If you clicked on the title then I’m guessing that you either don’t care about spoilers or are all caught up on the amazing show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. On the most recent episode during a stakeout between two character Charles Boyle and Rosa Diaz, the latter came out as a bisexual woman and it was freaking amazing! Not only was it great because of bisexual representation with a Latina character, but also the character is played by a bisexual actress!
Before I barrage you with all of the gifsets that warmed my heart on Tumblr, I wanted to just share some important bits of Stephanie Beatriz’s interview with Entertainment Weekly. The entire interview is amazing because, duh, Beatriz is herself amazing, here are some little snippets and the much longer form piece is linked.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Where should we rank this one on the Rosa revelation scale?
STEPHANIE BEATRIZ: I mean, if you’re 14 years old and an avid Twitter user, it’s probably been something that you’ve been hoping for for a while, so I don’t know if it’s a major revelation if you’re any kind of LGBTQ teen who’s desiring representation on TV. I think for Rosa, this is something she’s known about herself for a long, long time. For the audience, some people may be surprised, other people are going to rejoice and say, “Finally!” For me, as an actress, I’ve always felt something there. But for the writers, that’s something they’ve discovered organically over the last four seasons.Where did the idea to have Rosa come out as bisexual originate? Did the writers approach you more specifically after you came out on Twitter last year, or was it something that you pitched to them when discussing the character?
I think I mentioned something. There’s a great episode [season 1’s “The Vulture”] where Jake and Rosa mention Tonya Harding, and Rosa off the cuff says, “Yeah, she’s thick,” as a compliment to Tonya. Ever since the episode, which was pretty early on, I thought, “Oh, Rosa is not heterosexual. She’s much more open to being bi or queer than I would have thought before.” And then it was a little while later that I nonchalantly came out, and this last season before we started shooting, [co-creator] Dan Goor and the rest of the writers had each of the actors come in and talk about ideas that they had for the arc of this year or things they’d like to try. I pitched a bunch of stuff and that was one of the things that I wanted to come in with as a pitch, but to my surprise, they already had it in their brains when I got in the meeting. They were like, “We were thinking of maybe doing this. What do you think about it?”What do you think is important to see in the representation of bisexual characters on TV now?
I can’t speak for everyone; I can really only speak for myself, and for me, what I think is important is a person that is fully fleshed-out in all the ways that we would like the character to be. I love that in this specific iteration, this is someone that the audience already knows, they’ve already established a relationship with, and they care for her. And now on top of that, they’re getting to know her a little bit more. The relationship is deepening.
https://lancehuntr.tumblr.com/post/168243973140
http://director-stark.tumblr.com/post/168241539997/now-brooklyn-nine-nine-has-two-lgbtq-main
http://cipollakate.tumblr.com/post/168242880647/i-think-one-of-the-reasons-the-rosa-diaz-news-is
https://jimothyshalpert.tumblr.com/post/168250467185/so-my-show-just-did-that-so-blessed-so-moved
Representation win!
(via Entertainment Weekly, image: Fox)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
