MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In the popular CW superhero series Arrow, vigilante Sara Lance is revealed to be a queer character when she is shown kissing Nyssa al Ghul, her assassin ex-girlfriend. Later in the same episode, Sara is shown kissing Oliver Queen, the show’s male protagonist. Throughout her character development in both Arrow and in her later, central role in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Sara has been portrayed as being a sexually fluid character, with a variety of love interests both male and female. During a crossover episode with The Flash, the character acknowledges her sexuality directly, stating that “… I like men, and I like women.” This makes Sara, as a representation of bisexuality in modern media and as a central character in a popular superhero television series, a particularly interesting point of investigation. Overall, this research closely investigates the world-building surrounding Sara’s character in both Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, how Sara emerged as a queer character in these universes, how surrounding characters and plotlines in the shows have been impacted by her presence, and finally how fans and critics of the shows have reacted and responded to Sara as a representation of bisexuality in media. More specifically, this selected chapter is a textual analysis of the emergence of Sara Lance’s character and the portrayal of her sexuality in Arrow. Sara’s sexuality as depicted in Arrow is worth significant investigation because the world of Arrow is Sara’s first surface of emergence, and depicts Sara’s sexuality in a world which revolves around a straight, male character. This chapter uses coded data from a detailed viewing of the show to come to conclusions about Sarah’s character as a representation of bisexuality and addresses the research question: “How does Sara’s bisexuality function in the world of Arrow?”