Grace and Frankie (2015-2022) was a comedy television series that originally aired on Netflix. The half-hour comedy centered on the lives of Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin), two San Diego women and rivals in their seventies who become friends when their husbands, Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston), leave their wives to be with each other.
Throughout multiple seasons, Grace and Frankie skirted around the theme of bisexuality but had difficulties grappling with the subject. In the early seasons, Sol and Robert insist that they are gay, but Sol does end up giving in to sexual desire and sleeping with Frankie again. In a later season, he also refers to Frankie as his soulmate. While they are generally a very loving couple, these incidents set off Robert’s jealousy, and instead of opening the discussion for Sol to talk about still having bisexual desires. In a later season, when Sol and Robert meet a local theatre director whom they assume to be gay and whose partner ends up being a woman, they assume he is still actually gay and debate on trying to warn him away from this coupling to avoid what they assume will be years of pain and repression for the director. Again, the episode does not make room for the director or his partner to talk about a different and valid form of queerness.
Also, later in another season, Grace is talking with Frankie about sleepovers of her youth and mentions she kissed girls. When Frankie balks at it, she says, “A lot of things happened before you came onto the scene.”
It should be noted that, as two of the main leads, both Grace and Sol are given full characters with wants, desires, hopes, dreams, and fears. But they never get up the courage or even see calling themselves bi as a possibility.
There are a lot of allowances we are willing to make for these characters. Considering the time the show came out and when they would have been coming of age in the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was not exactly a great or safe time to be out or curious as a member of the LGBT community. As such, their keeping their desires close to the vest can be empathized with. However, in the 2010s, when this show was made, there was a lot more openness and knowledge about the bi community and sexuality, yet the characters still maintain a rather binary view of sexuality – straight or gay. This can be especially frustrating when looking for bi representation of older generations in modern media, and it feels like a missed opportunity. While overall, Grace and Frankie has a LOT to offer as far as quality programming about older men and women, it falls short in the category of elder bi representation.