SLOCG's Showrunner Says The Show's Been "Hinting At" Bela's Sexuality
"Eagle-eyed viewers for seasons have been commenting..."
Spoiler alert: This post discusses events from The Sex Lives of College Girls Season 3 finale.
Some Sex Lives of College Girls fans may have been less surprised by Bela’s big bisexuality reveal than others. In Season 3’s finale, the chaotic comedian realized her attraction to women after kissing Haley, and promptly came out to her suitemates. Just like how her close friends didn’t see the revelation as anything too shocking, certain fans had also been catching on to Bela’s sexuality for some time now. And according to the showrunner, those clues were purposefully planted.
“It's been here for a bit. I can't remember when we started hinting at it,” Justin Noble told Entertainment Weekly. “It wasn't like an open thing in the room, but we would adjust her style a little bit or we would have a little pin on her shirt.”
While Noble admitted the writers were subtly suggesting Bela’s queerness, he did start to worry once fans started picking up on it before her coming-out moment. “I'll be real: Eagle-eyed viewers for seasons have been commenting, just throw-away comments where it's like, ‘It feels like Bela's about to come out or something,’” the showrunner said. “I'm always scrolling past it being like, ‘Is this comment getting traction? Are they onto us? Are we playing it too strong?’”
Notably, Bela’s coming-out journey was quite different from that of the show’s other lead queer character, Leighton. Noble emphasized the importance of exploring the contrast between the two characters’ experiences.
“Leighton knew exactly who she was, she just wasn't comfortable with it yet. And that's true of a good percentage of queer people's coming out journey,” Noble said. “But there are also plenty of friends of mine and plenty of people I know in the real world who have the opposite, where it's like they would one moment be confident that they're a heterosexual person and then something triggers them to a moment of awareness where they start to think, ‘Wow, when I'm always fascinated about how jealous I am of people who look like that or that I'm always thinking how beautiful all my friends are, maybe it's more than that. Maybe I am attracted to them.’ And so we loved telling that version of the story with Bela, just clearing the road for people out there to be like, ‘Wait, that might be me too.’”
