Chelsea and Madison: Groundbreaking Daytime TV Couple, Yet So Little Screen Time and My Disappointment as a Black Lesbian BTG Fan
I’ve been watching Beyond the Gates since the beginning. I love the show and adore the concept of a daytime soap about an affluent, powerful Black family. I was ELATED when I was first watching Chelsea and Madison take the initial steps toward a relationship. Black lesbians and queer women DO NOT usually get this representation on a major television show.
However...
It’s glaringly obvious to me and probably other Black lesbian and Black queer women viewers how little screen time Chelsea and Madison have received compared to the other couples over the course of Season 2. It could be due to scheduling and availability, but it still seems weird. Hell, we’ve seen more of Deanna and Noah (two tertiary characters) than Chelsea and Madison (one Dupree and one Dupree associate). Portraying a Black lesbian couple in general, and specifically on daytime TV, is groundbreaking, and I wish that BTG would lean into that and tell more of their story as a couple.
There’s so much that we still don’t know about Madison and how Chelsea and Madison interact, like how they handle conflict.
Why introduce this couple and Chelsea’s queer identity only to sideline them while we don’t see Madison with Chelsea for weeks on end?
Even Smitty and Martin get more screen time compared to Chelsea and Madison. It makes me wonder if something that has been happening in light of Heated Rivalry’s explosion as a cultural phenomenon that is also happening on BTG — that straight women tend to be more invested in men’s storylines, including queer women’s storylines, than queer women’s. As we know, straight women tend to be large — if not the largest — consumers of daytime TV.
As a Black lesbian viewer, I’m disappointed with this recent lack of development.
An Instagram account that I follow really hit the nail on the head with its description of some Black lesbian and queer women fans' disappointment with the lack of screen time for Chadison.
Do any other Black lesbian and Black queer women BTG viewers feel the same level of disappointment?