Among other earth-shattering events this week, Susan Sarandon casually dropped that she's bisexual in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
To be clear, this isn't the first time that the actress has verbally hinted that she's not straight (if it wasn't already extremely obvious from her sartorial inclinations). In 2017, the Rocky Horror Picture Show star previously told LGBTQ+ publication Pride Source that her sexuality was "open." And in 2021, she shared in an episode of the podcast Divorced Not Dead that she didn't care about the gender of any prospective partners, only that they were vaccinated against COVID-19.
What makes Sarandon's Wednesday Tonight Show appearance different is that it marks the first time she has publicly used the word "bi" to describe herself. In a two-second clip that will undoubtedly be used as a reaction video countless times in the years to come, Sarandon says, "And I'm bi. so." while shrugging.
https://twitter.com/tinapkennard/status/1567790107150753793
The full context makes the moment even better. In the interview between Fallon and Sarandon, the late-night host mentions that the actress had brought her dogs to the show in a previous appearance. Sadly, Sarandon shares that her "little creatures" passed away about a year ago, and she told her son that she didn't feel she could get another dog. After telling Fallon that her son suggested that she get cats instead, she drops the instantly iconic "and I'm bi, so."
"You mean you like dogs and cats?" Fallon says, to which Sarandon responds, "I'm very fluid when it comes to animals."
Whether this was a joke about Sapphics' well-documented affinity for felines or a riff on the silly binary notion of being a "dog person" or a "cat person," Sarandon certainly had her adoring queer audience eating out the palm of her hand. In many ways, Twitter was aflame on Wednesday, with Sarandon stans (Saran-stans? Sar-standons? We'll workshop this one) even editing bisexual flags using colors from pictures of her.
https://twitter.com/solangecorp/status/1567923061478785024
Another user celebrated with a clip from queer horror camp classic The Hunger, in which Sarandon plays a dreamy futch researcher who falls victim to a femme vampire seductress played by Catherine Deneuve.
https://twitter.com/tinapkennard/status/1567796150274609152
As many people pointed out, though, Sarandon's declaration should be hardly be a surprise given the numerous times she's explicitly stated her attraction to women in the past. Yes, it's notable that she has finally used the word "bi" to describe herself (even if it was in a jokey context), but it's worth considering why we need people to label their sexualities in concrete terms to be seen as ~really~ queer.
Sarandon's filmography alone would have made her a certified queer icon. But the fact that she herself is part of the family makes her roles in classics like Thelma and Louise and The Witches of Eastwick, among many others, all the more delicious. Susan Sarandon, you will always be famous.
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