Set in the eponymous London club, the show features DJs, pole dancers and a former Big Brother housemate as it follows the lives of six lesbians living in Soho. It's Made in Soho, or The Only Way is Lez Sex.
It's also pleasantly surprising. The show's trailers were tongue-in-cheek soft porn, but the wink-wink, nudge-nudge vibe isn't present in the show itself. Instead, we're treated to a glimpse into the lives of a diverse group of women, whose only common link is their sexuality. From dealing with parental homophobia to the gradual unravelling of a relationship, Candy Bar Girls might sometimes be ridiculous, but it's definitely addictive. And while the schadenfreude in watching Danni and Lucy go from "open relationship" to the inevitable "let's just be friends" is enjoyable, the real drama is behind the scenes at the Candy Bar itself as it relaunches.
But does the show – tagline "real life, real girls, no clichés" – really live up to its claim to go "beyond the stereotype"? How far those stereotypes exist on television is still debatable. Lesbians have been stealthily invading your TV screens for years – you'll find us on chat shows (Ellen), musical teen dramas (Santana – and sometimes Brittany – on Glee) sports programmes (the incomparable Clare Balding) and dramas (BBC3's Lip Service focused on a group of lesbians living in Glasgow). There's still room for improvement but the days when lesbian representation meant Hufty presenting The Word are gone.
But in proving that not all lesbians are butches with crew cuts – something I wish someone had told me before that ill-advised trip to their hairdressers in my teens – TV has arguably gone in the other direction. From Glee's William McKinley High to Coronation Street, lesbians on the small screen are almost all femme.
And this is where Candy Bar Girls makes good on its promise of moving beyond stereotypes. "There's this myth that there's only one type of lesbian, that there's this big butch lesbian or there's the lipstick lesbian", explains DJ Sandra wearily, tasked in the pilot episode with finding the new face of the Candy Bar. And so we have girly barrister Daisy, ex-Big Brother housemate Shabby who dresses like a punk rock Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sapphic svengali Sandra herself, whose ever-present blue hoodie is clearly the source of all her powers.
As with most reality TV, the focus in Candy Bar Girls is on relationships. There's a cliché in lesbian circles about "the urge to merge", with couples exchanging house keys in superfast time. And while TV gives straight girls the license to play the field, no small-screen lesbian stays single for long – think Corrie's Sophie and Sian, or Buffy's Willow and Tara. An addiction to monogamy is one misconception the denizens of the Candy Bar relish in disproving. For every Jo "settling down" with her girlfriend of 11 days, there's Aussie bartender Alex, who cheerfully admits, "The first six months I was here, I slept with six girls."
Of course, like any of its hetero counterparts, Candy Bar Girls gives an accurate portrayal, not of the lesbian community as a whole, but of the lesbians who go to the Candy Bar. And while it's as campy and staged as any other reality show, it actually treats its subjects as human beings. It's groundbreaking for its lack of coyness about what lesbians really do together – argue, mostly – and while it isn't a gritty exposé of life for modern lesbians, it never pretends to be. In the the end, perhaps, the real stereotype it challenges is that of the average Channel 5 programme.
• Kaite Welsh is TV & games editor for The F Word
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jul/07/candy-bar-girls-lesbian-reality-tv
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