be handled in such a lengthy, is this sequence going to end manner. If there is any doubt that the show romanticizes the heck out of Ezra/Aria, their love sequence rivals their meeting in the rain as the ultimate proof that the show does.

Heather Hogan is a person who makes rationalizations for shows she loves and the problematic storytelling and characterizations contained within those shows - something common to articles at both sites she has worked. Also I really wish people such as Hogan would please, please, please stop using the term male gaze if they have little to no comprehension of this antiquated and heteronormative concept. The show, for all it's many faults, itself is proof of how antiquated the male gaze theory is. I also think while the show does deserve credit for some exemplary LGBT related storytelling when it comes to Emily Fields there are also major problems there. Unlike the other Liars, who have each been given a true love who has been a major part of the series since season 1, Emily's romantic life consists of fleeting romances. There has been a double standard to how the love sequences between Emily and girlfriends are shown compared to the other liars - to the degree that people can legitimately wonder if Emily and any of her rotating band of girlfriends have made love or if they just kissed. As is typical of representation of women who love women on television, out lesbian Emily makes out with a man - notably the straight Liars have never made out with a woman. The man Emily makes out with is the murderer of her ex and her latest girlfriend is part of the A team - two of the other Liars have lovers who are briefly presented as possible bad guys but of course those popular male lovers turn out to still be good guys. All of this of course can be rationalized. Isn't Emily's romantic life with transitory romances in high school more common than the true love scenarios of the other 3 women? Censors probably disallow Emily's love sequences from being as graphic as the lengthy ones between say Spencer and Toby or Aria and Ezra. The rationalization used ad nauseam for how almost every woman who loves women on tv ends up making out with a man - it happens here and there in real life and isn't it great that part of the journey that happens to some women be shown. That is the problem though. People who critique these shows need to move past rationalizing on behalf of shows they love and confronting this storytelling.