Queerness in 'Fleabag'
Why does the TV show Fleabag have so little depiction of queerness despite its queer undertones?
*This essay will include spoilers for the TV adaptation of Fleabag. Read at your own risk!*
The TV show Fleabag, written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge never directly takes on the topic of queerness, yet queerness seems pervasive throughout it. The show includes a handful of heavy topics, so I was surprised that, with its emphasis on the body and sex, queerness was rarely mentioned throughout both seasons. Rather than dismissing it as just another show with little queer representation, I wanted to think about this idea and the potential reasons for including limited queerness.
The lack of discussion of sexuality is especially odd because Fleabag herself sort of ‘comes out’ in season two. When talking at a bar, the character Belinda, a fifty-eight year old woman, asks Fleabag “Are you a lesbian?,” to which Fleabag answers, “not strictly” (Season 2, Episode 3). There are other allusions to Fleabag’s queerness throughout the show, but this is the most direct statement we get from her on the subject. Yet, despite her bi-ness, we only see Fleabag kiss one woman throughout both seasons—a shockingly low number compared to the number of men she has sex with.
I’m not by any means trying to say that Fleabag is less queer/bi because we don’t see her have sex with women. But queerness is not talked about much considering how much sex is discussed and depicted, making the lack of queer sex stand out. After all, Fleabag as a character is obsessed with sex and fucking. At the end of season one she says:
“And sometimes I wish I didn't even know that fucking existed. And I know that my body, as it is now, really is the only thing I have left, and when that gets old and unfuckable I may as well just kill it. And somehow there isn't anything worse than someone who doesn't want to fuck me. I fuck everything” (Season 1, Episode 6).
Generally, Fleabag looks at us while she has sex with people (men), or even talks to prospective sexual (male) partners. This allows her to take control of a situation, even when she’s uncomfortable. She acquires control by speaking to us, her audience, and having sex—often doing both at once. She’s the master of our perception: isn’t it so funny how this guy is going in for anal? Aren’t we all having a laugh about how awkward this sexual encounter is? She’s able to maintain control not only by fucking but by narrating the fucking to her audience. Still, she says she fucks everything—but we as her audience, who are privy to these intimate moments, never see her fuck a woman.
Belinda is the first woman we see Fleabag express direct interest in. When Belinda speaks, Fleabag does not look to her audience. She is present, and more than present, it could be argued that she is not in control of the situation. Or, she isn’t attempting to control the situation; she’s letting it simply happen.
What does it mean that one of few moments Fleabag is out of control in a sexual situation is with a woman? Belinda even goes on to reject Fleabag’s sexual advances, leaving her even less in control. Fleabag is often rejected, true: but the men who reject her usually fuck her first, giving her that control she craves. Belinda does not allow her to have this.
Belinda represents the way Fleabag perceives queer sex in her current state of mind: it is uncontrollable. For her, queer sex isn’t so simple as talking to her audience and joking with us about it. To Fleabag, there is something about queerness that is untamable and does not afford her power.
This boils down, not to Fleabag’s understanding of queerness, but society’s. Heterosexual sex has ‘rules’ that we all know how to follow; boys and girls are supposed to act in certain ways and we all know what those actions are, even if we reject them in principle. Queerness is a deviation from societal norms. What are two girls supposed to do in bed together? Not to say that Fleabag doesn’t know the answer to this question, but heterosexual sex doesn’t even pose the question in the first place. We all know what a girl and a boy do in bed together. Fleabag primarily hooks up with men because she is able to follow a script that way.
To put it simply: boys are easy for Fleabag. And I don’t think that’s biphobic or lazy of her. I think that’s a person who is hurting and lost, reaching for something that is uncomplicated. In season two, Fleabag tells the Hot Priest:
“I want someone to tell me what to wear in the morning. No, I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. […] I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far, I think I’ve been getting it wrong” (Season 2, Episode 4).
There is some sort of autonomy required of queerness, of queer sex, that Fleabag is not looking for throughout our journey with her. If she’s looking for someone to tell her what to do—or the ability to be free of thinking about what to do—she need look no further than heterosexual sex with a man who does not care about her emotionally.
Queerness requires a relinquishing of control—at least, the sort of control that can be found in traditional society. The path of heterosexuality is one of clear road-markers: find a partner, get married, have children, start a family, watch your children have children, die. Queerness messes all of this up. Suddenly finding a partner isn’t so easy—finding a partner means potentially coming out to families, dealing with homophobia, trying to figure out if that girl at the bar is even into girls, etc. When you begin to understand queerness on a personal level, you begin to understand the world differently. Maybe all the road-markers aren’t real, maybe everything you’ve been told was just…made up. What then?
Fleabag knows this. She knows this especially if she’s comfortable telling another woman she is “not strictly” a lesbian. She knows this if she’s had sex with a woman, loved a woman romantically, thought about and encountered her queerness. But that is not the path of least resistance. This is not the path where the road-markers are clear and obvious. In her quest for control and ease, Fleabag intentionally ignores her queerness.
There’s a reason why, halfway through season two, we see Fleabag leaning into her sexuality by kissing Belinda. We haven’t her kiss or seek out a woman before now. She is beginning to open her heart up as the show progresses and we see her sexuality coming to the surface as she does so.
So, to claim that Fleabag is a show that is simply not concerned with queerness because there is little in the way of queer content would be untrue. Our main character is so concerned with queerness that she herself actively hides from it. Fleabag the show takes on queerness quietly because Fleabag the character is experiencing queerness quietly.
At the end of the show, Fleabag walks away from the camera, waving goodbye to her audience. By leaving us behind, Fleabag releases her desperate need for control, which was connected to an overwhelmingly heterosexual life.
Perhaps she leaves us behind for a life of vulnerable queerness—in all senses of the phrase.