How my favourite childhood cartoon character made me realise I was bi

A coming out story

‘How could this be a phase if it had always been there?’

I’m 12 years old and my heart is trilling like a rooster’s morning crow, my breath catching like a hapless fly in a spider’s web. I’m sitting on the cold floorboards in front of the TV, legs crossed, enraptured by the shifting images on the brightly lit screen.

I’m 18 and my heart is pumping with the vigour of an athlete who knows they just won gold, my breath hitching like a horse to a cart. I’ve just kissed someone for the second time in my entire life and now I understand why people write poetry.

What is the connection between these two seemingly disconnected experiences? I won’t make you wait for the answer; it’s girls. 

When I was younger, I was obsessed with the 2003 animated DreamWorks movie Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. It's a dashing tale of pirates, criminals, heists and the end of the world. Its sharp wit, ravishing romance and high stakes action truly stand the test of time, even now in the era of sanitised, Disneyfied media. I loved it then, and I love it still.

However, I’ve come to realise in the past few years that my childhood fixation stemmed from more obscure reasons than mere entertainment.

In the movie, the dashing and cavalier Sinbad must journey to the edge of the world with his best friend’s beautiful fiancée (cue angst) on a journey to retrieve the stolen Book of Peace under threat of death. Sinbad is a lovable, irreverent and understandably misunderstood anti-hero who secretly shields a heart of immense compassion.

His companion, the beautiful and bold Marina, secretly longs for freedom from the political duties of her station as ambassador to Syracuse. They, along with Sinbad’s ragtag crew, must outrun ancient hunters and plentiful obstacles to retrieve the Book from the one who took it; none other than the Goddess of Discord, Eris.

Eris is everything you imagine a chaos goddess would be; conniving, luxurious and utterly wicked. In a dusky purple dress that descends into coils of smoke at the hem and wreathed in sheaths of long ink black hair that seem to defy gravity’s siren song, she is a beautiful menace.

Every time she was on screen, my young eyes remained glued to her animated form. I distinctly remember the fluttering feeling in my stomach that greeted me every time she appeared, as light and unsure as a deer’s first steps. I watched and rewatched her scenes like an acolyte, especially the one where she bathes naked in a galactic bubble bath of stars, never understanding why she made me feel different than Sinbad or Marina or any of the other characters.

It was only after I came out as bisexual years later that I truly grasped my obsession with Eris. I had, even at a young age, been attracted to her. Not consciously, not knowingly, but attracted nonetheless. This revelation made me question my entire coming out journey. This was not something that happened well into my teen years or overnight, this was something that had been present from childhood. I was not ‘going through a phase’ as so many people claimed. I had liked girls from the start.  

One only has to ask the question ‘which cartoon character were you obsessed with as a child?’ to get a plethora of answers. Shego from Kim Possible. Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Megara from Hercules, Velma from Scooby Doo, Kida from Atlantis. These characters, two dimensional as they are, illuminate a world in which the binaries of heterosexuality are not the only pathways to tread. Cartoons allow us to explore attraction in a liminal space, to push the boundaries of what we find appealing in a fluid, non-confrontational way.

Coming out is scary. You fear backlash, intrusive questions, judgement. When I told my family I was bi, they asked if I was doing it for attention. People claimed I was a lesbian when I started dating girls, never stopping to ask me or hesitate to assume my orientation. Bi erasure pervades our community, as do harmful stereotypes about promiscuity and selfishness.

I am so proud to be bi, to be out, but it doesn’t rewrite the rocky road that lays behind me. Somehow knowing that I was attracted to more than men from an early age comforts me, because how would this be a phase if it had always been there?

I’m grateful for Eris; for her charm, for her cunning, but ­– most of all – for helping a questioning girl validate her blossoming sexuality. I recently rewatched Sinbad at 24 years old. All the same butterflies were there, even more in fact, because now I feel no shame in admitting that Eris is one hell of a goddess.

A version of this piece was published in RMIT Catalyst’s issue 4 Vol 77. Find it on page 16 here.