That Brookside Kiss

Brookside was a popular British soap opera that ran for 21 years between 1982 to 2003. Set in Liverpool, it was famed for being a gritty and realistic portrayal of life in the north and often took on controversial storylines. Most notably, Brookside was the first television show to broadcast a pre-watershed lesbian kiss (the first lesbian kiss aired in 1972 after the watershed in BBC Drama Girls).

The episode was written by Shaun Duggan, a successful gay writer from Liverpool, who’s work was often highly influenced by his life growing up around Norris Green. It aired in January 1994 and showed best friends Beth Jordache and Margaret Clemence (played by Anna Friel and Nicola Stephenson) sharing a kiss, which would be seen by 6 million people in their homes.

Beth’s journey to realising her sexuality resonated with so many young people and also made huge strides in giving lesbians the representation and visibility we hadn’t had before. Speaking to The Independent, Anna Friel spoke about how “suddenly lesbians are trendy, but lesbians have existed for years. Women have always been attracted to women, it's just that society has never allowed them to be seen”. 

Since then, it was also used for the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony in London. Broadcast worldwide and uncensored, Beth and Margaret would also become the first same-sex kiss aired within the 72 countries where same-sex relationships were still illegal.

For this reason, representation and visibility of LGBTQIA+ characters in the media continues to be of vital importance. For myself when I was a confused teenager, seeing characters that were lesbians made me feel seen and not alone in my struggle. It also has benefits on the wider population who may not come into contact with anyone who identifies differently to themselves in their day to day lives.

Queer representation on television can be a really important way of educating the general public about our lives, our history and the abuse that we can sometimes go through and normalises our existence within society.

There has been really great progress within the media to make sure more LGBTQIA+ roles are being written and included and also making sure that queer actors are being hired to play them. In shows like Tales of the City, Pose and lesbian classic The L Word,  queer stories are celebrated and given a platform however, we need to show better diversity of our community by having more queer people of colour, more trans stories, and more disabled stories so all of our community can feel seen and visible.