The O.C. was a television show about four young lesbians loving and living in Newport Beach. Also Sandy Cohen. Allow me to defend my position.
1. He’s short and scrappy and elicits hostile, territorial behavior in other people’s boyfriends
2. Always wearing leather wrist cuffs
3. Goes for “campy performative toughness” over “actual toughness” every time, like a drag king or also me
4. “Har har ‘lesbian urge to merge’ har har
Marissa: Who are you?
Ryan: Whoever you want me to be.
Marissa: Okay.
5. Has two styles of dress: Wifebeater only
Or at least five shirts/hoodies/leather jackets carefully layered over one another
6. A lesbian would make this face, idk, don’t @ me
7. Always wearing thin leather necklaces; in love with a straight girl
8. Always getting emotionally significant haircuts
9. Hates all his girlfriend’s friends
10. Whatever that kind of tank top is, where it’s almost sleeves but then at the last second isn’t, that’s lesbianism
11. Everyone he loves dies
12. Messenger bags
13. Best friend is a sensitive guy
14. Working-class and super-defensive
15. Dates a girl who plays in the school orchestra
16. Resents the male gaze particularly as it relates to his girlfriend
17. Has a lot of potential
18. Full of angst and surrounded by people who want to love him but damnit he just won’t let them in
19. Always slouching
20. Yeah man that’s how we dressed for Winter Formal too
21. Come on
22. “He at times appears burdened by an almost-compulsive need to rescue others at the expense of his own well-being, however, and is overly protective of Marissa and Theresa, his main love interests on the show”
23. “The fact that he rarely smiles or says much is something of a running joke among other members of the Cohen household; early in the first season when he first moves in with the Cohens, he often looks down and avoids making eye contact, likely a habit of self-preservation born out of his upbringing in an unstable home and would stiffen when hugged”
24. Ryan Atwood is a pretty dykey name, I will not explain further
25. “Ryan’s favorite fruit is peaches, and his favorite band is Journey” honestly the burden of proof is now on YOU to prove that Ryan Atwood ISN’T a lesbian
26. This is a picture of four lesbians, okay bye
Well I’m convinced.
Let’s not forget later in life when he and another lesbian were both in love with the same bisexual woman.
I realise that it is not up to people to police other’s sexualities, but I have never been able to get behind the idea of Marissa Cooper as bisexual; it just felt like a weird attempt at being ~edgy~ and attention-grabbing on the part of both the character and the programme itself.
(I know there is a big issue with women who are attracted to women being dismissed as just “doing it for the attention”, and that is a horrible stereotype. But still!)
I don’t know. I’ve never seen The OC. But on Gotham (which is horrible and I’ve stopped watching and more people should stop watching because it’s horrible) Ben McKenzie’s character was in love with a bisexual woman (who went crazy because the show is horrible and people should stop watching because it’s horrible) who had previously been in a relationship with a lesbian (who was written off the show because the show is horrible and people should stop watching because it’s horrible).
I stopped watching on accident because i was busy and then a bunch of episodes expired, and now i will pretend it was out of protest for something or other thank you.
Hmm, maybe Ben McKenzie’s a lesbian and it’s just spilling over onto his characters…
Ah, I assumed you were referring to S2 of The OC. Clearly Ben McKenzie likes playing roles that involve love triangles involving him, a bisexual woman and a gay woman!
The Marissa/Olivia Wilde relationship was very February sweepsy. I’m all for bisexuality representation in media but this was more of a “isn’t it hot to see a girl go through a bisexual phase?” thing than anything else, especially considering that Marissa was never romantically linked to a woman again.
She never got the chance :'(
It’s not NOT an attempt to be edgy, but in my experience the Venn diagram between “girls making out with girls to be edgy” and “girls who are actually bi but still figuring it out” has a healthy overlap. Considering Marissa is a high school girl, and a classically pretty one with plenty of attention from boys, this experience felt pretty darn bi to me (whatever that means).
11. Everyone he loves dies
Done, convinced, no need for further arguments.
I’d forgotten about those thin leather necklaces why oh why were they a thing. They’re like the dude version of those weird black chokers that were briefly a thing in the early 2000s (the ones that sort of looked like tattoos but were 100% just ugly plastic loops but I thought looked SO DAMN COOL)
THEY ARE MAKING A COMEBACK IN A BIG WAY
it’s not entirely welcome in this quarter
Oh yes, my boyfriend came come the other day to tell me a few of his elementary schoolers were wearing them now.
I’ve been really worried lately about the eventual coming of ’00s nostalgia, excuse me while I go breathe into a paper bag
My sister and I had one black one and one rainbow one (I cannot remember which belonged to which of us, or indeed if they both belonged to my sister). Part of me still thinks they look very cool.
Goddammit, guess I need to dig up the one I still have floating around somewhere (it’s black with little beads on it)
They’ve been popular again for the past couple of years, I haven’t bowed to the pressure yet but given that 100% of my female friends wear them occasionally I worry I’ll just wake up wearing one one day and that’ll be the end of me.
I had one of those necklaces when I was 11 and I wore mine swimming one day (because I wore it all the damn time, it’s a wonder it didn’t start growing straight into my flesh) and it somehow came off and sank to the bottom of the pool. I wasn’t confident enough in my swimming skills to try to retrieve it. It was heartbreaking.
Young Me loved those necklaces almost as much as my butterfly clips. Truthfully had I not broken every single one of those blasted plastic clips I would probably still wear them fairly regularly.
I still have several of my butterfly ciips, and one that’s a pink plastic fairy.
Oh my god do you remember when there were a few cases of missing girls, and the newspapers were starting to speculate that OMG THOSE WIRE CHOKERS ARE ATTRACTING PEDOPHILES, when really no it’s just that almost every girl was wearing those damn things so odds were at least some missing girls would wear them at some point.
I don’t remember a single girl in my middle school who didn’t have one of those chokers- the plain black ones were “meh”, you needed something to ~jazz~ it up if you wanted to look remotely cool
My local mall banned the wearing of bandanas (because gangs) at the height of the girls-wearing-cutesy-bandanas trend. Cue epic teen girl mass meltdown. The ban lasted maybe a week.
Oh my god I forgot about that phase ahhhh. The ones that weren’t even full bandannas, just little triangles with strings on the end.
I had so many. My head was so small. It looked SO DUMB.
EVERY TIME i went to the arcade/ice rink/laser tag place at my mall i would use my ticket winnings to get one of those chokers, in black, rainbow, and glow in the dark. i would then proceed to not wear it but still somehow lose it within 2 weeks, and need another. repeat as needed ages 8-14.
You make some compelling arguments, but I have a different theory about Ryan’s sexual proclivities.
I love Luke an unreasonable amount, that big dumb blonde Labrador of a man.
Him telling Ryan, “Just say the word, and I will drop the Great Gatsby.” Is one of my favorite moments in the show. What a sweet, earnest lil’ lummox.
As a 16-year-old watching The OC I loooooved Seth and hated Luke but as an adult I realize that Seth is the worst and Luke is a precious angel from heaven.
After Luke grew out of his angsty self imposed faux-frat boy persona he was able to love deeply, freely, and openly. I strive daily to remember and live the lessons he taught us.
My fondest Luke memory is when they all went to a Rooney concert, and he was bouncing around and singing out of tune with a full heart.
And now Luke sings on tune on another TV show – Nashville. Speaking of gays, our very straight water polo playing bully has grown into a handsome gay musician on Nashville.
Canon.
As a die-hard OC fan I started this post feeling annoyed, progressed to feeling moved, ended up beaming, like I had been given a gift: the gift of this new way of loving Ryan.
Was he photoshopped from sitting on a toilet in the first picture
Why is he wearing a collar? Was the OC secretly about D/s relationships and no one told me? (I never watched it)
Am I the only one who excitedly clicked on the Ryan Atwood tag only to be crushed there was nothing else in the Ryan Atwood archive :,(
Also #27: always wearing unbuttoned button-up shirts
Also Taylor Townsend was the best RA girlfriend
I won’t even acknowledge Lindsay
Taylor Townsend was EVERYTHING :,)
Taylor Townsend is the only person I’ve ever thought really looked *good* in skinny jeans.
This is slightly off topic but I’m sure I read somewhere that The OC was available in its entirety on Netflix but it’s not?!? So I made the mistake of watching the first episode on Amazon (the only one that’s free) and now it’s in my blood and I need to keep watching but where do I watch??
try Smartflix maybe? it could be available on another country’s Netflix catalogue
It’s on the CW Seed in its entirety, along with Pushing Daisies. I’m not sure how either of them ended up there, but I’m not going to complain!
27. becomes a very moody and sexy cage fighter after girlfriend’s death; may or may not include do cool punching stuff to placebo
Am I remembering this correctly, but was that cool punching stuff not just to any old Placebo song full of feelings, but a Placebo cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”?
SURE WAS!
I agree that Ryan Atwood is a very dykey name, and also sounds like the kind of name you could make up to hide your girlfriend to your not-so-sexually accepting relatives.
I definitely have never referred to a girlfriend as “Ryan” – nope, never happened. I also have definitely not continued to use that name as my imaginary fiance while traveling in a country where I got hit on a lot. Especially after the inspiration for “Ryan” and I broke up.
None of this is real.
(1) surname, atwood.
(2) [unrelated] holy shit you at winter formal you at formal at winter you you you.
“obviously a lot of these are tongue-in-cheek references to gay tropes I am not actually suggesting everyone a lesbian knows will die” might be one of the best tags I’ve ever seen
NGL Ryan would definitely be the name of a sexy lesbian. (ala Shane. I am here for women with masculine names.)
i just read the title and was like, “yesssssss.”
i just felt instantly that it was right and true.
27. Mainly expresses feelings by clenching and unclenching a very defined jawline
He doesn’t quite have the lesbian smirk (which is clutch), but he definitely has the like, steel-plated jawline of stoic secret emo-ness that is a dead giveaway
Netflix could redeem itself right now after Fuller House by remaking the OC as it was meant to be remade, with actual lesbians.
Question: Is The OC a show that a modern day Toastie would enjoy watching for the first time, or is it mostly a nostalgia thing at this point?
Season One is an American Masterpiece.
In that case, I think I know what I’ll be doing this weekend. My favorite kind of show is the kind that gets tragically cancelled after a season or two before it gets the chance to go wrong, but a show that I can watch for a season or two and then drop with no regrets is an excellent runner up.
Season 1 is honestly perfect TV, season 2 is good, season 3 is a mess and then season 4 is unexpectedly completely glorious and wonderful. Oh man I’m tearing up just thinking about it. I only just binge-watched the lot in November, maybe it’s not too soon to re-binge?
I feel like I liked S2 the best. Isn’t that the one with the heart wrenching Kirsten stuff? That actress is soooo goood (she’s also in Candyman 2, in case you were wondering, because of course you were.)
As a bonus, Season 2 includes Olivia Wilde being all hot and bisexual. THAT is definitely worth the time spent, for sure.
“obviously a lot of these are tongue-in-cheek references to gay tropes I am not actually suggesting everyone a lesbian knows will die”
if just because that would pretty well destroy the business plan of The Toast.
His look appears to have been entirely modeled on Chloe Sevigny in If These Walls Could Talk 2.
*fans self*
That Winter Formal pic! HOLY BABE ALERT, SOMEONE SCOOT MY FAINTING COUCH BEHIND MY KNEES POSTHASTE
It's on Hulu now!
omg