One would think that a show like Charlie's Angels would have quite a bit of lesbian innuendo - either positive or negative - but it wasn't the case except for one episode. And even this episode gingerly walked the line in being so careful not to display two villains as a lesbian couple that if you blinked, you would miss the slight clues.
In the third season episode, "Angels in Springtime," (shown above as a mini-episode), the ladies travel to a women's only health resort to investigate the murder of a former Hollywood actress who was writing a tell-all book.
They run into a number of characters, including fellow former actress Norma (portrayed by Academy Award winner Mercedes McCambridge), bulky and threatening attendant Zora (Nancy Parsons), and resident physician Dr. Slavin (Joan Hotchkis).
It doesn't take a mind reader to tell that Slavin and Zora are both lesbians. While Parsons openly plays the stereotype of a vicious, muscular maven, Hotchkis underplays her role, dropping hints about pretty women and the evils of men in an exceptionally creepy manner.
Perhaps remembering the controversy which took place earlier a couple of years before due to the very controversial episode of Police Woman, "Flowers of Evil" (one of the first entries in the Know Your LGBT History file), the show is careful not to show the two together and the only hint that they may be a couple is the scene in which Parsons hints that they are working a blackmail scheme on the residents.
But there was one thing which struck me as odd. Both lesbian characters are involved in fight scene with the "angels," and the scenes were so violent that they obviously contained stunt doubles.
Maybe I'm hinting on something that's not there, but I have never seen fight scenes so violent on this show.
Past Know Your LGBT History Posts:
