Nicole Turner

             I recently finished the entire series of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. My queer character of analysis is Lily Aldrin because first of all, I absolutely love her and secondly, she displays bisexual tendencies throughout some episodes. Before my studies in Sexuality and Media, I truly believed her behavior was pure comedy and not serious whatsoever. However, once learning about Queer Theory, I quickly realized nothing in the media is an accident.
Here’s Some Background
            The main character is Ted Mosby. Ted is explaining to his children the timeline of influential events before he met their mother. Ted has an entourage of best friends. Lily Aldrin is married to Marshall Ericksen. They all met in college and have been best friends with Ted ever since Marshall was his college roommate. Barney Stinson and Robin Scherbatsky are an interesting couple. They are always on and off, but end up getting married and quickly divorced.
            Although Lily is madly in love with her husband, Marshall, her bisexuality is a recurring element in most seasons of the show. In the episode “Robin 101” Lily mentions confusing dreams about Robin and says they remind her that "a woman's sexuality is a moving target”. In the episode “Girls versus Suits” the group is at McClaren’s, a bar underneath their apartment which serves as the setting for much of the show. While trying to make Marshall admit the new bartender is hotter than her, Lily says that she thought about her in bed a couple of times the night before. In the episode “Rally” Lily and Robin end up kissing to get Barney to wake up after he drinks too much the night before his wedding.
            This bisexual behavior does not cause any problems between the relationships and friendships. Keep this in mind before we go on to the theoretical portion of this analysis. Consider the outcome if Marshall was gay and showed the same affection to Ted[1] . 
What Does This All Mean?
            Throughout my research, I found many theories on LGBTQ communities as a whole and only specific details about gays and lesbians. However, not much research has been produced solely on the Bisexual Theory.
            The L Word (2004-2009) is a show centralized around a group of lesbians and serves as a great example for comparison. Julie Scanlon argues that The L Word “employs the fashionable postmodern tools of its times – irony, citation, parody – in order to foster self-aware lesbian identities, recognize differences between them, and perpetuate the show’s own role in the positing of these identities” (Ross, 2012, p. 276). How I Met Your Mother is all parody and irony, that’s what makes it good. However, also may be a problem because every time Lily had a bisexual encounter it was under humor and silly conditions. The other characters in the show thought it was funny, therefore so did the viewers.
            “Larry Gross’ (2001) model of sexual minority production, representation, and distribution has proved highly productive in making sense of the different conditions within which images of the heterosexual majority and the homosexual minority have traditionally been formed and received…most media have been produced of, by, and for majority audiences” (Ross, 2012, p. 208). How I Met Your Mother was directed by Pamela Fryman and produced by Bays & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. Lily couldn’t have a serious bisexual or lesbian relationship with Robin because this show was produced by and for majority audiences, and therefore she limits her expression to keep the audience comfortable. A bisexual relationship is only part of a plot when it’s for entertainment.
             Henry Jenkins (2006) summarizes these new forms and genres as ‘convergence culture,’ which he says includes “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (Ross, 2012, p. 208). I include this interesting point because of the channel(s) I watched the series on. I didn’t see any episodes when they were on regular cable TV. These new forms of media and information are important when considering the production of shows. Now, when watching Netflix in my bed at home or my laptop at school or even my iPhone while biking at the gym, the shows content is shared with every person who can see the screen.
Conclusion
             Lily is played by Alyson Hannigan, and interestingly, her previous character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer was lesbian. Does this mean she is lesbian or just really looks like a “typical” lesbian? Whatever that means to society’s preferences and I don’t know the answer. The fact that Lily is loyal and married to Marshall, but is secretly interested in women seems like the show is trying to hide the fact that she’s bisexual and she can’t come out because she can’t be happy without her husband.
How I Met Your Mother does an average job with being inclusive in other areas. However, the only black male was gay with no father for most of the episodes. The production team is influential, the cast is on the front-line, and the media channel we view these shows on, matters. We must keep all of this in mind when taking in media. Lily Aldrin is a bisexual character hidden behind her normative, hereto-sexual marriage, life and routine.

References
How I Met Your Mother. (n.d.). Retrieved April 07, 2017, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460649/

Innate bisexuality. (2017, March 23). Retrieved April 08, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_bisexuality

Lily's Bisexuality. (n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2017, from http://how-i-met-your-mother.wikia.com/wiki/Lily%27s_bisexuality

Ross, K. (2014). The handbook of gender, sex, and media. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

Comment on this page