What’s New in Queer TV #2: For the Win: NWSL, The Hunting Wives, Shiny Happy People & Hitmakers
Lesbian football players | Gun-wielding Texas wives horny for other women | A non-binary hero taking down a teen Christian organization | Some pretty damn impressive gay songwriters and music producers
Lesbian football players | Gun-wielding Texas wives horny for other women | A non-binary hero taking down a teen Christian organization | Some pretty damn impressive gay songwriters and music producers
Welcome to the weekly post where I discuss new additions to my 2025 queer streaming guide.
Aurelie Chazal
Disclaimer: All the shows listed below came out about one month ago because I've noticed that's how long it usually takes me to be able to confidently verify whether a show has queer representation. I'm not able to watch everything, but I'll only include shows that have proven queer characters as verified online through reputable sources.
For the Win: NWSL • Season 1
Queer-o-meter: 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
The show features Marta who is openly queer. There are generally a lot of out players in the league but the docuseries does not touch on it. You just can see Pride flags in the supporter stands are almost every game they film 😄.
My thoughts on it: It wasn't the best sports documentary series I've seen, but it was nice to see women athletes being celebrated. I wish they had addressed some of the issues faced by women players more head-on. The way they brushed on serious topics like sexual harassment left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. They also don't address the queer fanbase and player base at all, despite featuring at least one openly queer player in the interviews.
The Hunting Wives • Season 1
Queer-o-meter: 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
Let me tell you, the women in this show sure love to sleep with each other. The two lead characters, Margo and Sophie, have an overarching steamy romance storyline that unfortunately gets messy because of a crime. Margo is the rich wife of a Texas politician and we find out she was also having an affair with one of her lady friends before Sophie comes into the picture. All of this to say, there is a lot of lesbian action and a lot of spice.
My thoughts on it: Sometimes you just need a bit of dramatic sexy smut in your TV viewing. This is the type of show you watch alone or with your partner. I would not recommend making this a family night staple. It has a lot of very explicit scenes, about half of which are between women. As you'd expect with this type of show, the characters are stereotypical and the story is fairly simple, but it works.
Shiny Happy People • Season 2
Queer-o-meter: 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
This second season of Shiny Happy People focuses on the Teen Mania organization. Episode 3 focuses on how Teen Mania actively fought against gay marriage and took a strong stance against gay people. In addition to this, the dad of two of the interviewees is gay and has found a new partner. Finally, Mica, a Teen Mania alumni who took down the organization with zir blog uses ze/zir pronouns and is now a dedicated activist against white evangelism.
My thoughts on it: As someone who's had the chance to grow up very far away from any sort of extreme religious groups, this really scared me. I was not expecting a group like Teen Mania to be so popular with young people. It was also very satisfying to see a queer person take down the entire organization with a blog. In a world where it's easy to feel powerless, it was nice to see that we are not.
Hitmakers • Season 1
Queer-o-meter: 🏳️🌈
Two of the songwriters featured in the show, Ferras and JHart, are openly gay.
My thoughts on it: You can probably tell I haven't seen this one from the 1-liner description above. I did, however, research the show a little bit, and it's the first time I've heard of a competition for the people who are usually hidden behind the scenes of the music industry. Ferras also had a fascinating life. From what I gather from his Wikipedia page, his father faked a trip to Disneyland when he was younger and took him back to Jordan (his home country) instead. Ferras' mom eventually managed to bring him back to the US.
