What new things are coming to your favorite streaming platforms (by which I mean all streaming platforms) to entertain you while you remain indoors for the ten millionth month in a row? What’s streaming on Netflix with gay characters? What’s on Hulu with lesbians? Where are the bisexuals on Amazon? These questions and more: I’m going to answer them. By the way if you want to see all the shows we’ve written about this year, check out the 2020 Television Hub!
LGBTQ+ Women Related Content New To Netflix Streaming in October 2020
Schitt’s Creek: Season 6 – October 7
The final season of this wildly Emmy-laden series drops on Netflix October 7th. Canadian actor Karen Robinson plays Ronnie Lee, a lesbian with a partner and a small business and a spot on the town council, and her role gets a little bigger every season.
Deaf U – Netflix Original Docuseries – October 9
This docuseries follows a tight-knit group of deaf students, including pansexual social activists Renate Rose, who share their stories about life in D.C.’s Gallaudet University, a federally chartered private school fo the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. In the trailer, I think it’s Renate talking about how all the women at Gallaudet are very hot! And kissing some of them!
The Haunting of Bly Manor – Netflix Original Series – October 9
From the people that brought you The Haunting of Hill house comes The Haunting of Bly Manor. We have no idea whether or not it is going to be gay, but they did reach out to Valerie about sending a press kit so …. ??
40-Year-Old-Version – October 9
Upfront I must inform you that the gayness in the film is limited to gay men. However, it’s supposed to be really great! Produced by Lena Waithe, 40-Year-Old Version stars filmmaker Rhada Blank as a playwright once hailed as up-and-coming who feels she’s yet to prove herself worthy of that moniker and decides to pivot to become a rapper named RadhaMUSPrime. She teaches theater to high school kids and shuffles around to events suggested by her (gay) agent played by Peter King. Early reviews are glowing!
Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts: Season 3 – October 12
Netflix’s whimsical post-apocalyptic dreamscape follows the ever optimistic Burrow Girl Kipo and her queer pals as they unravel the next bit of mystery about her identity. I don’t want to spoil you, so I won’t say too much, but you can be sure that Kipo’s hijinks will include found family hijinks, hard-won hope, laugh out loud mishaps, and a new musical genre in every episode. If you like Korra or Adventure Time or Steven Universe or She-Ra — and especially if you love all of those shows — you will be so happy to join Kipo on her adventures to make friends out of every human and mute on (and below) the earth.
A Baby-Sitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting – Netflix Original Movie – October 14
Indya Moore plays glamorous witch “Peggy Drood” in this children’s film about a high school freshman who’s baby-sitting job turns into her getting recruited into an international secret society of baby-sitters who protect kids with special powers from monsters.
Grand Army: Season 1 – Netflix Original Series – October 16
The trailer for this series features girls kneeling for the American flag AND girls kissing each other and is based on “Slut,” a play from activist group Arts Effect All-Girl Theatre Company, that tackled the sexual assault of a teenage girl and slut-shaming culture in high school. However, when the trailer dropped in September, writer Ming Peiffer revealed on twitter that she and the three writers of color who’d worked on the show quit after being subject to racist exploitation and abuse from the showrunner/creator.
Carol (2015) – October 20
It’s Carol. You know. You don’t need me to tell you about Carol.
Rebecca – Netflix Original Movie – October 21
Drew very much loved the original adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic psychological thriller “Rebecca” (1965), which told the story of “about a young girl, a brooding man, and a mad woman ruining their tale of romance.” Our number one feeling about the trailer is … why does this seem so straight? “While it’s widely acknowledged that Mrs. Danvers is in love with Rebecca, this lesbian subtext recognized by even the straightest critics,” Drew wrote of the original Hitchcock film, “it’s rarely suggested that Rebecca was in love with Danvers too. But she was. That’s what I’m suggesting.” What will the remake suggest? It should be more gay. That’s what I’m suggesting.
Queer Content New to Amazon Streaming in October 2020
Girl Interrupted (1999) – October 1
This film is… not literally gay, but also it is gay? I feel like everybody has already seen it but JUST IN CASE, based on Susanna Kaysen’s memoir and starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea Duvall, Whoopi Goldberg and Britney Murphy; Girl, Interrupted follows the protagonist as she’s checked into an asylum after a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Angelina Jolie won an Oscar for playing the
The Craft (2020) – October 27
This reboot of the cult classic beloved by queer women worldwide will stick to the original plot and was written by Zoe Lister-Jones (New Girl, Whitney). On Instagram, Michelle Monogan wrote that zoe is “making a tense and provocative movie tackling current social norms” that’s “scary and smart.” Trans actress Zoey Luna plays a 17-year-old Latina punk rocker kicked out of her house by her super-Catholic mother. Gideon Aldon, who played gay in my favorite movie Blockers, also stars, along with Lovie Simone and Cailee Spaney. No photographs or ANYTHING have been released yet.
Queer(ish) Content New to Hulu Streaming in October 2020
Monsterland: Hulu Limited Series – October 1
“Monsterland” is an anthology series of “deeply melancholic, philosophical horror, the kind that imagines a world of creatures in closets and under beds, but posits that humans may be the greatest monsters of all.” Episode 105, “Plainfield, Illinois,” features “a suburban lawyer debating life or death,” and the couple at its center is a lesbian couple, played by queer actors Roberta Colindrez and Taylor Schilling. Episode 107 is directed by our fave bisexual director, Desiree Akhavan.
October 2020 HBO Max LGBTQ+ Content
Best in Show (2000) – October 1
Christopher Guest’s mockumentary about showdogs features Jane Lynch as trainer Christy Cummings, a competitive handler working for poodle-owning couple Sherri Ann and Leslie Ward Cabot. But there’s more going on between Sherri and Christy than meets the eye, if you know what I mean and I think you do!
The Color Purple (1985) – October 1
This classic based on Alice Walker’s novel is set in rural Georgia is a raw emotional account of pain, passion and survival told by Celie, who seizes your whole heart with letters that trace her coming of age, falling in love for the first time and breaking free. The film de-gayed the story significantly, but subtext remains loud enough for the queer eye.
Equal: HBO Max Original Docuseries – October 22
A limited series tracing the LGBTQ rights movement, through heroes well-known and unsung, across the United States, made the revolutionary choice of casting LGBTQ+ actors in LGBTQ+ roles. Blending archival footage with scripted drama, the cast includes Heather Matarazzo, Shannon Purser, Sara Gilbert, Anne Ramsay, Alexandra Grey, Theo Germaine, Jamie Clayton, Isis King, Samira Wiley, Elizabeth Faith Ludlow and Haillie Sahar. You can read more about it here.
October 2020 CBS All Access LGBTQ+ Content
Star Trek: Discovery: Season 3 – October 15
The third season of Hot Women in Space finds our intrepid travelers in a sticky spot: nine hundred years in the future, where the Federation still exists but is in a bit of a pickle. Lesbian comic/writer Michelle Paradise has been promoted to co-showrunner for the third season. Tig Notaro returns as sarcastic lesbian engineer Jett Reno and Michelle Yeoh returns as the very mommi pansexual Philippa Georgiou. New characters include transgender actor Ian Alexander (The O.A.) as transgender character Grey, non-binary actor Blu del Barrio as non-binary character Adria, and um, a cat. Like an actual cat. In space?
Re: The Haunting of Bly Manor and its sexuality, I can confirm that it turns up when you search for lesbians in Netflix, but it does not turn up when you shout “LESBIANS” at your roku remote.
dialing up the Roku contact page to alert them to this needed option right now
But Sarah Paulson shows up if you shout, “LESBIANS,” out of your window.
OMG. Comment award.
CAROL IS COMING BACK TO NETFLIX.
(As if i don’t have the DVD and bought the streaming version on amazon)
The original film adaptation was directed by Hitchcock in 1940. One of my favorites, though I never thought of Mrs. Danvers as in love with Rebecca – makes perfect sense in retrospect.
Cats in spppaaaaccccce!
Cats in space! Yayyy to that and who could resist the sassy Philippa Georgiou and THE lesbian engineer in HWISP aka Discovery. Also, can t wait for “this is the way” Mandalorian (and yes i m well aware no gays… yet, but Ashoka Tano played by awesome Rosario Dawson!
Thx, Riese!
For anyone else obsessed with the lesbian subtext in Rebecca and who hasn’t already seen this, the show Devious Maids (on Hulu!) had a whole arc that was an homage to it that’s pretty fun. (Season 3, maybe?)
came here to say that although the forty-year-old version’s gayness is mostly there with respect to a gay man, it also has the MOST TENDER depiction of a latina baby butch ive seen and i’m not over it!