However, Frank Marcus was not the first to imply a same sex female relationship on the London stage. Lillian Hellman’s 1934 Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Children’s Hour, was performed in London in 1936. The show centers on two female school teachers who are victims of a rumor that they are lesbians. In the world of the play, being publicized as a lesbian ruins the lives of these women. Depictions of homosexuality of any kind in the first part of the 20th century would rarely if ever result in a ‘happy ending.’ Frequently those female characters would die or marry a man; and their relationships were often portrayed as unhealthy and unequal. The trope of the tragic lesbian persisted in the latter half of the twentieth century, and even into today. It has, however, become gradually more common to depict healthy relationships between two women.

Even though lesbian relationships were presented in various forms of media throughout the twentieth century, it wasn’t until 1974 that two women kissed on British television for the first time.  In 2010, a BBC study showed that many lesbians feel that gay women are still being portrayed in media as stereotypes. In both Britain and the US, despite the increasing number of lesbian characters in the media, the stereotypes of the past still linger in contemporary portrayal of lesbian relationships.