#bi dee

“The Gang Saves the Day” (9x06) is one of several Sunny episodes that’s more about showing us the psychology of the Gang and its members than it is about telling a story in the present. The entire episode is structured around showing us brief fantasy vignettes, as each member of the gang imagines how they’d solve their current problem of being trapped in a corner store that’s being robbed at gunpoint.

Needless to say, this setup shows us a lot about the Gang’s perceptions of themselves, each other, and the world around them. It also shows us, at least on some level, what the Gang wants in life-- Charlie, for example, fantasizes about living a long and happy life with the Waitress, while Mac’s fantasy includes Dennis confessing his love to him and going to a Heaven full of ripped, shirtless angels.

Seeing how clearly and intently each character’s fantasies in this episode show their innermost desires and perceptions, then, I think it can easily be argued that Dee and Dennis’ fantasies are both reflective of some level of compulsory heterosexuality. Are the twins aware enough of it to consciously act on it? Of course not-- and even if they were, they probably wouldn’t! But just like the gay “subtext” in Mac’s fantasy, it’s there for both of them, if you care to look.

We’ll start with Dee’s fantasy, both because it happens first in the episode and because I think it’s easier to see the compulsory heterosexuality at work there.

Dee’s fantasy kicks off with the rest of the Gang offering her up to the robber in the corner store as a sacrifice. The robber pulls off their mask... Revealing herself to be April Scott. Dee looks and sounds VERY surprised at this development, staring at her wide-eyed with a soft “Oh...”

Instead of killing Dee, the robber asks Dee if she wants her to kill the rest of the Gang in revenge. Dee says no, and talks the robber into giving her the gun-- so she can be the one to kill the rest of the Gang, as well as the cashier.

Now that the two women are alone, Dee offers the robber a smile. “No witnesses,” she says, to which the robber replies, “I like your style.”

The two seem to be really hitting it off; the robber asks Dee on the spot to join her, as “Us ladies gotta stick together.” Dee seems more than pleased with this proposal, and agrees that she’ll have the robber’s back.

The fantasy cuts then to Dee speaking to police outside the store and immediately selling her would-be companion out. As the robber is dragged into a squad car, threatening Dee’s life, Dee agrees to enter Witness Protection as a male British butler in order to protect herself.

From there, Dee’s story gets made into a TV show, she becomes a famous actress, and she ends up engaged to singer Josh Groban. The two share a brief interview together, where they discuss how in love with each other they are-- only for the next cut to show Dee on a magazine, having divorced Groban to marry Brad Pitt.

So what are we as an audience to make of this? It seems at first that this is standard fare for Dee; she gets revenge on the Gang for everything they’ve done to her, she becomes famous, and she enjoys life with a series of rich, famous, good-looking men.

If that’s the case, what’s the deal with April Scott’s character? Why would Dee imagine teaming up with a beautiful woman and running away with her, even if only for a moment? And why would she cut that line of thinking short before it could truly get started?

Compulsory heterosexuality is a phrase used to describe, in short, the social systems and standards that cause LGBPQ people to question and doubt their attractions to people of the same gender. That said, it’s used especially to describe the lesbian experience. Women are told at literally every corner of our society that their purpose is to love a man and that their lives are worth less if they don’t. From birth, girls are raised idolizing princesses and seeing “true love” play out in their books and movies-- and it’s always between a woman and a man. Growing up so inundated with this heterosexual imagery and ideology, coupled with the message that women’s lives are worth less without men in them, makes it extraordinarily difficult for many lesbians to admit their true feelings to themselves. They may convince themselves that they feel attracted to men when they don’t, just because it’s what society has come to expect of them.

With all of this in mind, then, we can begin to understand Dee’s fantasy as both reflective of her day-to-day behavior and as an example of her internal struggle with compulsory heterosexuality. She has expressed a desire for more close female friendships in her life, such as her attempt to recreate Sex and the City with Artemis and the Waitress in 4x07 “Who Pooped the Bed?” We also know that, even though Dee spends a lot of time and energy pursuing men, it’s very rarely because of any legitimate romantic interest on her part. She uses men for money, for sex, and for validation-- Dee feels like her life is a failure because, among other reasons, there’s no man in her life. Sound familiar?

Scott’s robber in Dee’s fantasy is a symbol of Dee’s attraction to women. When she appears to Dee, Dee kills the rest of the Gang, as well as the cashier-- leaving only Dee and Scott, with no man left in the room. This can be viewed as Dee acknowledging a lack of fulfillment from her relationships with men, and that she would probably find more fulfillment being with a woman. Then, compulsory heterosexuality swoops in, reminding Dee of the social stigma that exists against WLW, particularly lesbians, and Dee buries her desires as a result. If there’s one thing the Gang is good at, it’s suppressing their mental and emotional issues, which is what Dee is doing on a subconscious level when she sells out Scott to go be an actor and marry Josh Groban. Even then, though, Dee’s subconscious knows that this isn’t what she truly wants or needs in order to feel fulfilled. After all, in the fantasy, she had the power to have a lasting, happy marriage with Groban, but she chose instead to use him for his fame, for his money, and for her own personal validation, before dumping him for something better. Again, legitimate emotional or romantic attachment never seems to enter the picture for Dee where men are involved. If the fantasies we see in this episode are meant to reflect the Gang’s everyday patterns of thinking, then I think it’s safe to say that Dee’s fantasy speaks to some amount of compulsory heterosexuality in her day-to-day life... which brings us, then, to Dennis.

Dennis’ fantasy is easily the most difficult to decipher, especially on first viewing. Where the rest of the Gang’s fantasies all have happy (or at least ambivalent) endings, Dennis’ fantasy starts off dark and ends even darker, leaving even Dennis himself looking disturbed at what he’s brought to mind.

Dennis envisions himself attempting to reason with the robber, counting on their shared nature as “violent killers” to help him break through. it doesn’t work, and the robber instead shoots Dennis in the head.

After a nightmare sequence, Dennis wakes up in the hospital to Mac, Charlie, and Frank watching him, and a doctor telling him that he narrowly survived the shooting. After being informed that his dick has lost all functionality (or at least its sexual ones), Dennis sees that the Gang has abandoned him, before being introduced to Jackie Denardo, the former Channel 5 meteorologist who decided to become a physical therapist instead.

As Jackie helps Dennis recover, the two of them grow closer and closer, until one day while they’re out skating, Dennis declares that he’s in love with Jackie... Just in time for Jackie to accidentally careen into the street, where she gets hit by a car.

Back at the hospital, the doctor informs Dennis that Jackie is lucky to be alive. She has a long way to go, but she’ll be able to recover, if Dennis shows her the same love and care that she showed him. When Dennis realizes that Jackie lost her breasts in the accident, though, he asks for a moment alone. As soon as the doctor is gone, he smothers Jackie to death.

Dennis’ fantasy is, admittedly, less about his sexuality and more about his sexual trauma and myriad issues with women, but it can still be interpreted to find hints at Dennis’ bisexuality (I PERSONALLY think Dennis is bi, but the evidence presented here can go just as strongly towards him being gay, if that’s your interpretation).

For Dennis, love and sex cannot coexist-- sex to him has only ever been something that was done to harm and traumatize him (the librarian who raped him when he was 14) or a tool that he uses to control women. That’s why, in his fantasy, he isn’t able to find love until his dick stops working, leaving him literally, physically incapable of having sex. Once sex is out of the picture, Dennis is finally able to experience love... Or so he thinks.

When Jackie loses her breasts in the aftermath of the car accident, Dennis loses all interest in her and decides to smother her to death with a pillow, seemingly with no remorse. But what could have driven him to make this decision, when moments ago we saw Dennis declare that he was in love with Jackie? And besides, did her breasts really matter that much if Dennis was (in his own eyes) incapable of having sex at this point?

To someone like Dennis, who has a very flawed and objectified view of women, breasts are the biggest indicator of femininity and womanhood. This may have been why his subconscious latched onto Jackie in the first place-- even if Dennis felt emasculated by the loss of his sexual function, he could still lay some claim to his masculinity (and heterosexuality) by being with a woman as well-endowed as Jackie was.

What happens, then, when Jackie loses the biggest symbol of her womanhood, at least in Dennis’ eyes? To his understanding, she may as well be a man-- especially since Dennis has already been physically emasculated on top of that. If Dennis stays in the relationship with Jackie, he’s resigning himself to a lifetime of being perceived as being gay or “practically gay,” given Dennis’ own understanding of how the world works. It’s much easier for Dennis to cut his losses-- even if he does love Jackie-- and run away to find another avenue for him to compensate for his self-perceived lack of masculinity. (This isn’t the last time in the show that we see Dennis run away from a nonsexual relationship with someone who loves him.)

Even before the accident, though, I would argue that Dennis’ and Jackie’s relationship is nothing like Dennis’ relationships with women usually are. Granted, they can’t have sex, but in the fantasy, they don’t even kiss once. Instead, Dennis imagines Jackie hanging out with him, supporting him emotionally, and just... Being there for him on a daily basis.

Who do we know in Dennis’ real life that fits that bill?

It’s elaborate and well-hidden, and it is only one way of many to interpret Dennis’ fantasy, but I think that Jackie Denardo, as she exists in Dennis’ fantasy, is a subconscious representation of Mac. The moment Jackie loses the thing that Dennis sees as defining her womanhood, he’s left realizing that he’s (more or less, to his flawed thinking) in love with a man. So he has no choice but to cut and run. The moment Mac comes out in season 12, losing the only thing preventing him from acting on his feelings for Dennis, and begins to express a legitimate desire to start a relationship with Dennis... Dennis realizes that hes’s in love with a man. So, again, he has no choice but to cut and run.

In summation, though it takes vastly different forms in each case, the Reynolds twins’ fantasies in this episode are both representative and symbolic of their subconscious struggles with their respective sexuality. I do not mean to imply that these are the sole interpretations of their fantasies-- Dennis’ alone is rife with symbolism for interpretation. But there is enough material present in both fantasies, I believe, to support any arguments that either of the twins aren’t straight.