Inspiring a generation of lesbians? More on Jo’s sexual orientation via speculation about Nancy McKeon’s.

For some reasons that are not relevant but I’m happy to share if anyone is interested, I showed up at work this morning with my Facts of Life Seasons 1 and 2 DVDs in my backpack. I believe that this shows how very awesome I am, so I showed them to a coworker of similar age, who I thought might be entertained that I was carrying them around. She was, and we had a bit of a chat about the show.  Some other coworkers overheard and, also thinking that the show is awesome, joined in. It quickly became apparent that if you have a vague memory of the show, I can help fill in details, and if you have a question about the show, I can answer it. One high-ranking official in our office said, “Hey, did Nancy McKeon ever come out?”

As I acknowledged in a previous post, the speculation regarding Jo’s sexuality is nothing new, and I suppose it’s not surprising for someone to extend that speculation to the actress portraying Jo. Nevertheless, I was quite taken aback by the question. It certainly implies that it’s a fact known to the asker that Nancy McKeon is gay, and that’s problematic unto itself. We’re not talking about a comment from a member of the potentially ignorant masses here. We’re talking high-level management of a famously liberal organization, one deeply involved in the Why Marriage Matters marriage-equality campaign.

I wondered, then, whether he knew something I didn’t. While I am the most knowledgeable person about the Facts of Life and its actors that I know, the possibility certainly exists that there’s something I missed. So I took to Google.

The first thing you should know is that if you are Googling “Nancy McKeon Lesbian,” you should be sure to have safe search on. The second thing you should know is that whether Nancy McKeon is a lesbian is not exactly the talk of the entertainment world. There is this thread on the Sitcoms Online message boards from 2001, where plenty of assertions are thrown around without any supporting evidence. There are the requisite “Of course she’s not, why would you even say such a thing!” pearl-clutching posts of ignorance, and there’s one poster who states, “Jo was not a lesbian, but Nancy McKeon is. She is out in the west coast lesbian community.” When pressed for the source of this information, the poster did not offer any additional information.

According to IMDB, Nancy McKeon married camera man Marc Andrus in 2003 and they’ve had two children. Which doesn’t mean she isn’t a lesbian (or bisexual), of course, but probably makes it a bit less likely, and, if true, means definitively that, if gay, she is not out.

Of course, such speculation raises the question of why we care. I think it’s safe to say that it won’t change any of our lives whether Nancy McKeon (or Jo, for that matter), prefers women or men (if either). There’s the basic curiosity factor, of course, but I think in this case, it is more than that.

This page refers to Nancy as a lesbian icon, and I’ve heard from a number of lesbian friends that Jo was indeed an inspiration to them. And while I’m certainly not qualified to assert that Jo was the first television character who defied traditional feminine roles, she was certainly the first female character I remember who rode motorcycles, had mechanical skills, and eschewed the beauty myth. Clearly – and my own experience reflects this – her presence as a popular character on a popular, mainstream television show had incredible value to a girl trying to grow up without fitting into the “feminine” stereotypes with which we were otherwise constantly barraged.

But of course, not all lesbians don’t conform to sex/gender stereotypes, and not all people who don’t conform to sex/gender stereotypes are gay. In fact, perhaps the most revolutionary thing about the Jo character is that she was so very outside of the “feminine” expectation and yet she was consistently heterosexual. The 80s, especially the early ones, weren’t too keen on expression outside of the norm.

It’s true that Jo, and with her, Nancy McKeon, inspired a generation of gender-nonconforming girls, whether they were gay or not. And that should be celebrated regardless of where Nancy is in her own life.

In researching this post, I discovered that there is one Facts of Life character who did recently come out. Geri Jewell, who played Blair’s cousin Geri (for whom this blog was named, duh), apparently came out a few years ago in her memoir.

I also discovered that Nancy McKeon played a character named “Vikki,” spelled that way and all, in a movie I’ve never heard of but which has a pretty stellar cast. Full circle again, we are. I swear I’m cosmically connected to this show.