Other entries in the series can be found here. Most recently: Olivia Benson, Alex Cabot, SVU and Hope.
There are installments of Femslash Friday where I can convince myself that in some way I’m striking a blow for lesbian and bisexual visibility in the culture at large, and then there are installments where I just have to admit that I would like to see two good-looking cartoon characters make out. I think this week I’m going to be able to make a case for both, though.
One of the more frustrating things about girl-on-girl (or woman-on-woman, or wimmin-on-wimmin, ad infinitum) content is that it’s so often classified as adult, regardless of how sexually explicit or vague it may be. Anyone who ever tried to find the gay and lesbian section of Borders as a prepubescent knows what I’m talking about: second floor, near the bathroom, the tiny corner sandwiched in between straight erotica and sociology. And you just wanted to read Annie On My Mind! All they do is hold hands and go to museums! It’s about as sexually explicit as From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler!
But that’s the perennial problem: if gay people are doing it, it’s automatically Adult, even if there’s no sexual content. Which makes lesbian and bisexual storylines on kids’ shows particularly fraught. Remember that massive kerfuffle when the show Postcards from Buster tried to show a visit to a maple farm in Vermont that featured two lesbians? They were just running a maple farm! Presumably while being lesbians, but that really can’t be helped, it’s very much a full-time thing, lesbianing.
So this is how a show like Adventure Time (which is perfect and wonderful and only for kids in the way that Pete & Pete used to be for kids, which is to say not at all) can have the main character Finn falling in love with princesses left and right, or a talking dog named Jake who impregnates his Korean-speaking rainbow unicorn girlfriend Lady Rainicorn (it makes sense if you watch the show), but a serious freakout when an official behind-the-scenes video suggested that “[Marceline] might like Princess Bubblegum a little more than she’d like to admit.”
For those of you who don’t watch the show, Marceline is a thousand-year old half-demon vampire queen who lives in a cave, plays the bass and has a wicked sense of humor (She also owns a teddy bear named Hambo and has a lousy ex-boyfriend named Ash). Princess Bubblegum is the leader of the Candy Kingdom; she has the appearance of an eighteen-year-old but is, according to flashbacks, at least “like a bazillion years old.” So they’re on equal footing, creepy agelessness-wise, which is nice.
And the two of them…get each other. Their fraught, intense, quarrelsome relationship has inspired one of the greatest Tumblrs of all time and some truly magnificent fanart. For a woman made of bubblegum and a hell-beast capable of transforming into some pretty horrifying bat-creatures, they have amazing chemistry. From their first in-show encounters, it’s pretty clear they’ve known one another a long time, and they don’t always get along. It’s…feisty. (The word feisty is horrible for both aesthetic and sexist reasons, but it totally applies here, so I’m sorry, but it stands.) Marceline is all smirk and ripped jeans and unwashed hair, and Princess Bubblegum is just begging to get her lab coat a little mussed up. (She’s a good girl and she knows it, but she acts different around vampire queens.) Marceline is, so far, the only character to call Princess Bubblegum “Bonny” (short for Bonnibel, her given name).
The episode that sent every lesbian’s radar off for miles, though, was this one:
Marceline appears to view Princess Bubblegum as boring and a snob, while Princess Bubblegum, generally a woman of grace and poise, views her as unrefined and rude. In “What Was Missing,” when Princess Bubblegum miscalculates the music needed to open the door, Marceline says, “Looks like you aren’t as perfect as you thought! Guess you can’t judge me anymore.” Princess Bubblegum angrily replies, “I never said you had to be perfect!” hinting that whatever previous relationship the two had had ended on bad terms. However, in the same episode it is revealed that the item stolen from Princess Bubblegum was a t-shirt Marceline had given her, which she confesses she values deeply and wears it as pajamas.
It is during this adventure, by the way, that Marcy sings the words “I want to suck the red from your pretty pink face.” Oh, my. *shivers exquisitely* Pardon me while I get the LESBIAN VAPORS, you scandalous thing, you.
This episode was, shall we say, divisive. A producer for an associated company, Frederator Studios, was fired for speculating about their relationship online. One of the higher-ups at Frederator explained the move: “In trying to get the show’s audience involved we got wrapped up by both fan conjecture and spicy fanart and went a little too far.” The video’s here, if you want to take a look. And that’s what’s been historically so frustrating about trying to get invested in maybe-they-are-maybe-they-aren’t lesbian relationships on TV: the idea of two women being together is “a little too far,” a little “spicy,” just because it’s two women.
Ah, but my friends: the story, blessedly, does not end there. Ten years ago, it would have. But after a little time for everyone to calm down about their girl-on-girl freakout, the plot advanced. I give you: The T-Shirt.
This is Princess Bubblegum’s bedroom. That shirt is Princess Bubblegum’s favorite thing to wear to bed. The picture in her closet is of her and Marceline in happier times. Pause for contented sighing.
The season 5 episode “Sky Witch” gave us everything we had been panting for and then some. A little Hepburn-and-Tracy-style bickering, secret sacrifices, untold oceans of longing, piggyback rides…it’s perfect. It starts with Marceline climbing through Bubblegum’s window and asking her to help her go on an adventure — she needs her help in finding Maja the Sky Witch. So the two of them set off, remarkably not fighting as often as usual, until Bubblegum finds out the entire journey is just so Marceline can get back her old toy, Hambo.
However, after realizing how much Hambo truly means to Marceline, Bubblegum agrees to continue helping her search for it, despite the danger of Maja. Eventually, Princess Bubblegum barters for Hambo by offering Maja the T-shirt that Marceline gave her, an object that Maja notes has “sentimental freshness” and “psychic resonance” greater than Hambo’s. It is not clear what balance of importance Maja places on overall sentimental value versus the recency (“freshness”) of the feelings, but the latter seems important. Bubblegum chooses not to tell Marceline how she got Hambo back, stating only “I took care of it,” and climbs onto Marceline’s back so they can fly out of Maja’s home.
I…the quality’s not great, but it’s worth watching the last few minutes of the episode. Oof.
OOF. Inching Towards Canon: The Bubbline Story. And it’s perfectly age-appropriate and not at all spicy. It’s meaningful and fraught and lovely. I can’t tell you how much I love seeing this prickly friendship develop — whether they’re exes starting to reconnect or whether they’re building towards a first-time relationship — with the pet names and the resentments and the impatient affection they have for each other. It’s the most loaded relationship on the show. The two of them have more backstory in every “Bonny–” and “Don’t” and T-shirt sniffing than Jake and Lady Rainicorn have in the entire series.
They fight, and I love it. They fight witches together, and I love it. They combine science with some righteous guitar solos, which I love with a deep and abiding love. Marceline is the swipe of grease on Bubblegum’s furrowed brow. Bubblegum is the angel of Marceline’s better nature, and Marceline climbs in her window in the first hours of the morning and gives her T-shirts to sleep in. Marceline can fly, sure, but Bubblegum’s the one who knows where they should go. But what I love more than anything about the two of them, more than the slight and delicious air of butch-ish and femme-ish that permeates their relationships, more than the long hair and the flannel shirts and the angsty guitar playing, is that they’ve both had in-canon relationships with or noted romantic interest in male characters. Bisexual women are delightsome and enchanting and a hell of a lot of fun. Two (cartoon, candy-and vampire-flavored) bisexual women falling in love, wearing each other’s T-shirts, and fighting witches together: who could ask for anything more?
Tags: adventure time, bisexual women, bubblegum, femslash fridays, i want to suck the red from your pretty pink face, marceline
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EXCUSE ME WHILE I DO A DANCE OF JOY ALL OVER MY OFFICE
Omg I know right!? Not to mention in skywitch on not only SMELLS the shirt but I mean she is like ALL up in that SHIT! I practically rolled all over the place with feels giggling and screaming omg gay gay gay soooo happy!
‘I’m gonna drink the red from your pretty pink face’ -CANONICAL STATEMENT FROM MARCELINE TO PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM (said through song so it has to be true!!!)
Traditionally, the lyrics to musical numbers are things that the characters feel deeply but cannot openly express. Some ppl argue it’s why musical theater is so beloved in the gay community. But I digress, Marceline and Bubblegum are, per Pentagon internal reports, “totally gaybones for each other”.
But that’s the perennial problem: if gay people are doing it, it’s automatically Adult, even if there’s no sexual content.
I feel like this is a big part of why LGBT acceptance has been so slow – because it is (in most people’s understanding) inexorably tied into sexuality and as soon as you say “Mom, Dad, I’m gay,” then it automatically makes them think of sex oh my god sex and how can anybody have a calm rational discussion when they are thinking of the fruit of their loins (or their neighbour, or their kid’s teacher, or their own parents) having sex. American and British societies are so prudish, so puritan in their values (see also: slut-shaming) that just the merest whiff of sex is enough to set a movement back by several decades.
I am mostly being facetious. Mostly.
Hetero ignorant questions: Can you realize that you are gay before you start to experience sexual attraction to other people? And is that tied into identity issues? There are a whole host of “gay” behaviors that have little to nothing to do with the actual boinking; do gay people associate with them because they’re drawn to that identity independent of sexual feelings? Or is it a more gestalt, emergent kind of thing?
And are these offensive questions to ask?!? Lord I hope not. And I also hope I’m not coming off too Jane-Goodall-y by asking!
I can’t really speak for anybody else, but for myself I can confidently say that I was interested in/attracted by/identified with (in some way) the LGBTA+ spectrum years before I experienced my first ever honest-to-goodness attraction to a woman. And of course there’s the whole aspect of asexuality and how people may identify as homoromantic without feeling specific sexual attraction towards any gender. So yeah… obviously sex can be a big part of the homosexual identity, just like sex is also part of the heterosexual identity (though much more accepted/insiduous/systemic) but it’s not the be-all end-all to what identifying as an LGBTA+ person means.
Thanks for responding! I think it’s really interesting that the thing society marks as the big signifier of LGBTA—the bedroom business—is only part of the story. And then, I must assume that heterosexuality also has all these behavioral hallmarks independent of actual sex, and that it’s just been normalized so much that I, as a heterosexual person, am free to pretend that my non-sexual behavior isn’t linked to my sexuality in any meaningful way, when in fact that very likely isn’t the case. Heterosexuality is such a powerful, dominant force that it’s way too easy to see it as the background, when it’s really just another stripe of sexuality. I need to try harder to see the world this way.
Thank you again for taking the time to discuss your own thoughts!
Well yeah, I mean, I like having sex with my wife, but I am just as excited about having married her and buying a house with her and raising our kids (read: cats) with her, but that’s not what lesbian means in the common parlance, is it? And I was overegging it a bit when I said that I think that ‘automatic sex thoughts’ is the reason LGBTA+ issues aren’t more accepted now, but I do think it’s a factor, and on a wider scale it’s linked to the patriarchy and how queerness subverts the narrative and blah blah blah. It’s really good to try and see the world for what it is, a big messy ball upon which lots of different societal forces are working, and just because one particular story is dominant doesn’t make it ‘natural’ or ‘right’, just louder.
In other news, Automatic Sex Thoughts is my new band name.
It sounds like you’re talking about non-sexual behaviors that are unique to gay people, and I’m not sure that’s a thing. Unless you’re talking about gender normativity/variance, which is on its own spectrum and is more or less independent of gay/straight.
With that said, I experienced sexual attraction in an age-appropriate way, which is really what the issue is in terms of media representation. Which is to say, when 10-year-old girl me was crushing on someone, boy or girl, I wasn’t particularly thinking about anything X-rated; I was thinking about going on dates and kissing and getting sweaty hands and passing notes. Just like straight kids my age (I know there’s a range here, but I can only speak to my own experience). It’s not like queer kids are necessarily sexually precocious. And they’re the ones hurt most by the lack of G-rated (or PG) representations of queerness.
Oh man, yes!
I remember basically coming out as bi (or at least open to dating women) to my mom when I was like 15 or 16 and her first comment was “hmm. DOES THAT MEAN YOU WANT TO LICK VAGINAS???” to which I replied “Jesus, mom” with pretty much the reddest face everrrrr and a real life D: face. To that, her response was “WELL DO YOU???” so I said “um no” and we never talked about it again because oh my god oh my god. So yeah, their minds go there, and fast.
I do remember identifying more with nonstraight people as a kid though, before I developed much sexuality. I was always into people though. I had big old crushes on the boys from an early age, but was more abstractly attracted to girls.
Real life realtime D: OH MY GAWD MOM
I honestly would have taken it that your mom went and did that on purpose just to embarrass you, but then again, my own mom would have probably done the same thing if I was a girl and came out to her like that.
As it turns out, sarcasm and sardonism are undoubtedly inherited traits in my family, so that’s something I’d have expected. That, and my family’s never cared about one’s sexuality, since it’s not supposed to be a person’s sole defining trait, just one facet of the whole gem that is yourself… even if some of those gems are rather dim (in more ways than one).
Oh man, this reminds me that I am so behind on this show. Bubbeline fanart is like the best fanart though.
Oh! I watched Sky Witch on an airplane last month! Highlight of the twelve-hour flight. They also had the Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob steps on all those rakes, so good job, Delta media programmers.
HOW ARE YOU NOT GOING TO MENTION THAT THIS SEASON, MARCELINE ACTUALLY JUST CASUALLY “SUCKS” THE PINK OUT OF PB?? AND PB IS JUST LIKE OKAY WHATEVZZ
IT HAPPENED
CAN WE TALK ABOUT THAT??
YESsssss. Forever. I’m redoubling my efforts to get through Season 4 for this.
Marceline and Bubblegum’s relationship is one of the best things about the show.
“[Bubblegum’s] a good girl and she knows it, but she acts different around vampire queens.”
Is she a good girl? I don’t think she’s bad, but she’s willing to do just about anything to keep the Candy Kingdom safe, including ordering the unjust imprisonment and punching of the Ice King, condemning her creations Goliad and Stormo to an eternity of struggle, and having Flame King lock away his daughter to prevent Flame Princess from burning everything.
To be honest, I mostly just wanted to work that Drake quote in. But also, I mean, she’s hecks of responsible and does Science and wears lab coats and has Duties and so on, so yeah, I’m going with good. Good, not nice. She’s for sure the Lawful Good to Marceline’s Chaotic Neutral.
Fair. I would probably go with Lawful Neutral leaning Good—good when she can be, but sometimes willing to harm individuals to protect her subjects.
You’re nuts, PB is straight up grey-chain wearing Lawful Neutral
The only way she’s Lawful Good is if it counts that she makes the law. Lady’s straight up scary with her lack of morality at times.
The longest-running argument between my wife and me is whether PB is lawful neutral (says she) or lawful good (say I).
I don’t think being a mad scientist necessarily precludes being good.
She does snack on her subjects occasionally, but then, they are made of candy.
this seems like the correct place to leave this: Black Milk Adventure Time Collection
i would give up several firstborn children for this dress.
Oh my GLOB, the Gunther shirt!
(And the PB bathing suits. And and and…)
THIS IS GREAT.
But: “(it makes sense if you watch the show)”
I mean, does it though? Really?
Well yes. However as with most new & different things, suspension of disbelief is a requirement as is removing the word “why” from your vocabulary. Lady Rainicorn is a magical rainbow unicorn who only speaks Korean. The “why” of all that isn’t actually important as long as you can accept it as is.
This has convinced me as nothing else has to watch Adventure Time, so there’s that, and I’m saying that because I have so many feels about this installation and the two themes within it I have no way to express them.
femmeslash friday is everything
I have been COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS towards this you guys you have no idea.
Really, I woke up on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving thinking it was a Friday (because, you know, preparing to be out of the office for a few days, etc, whatever) and when this Femslash Friday wasn’t up I was so bummed. And then I realized it was a Wednesday and I was even more bummed. I love it!
Why does this not have a brazillion comments. Bubblegum/Marceline is perfection.
I mean, I had a solid inkling what was going on and was in full support, but then I watched What Was Missing and about peed my pants in shocked delight that they went there.
This article is everything I’ve ever wanted.
I saw a post that went around tumblr that was supposedly the original storyboards from “what was missing.” Apparently after PB says “I never said you had to be perfect” the next line was supposed to be something like “I said you had to quit being such a screw up!”. Then Marceline spits on her. My memory is a bit foggy on the exact wording.
While this was a bit of time ago on tumblr and I cannot find the storyboards to back me up, the editing of that scene implies something more might have been said. “I never said you had to be perfect” is generally not the type of line to inspire spitting on someone.
That being said I’m super into Bubbeline and so tired of Finn having a crush on Peebles. Like I get it but JFC there’s a serious age difference. I would love nothing more than for Finn to get over his need for a lady/crush and just adventure for a while.
Ah, I just saw that! It’s here 😀 (you’ll have to scroll down a lot though). 159-160: http://kelmcdonald.tumblr.com/post/15351775409/ad…
“Bisexual women are delightsome and enchanting and a hell of a lot of fun.”
;_; ilu
Also Marceline is a Trans Girl…just…thought I’d point that out…
I haven’t seen the episodes and just found out this, while searching up the fandom of them being together, and I am going to splurg today and see the magic!