LGBT Themes, Stories And Characters On TV

[galax-arena]

Yeah, I don't think Marlene is transphobic per se, but I think she's operating with willfully privileged blinders on if she can't see why so many people would have a problem with THE big villain of PLL being its first and only transgender character.

 

I'm also annoyed with the way I've seen some gay people/blogs leaping to the show's defense, like PLL deserves a pass because they gave us Emily Fields all these years. The attitude I've seen just reinforces the LGBT hierarchy that I find so troubling, which is that gay men come first, then lesbians, then bisexuals, and then at a very distant fourth place, transgender. And if some LGB people had their way, transgender people wouldn't be included at all. 

 

ETA: And similar to the second paragraph, I despise how some of the people behind the scenes think that being gay themselves means that the storyline can't possibly be transphobic. It's as stupid as when Michael Patrick King insisted that his being gay meant that he couldn't be racist (with respect to 2 Broke Girls). 

Edited August 13, 2015 by galax-arena

[Wax Lion]

PLL has also faced criticism for killing off its two black lesbian characters, so the racial hierarchy is in place too.

 

IMO, it's bad that the only trans character is the show's big villain but the part I find offensive is that making the character trans feels like a part of how a lot of the PLL villains get muted. Cece being trans is presented as an excuse for her actions.

ETA: Oh. God. The only thing stupider than Michael Patrick King freakout was the article that came out a few months later that created "gaycist" and tried to claim that MPK was getting away with racism because he was gay... which is proven by that press conference where he was called out for the racist 2 Broke Girls jokes.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Wax Lion

[dohe]

Yeah, I don't think Marlene is transphobic per se, but I think she's operating with willfully privileged blinders on if she can't see why so many people would have a problem with THE big villain of PLL being its first and only transgender character.

 

I'm also annoyed with the way I've seen some gay people/blogs leaping to the show's defense, like PLL deserves a pass because they gave us Emily Fields all these years. The attitude I've seen just reinforces the LGBT hierarchy that I find so troubling, which is that gay men come first, then lesbians, then bisexuals, and then at a very distant fourth place, transgender. And if some LGB people had their way, transgender people wouldn't be included at all. 

 

ETA: And similar to the second paragraph, I despise how some of the people behind the scenes think that being gay themselves means that the storyline can't possibly be transphobic. It's as stupid as when Michael Patrick King insisted that his being gay meant that he couldn't be racist (with respect to 2 Broke Girls). 

The concerns of the transgender community should never be dismissed based on a program's capability at conveying other queer lives.  A terrific reaction would have been if all queer sites displayed concern over that noxious trope used on Pretty Little Liars.  Instead there was a sort of why are they whining response and a distortion of the concerns, one in which the people running the show tried to say outrage was against a transgender character being on television when it was about how that character, the first transgender character on the show, turned out to be the show's villain in keeping with decades long depictions on tv and in film of transgender characters being mentally ill and villainous.   

Edited August 19, 2015 by dohe

[Miss Dee]

What do people think of Kevin's character on Brothers and Sisters? To my eyes it felt like he had equal time with the other actors when it came to his love life, but I might have had my "straight" blinders on.

[joelene]

I liked Kevin (well, as much as I liked any of those family members before they all got mostly annoying) and he certainly had a lot of love interests. I don't remember anything about the portrayal that bothered me. I think I was mostly happy and invested with the character. And this coming from gay eyeballs.

Edited August 24, 2015 by joelene

[Wax Lion]

I think Kevin eventually got equal treatment but I think he suffered in the show's early days. When Rob Lowe joined he tried to take over (apparently he has a habit of this) and Kevin was wrapped up in a thankfully brief trend at ABC where gay people learn to stop being so belligerent to people who have worked against gay civil rights. (Cupid and one other show did a story like that.) On B&S, Kevin tried to bring up McCallister's anti-marriage vote but then it turned out that McCallister supported marriage equality but traded the vote for support on his education bill.

 

In the second season, the show got derailed by that unknown Walker chilld, a story that got quickly forgotten. Once they got through those mistakes (basically trying to turn the show over to a movie star or a new young adult character) the show was pretty good to Kevin.

[BW Manilowe]

I think Kevin eventually got equal treatment but I think he suffered in the show's early days. When Rob Lowe joined he tried to take over (apparently he has a habit of this) and Kevin was wrapped up in a thankfully brief trend at ABC where gay people learn to stop being so belligerent to people who have worked against gay civil rights. (Cupid and one other show did a story like that.) On B&S, Kevin tried to bring up McCallister's anti-marriage vote but then it turned out that McCallister supported marriage equality but traded the vote for support on his education bill.

In the second season, the show got derailed by that unknown Walker chilld, a story that got quickly forgotten. Once they got through those mistakes (basically trying to turn the show over to a movie star or a new young adult character) the show was pretty good to Kevin.

As I remember, on B&S, Senator McCallister was in favor of Gay Marriage/Rights--as you said--because he had a gay brother of his own (who was also briefly involved with Kevin, at 1 point when Kevin & Scotty were broken up & not seeing each other at the time, or it at least seemed that way, as I remember). But, as you also said, he traded his "Yes" vote on that bill for another Senator's support of his Education (or something else) bill.

[Wax Lion]

With the first season done, I thought I'd ask what people here think about Mr Robot. There's been a variety of LGBT characters. SPOILERS below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Probably the most notable is a transgender character who gets very little screen time, but there's nothing done to define her as transgender to the audience, she's entirely defined by her competence and the power she amassed. There's also a scene where

she is dressed as a man which is explained in interviews that they're viewing that as her disguise.

 

I see what they're trying to do there and overall Mr Robot is a show that lefts plenty of details hinted at, not explained.

But is it a play on the "deceitful transgender" trope if they view a transgender female character as a woman pretending to be a man? (And is it any better that she's deceiving one of the bad guys, with the audience uncertain to what her motives are?)

 

I know trans activists say that casting a cismale as a trans woman is saying that trans women are just guys in dresses, but does it change anything if you're casting a cismale whose breakout role was a gender non-conforming character?

Does it help if the show is approaching the character as a woman wearing a suit?

 

There's also a scheming businessman, Tyrell, who

seduces a gay office assistant in order to be able to install maleware on the assistant's phone

. A recent episode put together a contrast between him and another gay businessman, Gideon. While Tyrell's wife is portrayed as a Lady MacBeth,

cutting off her husband from his family unless he gets the position they've been scheming over

, Gideon's husband is trying to get him to stop worrying about business, eat some breakfast and telling him the important thing is that they're together. The show's protagonist (an unreliable narrator) also views Gideon as one of the few purely good people in the world, though at the time

he's scheming to destroy Gideon's business for a "greater good" so that view might be inflated by guilt

.

 

But that seduction does dangerously put Tyrell in the scheming bisexual trope. In a lot of ways,

Mr Robot seems like a  show that likes to play with tropes so maybe it will more clearly subvert the

scheming bisexual trope. They're definitely trying to do that with the deceitful transgender trope, though I don't know if they're succeeding.

 

Meanwhile there's also a female character who kisses another girl but it's not yet clear what the point of that was.

[possibilities]

RE Mr. Robot:

I think there is a difference between passing and deceit. Wrt BD Wong's character, wearing the suit as a disguise to me seems fundamentally to be no different than anyone who is "undercover" or "in the closet" for self preservation. It's similar to how fsociety uses masked people to deliver messages, preserving their lives and anonymity.

I can't speak to the issue of whether casting a cismale for the role is appropriate or not, though.

 

Also, re the scheming bisexual trope, don't forget that the (as far as we know) cisfemale heterosexual Joanna is also a schemer. Really, at least 2/3 of the entire cast are schemers. It's not like no one else is scheming. And we don't really know if the character who seduced the

gay office assistant

was meant to be actually bi, or just doing it for expedience, like all his other schemes and manipulations. So on that level, I didn't find it to be tropey, but maybe I'm wrong. It will depend I think on whether his true sexuality and motives are ever clarified, which with this show I think is not something we can count on.

 

I love Gideon. As far as we can tell anything on this show is real, he does seem to be the least corrupted person around.

[joelene]

possibilities put it more eloquently than I would have and I agree with the whole post.

I think tropes in general are brought up too casually to dismiss characters nowadays. It's all about context and development. i.e if a "camp" or "flamboyant" gay male character is introduced I feel like people like to complain about them because "that's not who we are and what is this, the 90s?" as if feminine gay men doesn't exist in the real world, all wonderful, and shouldn't still be portrayed on television anymore. And the complaints about Taylor Kitsches closeted character in True Detective annoyed the shit out of me ("Why is he closeted? He lives in LA!" Good grief).

With Tyrell, "the scheming bisexual" didn't even occur to me. I just read him as a schemer who would hardly let something so pedestrian as sexual labels get between him and his goals, so I haven't put a label on him.

Edited September 6, 2015 by joelene

[Cobalt Stargazer]

possibilities put it more eloquently than I would have and I agree with the whole post.

I think tropes in general are brought up too casually to dismiss characters nowadays. It's all about context and development. i.e if a "camp" or "flamboyant" gay male character is introduced I feel like people like to complain about them because "that's not who we are and what is this, the 90s?" as if feminine gay men doesn't exist in the real world, all wonderful, and shouldn't still be portrayed on television anymore. And the complaints about Taylor Kitsches closeted character in True Detective annoyed the shit out of me ("Why is he closeted? He lives in LA!" Good grief).

 

I'm not subscribed to HBO and so I haven't been able to watch True Detective, but provided that the show is set in the modern era and not, say, in the time Mad Men was set in, I don't think its a 'good grief' situation to question why someone would be closeted. Isn't the public perception that Los Angeles is one of the most liberal cities there is? I mean, It isn't Hollyweird, but it isn't Mayberry either. Yes, going public about sexuality is a personal choice, but the days of guys like Sal Romano being fired because they reject piggish advances are mostly a thing of the past. Imagine the public relations nightmare that would happen in real life over such a thing. God knows the cops in this country get enough bad publicity.

 

As for stereotypical gay men, of course they exist in reality, but I think people see those stereotype as largely negative, and possibly even offensive. It is about development, but its also about the perception that studio execs or writers or whoever else "have to" see gay men as just like everyone else, that if the character's behavior is too flamboyant, etc then they're mocking them somehow.

[joelene]

I'm not subscribed to HBO and so I haven't been able to watch True Detective, but provided that the show is set in the modern era and not, say, in the time Mad Men was set in, I don't think its a 'good grief' situation to question why someone would be closeted.

I do. The people questioning it are obviously either not LGBT themselves, or they are dismissive about the big portion of gay people who struggle, be it internally and/or with family about their sexuality (living in the big city or not the big city).

Isn't the public perception that Los Angeles is one of the most liberal cities there is? I mean, It isn't Hollyweird, but it isn't Mayberry either. Yes, going public about sexuality is a personal choice, but the days of guys like Sal Romano being fired because they reject piggish advances are mostly a thing of the past.

The person/character in question don't care about "public perception", or they care too much. And, um, people are being fired left and right for being gay. I don't know how prominent it is in LA in particular but it's not like that city is devoid of homophobes and gay bashers. Sweden is supposed to be one of the most gay friendly countries in the world and yet there have been multiple accounts of qualified gay people being dismissed over straight guys who barely passed high school.

As for stereotypical gay men, of course they exist in reality, but I think people see those stereotype as largely negative, and possibly even offensive.

Which was my point. They shouldn't be seen as offensive, not at first glance. Of course a character like this can be offensive, but it can also be a great character if done right. It shouldn't be shied away from.

It is about development, but its also about the perception that studio execs or writers or whoever else "have to" see gay men as just like everyone else, that if the character's behavior is too flamboyant, etc then they're mocking them somehow.

Which is just cowardice. But then Hollywood execs seem to be cowards in general.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Joelene, I'm having some kind of quoting issue with the forums right now, so I can't break up your post the way I'd like to. Therefore, I will try to address your points as coherently as I can without doing so.

 

I can't speak to what everyone thinks, obviously, and since I don't even watch True Detective I have limited knowledge to go on. But perhaps the people who do watch the show are LGBT, and perhaps because of that they're conflating the character's experience with their own. Being closeted means you're hiding a piece of yourself, burying it so that no one knows the real you. It can be seen as an act of shame, and while its sometimes self-protective shame, it can also be self-destructive. IMO, its a tad unfair to presume that these people are speaking out of ignorance.

 

And um, its also possible to lose your job because of discriminatory practices against homosexuals. Ask Kim Davis, who I now hate more than ever because she's forced me to approve of something those Westboro morons are doing. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

 

Also, I suppose it could be cowardice on the part of Hollywood, but OTOH I think that it isn't only straight people who can be too easily offended. I do watch Modern Family, which might not be the same thing as its a sitcom instead of a drama, but I've seen plenty of complaints leveled at both Cameron and Mitchell based on their characterization. And not all of them come from Joe the Plumber types.

[Irlandesa]

 Being closeted means you're hiding a piece of yourself, burying it so that no one knows the real you. It can be seen as an act of shame, and while its sometimes self-protective shame, it can also be self-destructive. IMO, its a tad unfair to presume that these people are speaking out of ignorance.

Being closeted isn't ideal, but anyone who questions that there is a legitimate reason to be closeted just because they happen to live in a liberal city is speaking from ignorance or privilege or both. From what I understand, the reason the character was closeted had a lot to do with his family and their feelings about being gay.  Homophobic people/families can live anywhere.

 

 

And um, its also possible to lose your job because of discriminatory practices against homosexuals. Ask Kim Davis, who I now hate more than ever because she's forced me to approve of something those Westboro morons are doing. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Kim Davis hasn't lost her job. And the issue with her isn't even her feelings about homosexuals, it's the fact that she's letting those feelings interfere with the basic requirements of her job. This is because she's in a government job.  If she were in a private company, unless the owners had a non-discrimination policy, she'd likely be okay because her state doesn't offer protection to LGBT people.

 

However, I think this is a false equivalency.  People can be protected and win lawsuits if they can prove that they were fired because they were gay (or because they got pregnant or are a woman or they're black....etc.)  That isn't always easy to do.  I didn't realize discrimination because of discrimination was seen as a problem.

Edited September 9, 2015 by Irlandesa

[joelene]

But perhaps the people who do watch the show are LGBT, and perhaps because of that they're conflating the character's experience with their own. Being closeted means you're hiding a piece of yourself, burying it so that no one knows the real you. It can be seen as an act of shame, and while its sometimes self-protective shame, it can also be self-destructive. IMO, its a tad unfair to presume that these people are speaking out of ignorance.

Of course it can be self-destructive and incredibly so. But the posts and comments about Paul that annoyed (the shit out of) me weren't speaking about these issues. Like I said in my original post (or meant, if it didn't come across), what annoyed me were all the incredibly flippant and dismissive comments about being closeted in general, which, as Irlandesa said, is speaking from ignorance and/or privilege (from both straights and gays).

And um, its also possible to lose your job because of discriminatory practices against homosexuals.

Yes but I'm talking about seeing things from the character's point of view. This is someone who is deeply self-loathing about being gay. It's about his fear. Someone who lives in the closet and is not on the verge of opening is more likely thinking about all the bad things that could happen (being fired, rejected, made fun of, things that might not even be likely to happen, but the fear is there and shouldn't be dismissed, because it could very well happen) or he/she is trying their damned hardest to suppress their true selves because they've been taught that gay=bad. It's not about what would realistically happen to a bigoted boss in a public office.

What annoyed me was that so many people seemed incapable of seeing things from a closeted persons POV. Again, to me, speaks of ignorance and privilege.

OTOH I think that it isn't only straight people who can be too easily offended. I do watch Modern Family, which might not be the same thing as its a sitcom instead of a drama, but I've seen plenty of complaints leveled at both Cameron and Mitchell based on their characterization. And not all of them come from Joe the Plumber types.

I don't think so either. I was talking about LGBT people taking offence too quickly in many cases when a "stereotype" is introduced.

Edited September 8, 2015 by joelene

[galax-arena]

Being closeted isn't ideal, but anyone who questions that there is a legitimate reason to be closeted just because they happen to live in a liberal city is speaking from ignorance or privilege or both. From what I understand, the reason the character was closeted had a lot to do with his family and their feelings about being gay.  Homophobic people/families can live anywhere.

Seriously. I grew up in the Bay Area, went to college in downtown LA, and currently live in NYC. So those are three regions that are well known for being on the more liberal/open-minded end of the spectrum, and I'm still semi-closeted. None of my coworkers know, even though I live in a state that has non-discrimination protections in place for sexual orientation. And I have a LOT of religious friends and relatives in those cities who belong to anti-gay denominations (notably the Southern Baptists). So... yeah. People who think it's as simple as living in a more liberal city are being pretty naive IMO. 

 

However, I think this is a false equivalency.  People can be protected and win lawsuits if they can prove that they were fired because they were gay (or because they got pregnant or are a woman or they're black....etc.)  That isn't always easy to do.  I didn't realize discrimination because of discrimination was seen as a problem.

Yeah, I'm not sure what Kim Davis has to do with anything. A better example would be someone who maybe thinks that homosexuality is a sin, but doesn't actually let that interfere with their job or public accommodation laws, and is fired for it. And that wouldn't fly because, unlike sexual orientation and gender identity, religious beliefs are a federally protected class. Socially conservative Christians aren't being unfairly discriminated or persecuted against here in the US, no matter how much they're trying to play that angle right now.

Edited September 8, 2015 by galax-arena

[galax-arena]

X-posting this in the Race/Ethnicity thread: How Shows Like 'Will & Grace' And 'Black-ish' Can Change Your Brain. For people who think that representation doesn't matter because ~omg it's just TV.

[Niuxita]

Has anyone seen this? http://tvline.com/2015/09/15/hart-to-hart-reboot-gay-couple-nbc/I wonder why there isn't more of a fuss being made about it. 

[Chaos Theory]

Has anyone seen this? http://tvline.com/2015/09/15/hart-to-hart-reboot-gay-couple-nbc/I wonder why there isn't more of a fuss being made about it.

Because it's NBC. They'll cancel it after the first season and call it a win.....stiiiiiiiillll!!!!!

[Irlandesa]

Has anyone seen this? http://tvline.com/2015/09/15/hart-to-hart-reboot-gay-couple-nbc/I wonder why there isn't more of a fuss being made about it. 

Probably because it's still a long way from actually happening. It still has to be written, then NBC has to order a pilot, then it has to be cast and then NBC has to order it to series all before we'd get a chance to see it.  The development process could even take years if they don't feel it's ready for the next pilot season.

 

I am a bit skeptical about this.  Hart to Hart tried to capture a Thin Man type dynamic and the Harts were very affectionate.  Will NBC let every episode end with a kiss as the original series did? 

[Wax Lion]

I've seen a bit of discussion on it. In one place, there was talk about how most episodes ended suggesting the Harts were about to have sex (sex in some sort of lavish location). It would be amazing if there were a show featuring a gay couple depicted as that loving and flirtatious.

 

But it's a long way off and a show that had a gay couple like the Harts... I don't know how I feel about the liklihood of it happening on NBC. NBC isn't bad about having gay characters but Sean Saves the World was built on a premise that kept him single. I think The New Normal had the most prominent gay couple and they often left me wondering why they were together.

[galax-arena]

Mulan's coming back to Once Upon a Time!

 

I'm seeing some speculation that she could end up with Merida. I swear, if the writers just bring her back to have her mope over Aurora... 

[possibilities]

This tribute to Kate MacKinnon's Justin Bieber impersonation is in The Atlantic (of all places):

The Radical Queerness of Kate MacKinnon's Justin Bieber

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/the-radical-queerness-of-kate-mckinnons-justin-bieber/385567/

[maraleia]

Something to ponder in the wake of Lexa's death on The 100 http://www.autostraddle.com/all-65-dead-lesbian-and-bisexual-characters-on-tv-and-how-they-died-312315/

This is why the LGBT community, including myself, is sick and tired of these tropes.

Wow it looks like no one here cares about this issue. That's so sad and tragic.

Edited March 15, 2016 by maraleia

[Wax Lion]

I don't watch The 100 because the early reviews were bad, Isiah Washington hadn't been long from making those off-putting interviews about his Grey's Anatomy firing and once word spread that the show improved I haven't found time to catch up (and right now I'm waiting to see how hard it will be to keep up with CW shows next year after the current Netflix deal expires) but Maureen Ryan did a great piece of Lexa's death in Variety:

 

http://variety.com/2016/tv/opinion/the-100-lexa-jason-rothenberg-1201729110/

 

Ryan's piece breaks down a mix of issues and breaking down why it's not something that can't be straightsplained away by saying The 100 is a show with a high body count.

 

That's a great list on Autrostraddle, but one potential nitpick has me wondering if its a topic for debate.

 

In the comics, Isabella Hartley and Victoria Hand are queer but the Agents of SHIELD producers decided not to acknowledge their sexuality because they knew those characters weren't going to survive long. Worse they would have been the first queer characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (this has been another topic of debate among gay fans). Since then, SHIELD introduced a gay man of color and Jessica Jones had two lesbian characters, one was a man in the comics and another

appears in the Autostraddle list

.

 

So is queer erasure okay if its done to avoid the dead lesbian trope? I'm not familiar with either comic character, was there something about the characters that merited bringing them to the screen if the character was going to die in a few episodes anyway? (If there was, I don't think they show captured it unless they picked Victoria Hand for her hair.)

 

Wow it looks like no one here cares about this issue

 

Sorry, I've got to question that. Why take such a hostile and dismissive tone when this thread has been ridiculously slow overall? Things were active until September, then it's been months in between posts, so why get so angry when after nearly three months without activity, there's no response in three hours? There's a lot of justifiable anger and frustration over The 100 but you're the first person to bring that discussion here, a week after it happened. It seems like people have gotten out of the habit of visiting this thread, no one thought to come here and bring up the male character who came out as bisexual on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, either (which is a big deal since they're consciously avoiding stereotypes that are still common with bisexual male characters).

[galax-arena]

Yeah, this thread has been pretty dead overall, I think it's a bit presumptuous to act like no one cares because there wasn't a response in the first three hours. For the record, I've been complaining plenty about this, just not here!

 

Anyway, I have a lot of feelings about this, so you've been warned, there's a lot of tl;dr ahead:

 

One thing that's been weighing on me since the whole Lexa fall-out has been the lack of intersectionality I've seen on both sides of the debate. The 100 has been shitty about race for a long time. This has led to one side saying that the only people who are so upset over Lexa's death must be white, with the other side saying that the only people who were upset over the racism or didn't think that the 100 was the most progressive, revolutionary queer show ever were straight. Which left a lot of us who are both LGBTQ and POC feeling torn down the middle, being asked to prioritize one aspect of our identity over another and feeling like a traitor regardless of which one we chose.

 

Like... yeah, no shit this show failed early and hard with respect to race. But I think LGBTQ POC are used to having to choose between one or the other; it's rare that we get media that highlights both sides respectfully/equally. It sucks that we're being summarily dismissed as white girls who only care about our "white faves." Ugh, shut up. Look, I can count on my hands the number of major Asian LGB WOC characters in the media. More if I'm including non-Asian WOC, but the simple truth is that if I'm looking for representation of my sexual orientation, that character will more often than not be white.

 

ON the flip side... hoo boy, I could not abide the Clexa stans who were all up this show's jock about how it ws the most progressive queer show on the planet. There were definitely fans who ignored the race issues on this show because they didn't want to think that their show was anything beyond perfect. They put all of their trust in Rothenberg, like... why??? He was always such a self-aggrandizing dick on social media. Even aside from the racefail, I'd roll my eyes at how he liked patting himself on the back for being ~soooo revolutionary. He was giving me serious Jeff Davis (from Teen Wolf) vibes, and Davis sucks too.

 

I will admit to the teensiest bit of schadenfreude that the subset of fans who were happy to piss on other shows for not being as purportedly awesome as The 100 on the LGBT representation front have now had to eat their words.

 

For the record, I always expected Lexa to die. The dead lesbian trope is tired, but sometimes it makes sense for the character. Unless we're going to demand immortality for all LGBT characters out there, sometimes they're going to die. The problem is that Rothenberg went out of his way to aggressively court a young LGBTQ fanbase, exploiting them for hype and social justice points, and then killed off Lexa in a way that was a direct rip-off of Tara's death from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, sheesh, if you absolutely have to kill off a gay character, BTVS is the LAST show you want to copy.

 

ETA: In contrast to that other list, autostraddle is also compiling a list of lesbian/bisexual characters who got a happy ending. You'll notice that the list is much shorter. 

Edited March 15, 2016 by galax-arena

[Wax Lion]

I love that Autostraddle did the companion list. I almost said that anyone who wants to argue that there wasn't anything wrong about Lexa's death should compile a list of all the happy endings, except that they probably don't know queer representation well enough. Even better that the same experts did both lists.

 

ETA: Looking at both lists, I realize why I have so much trouble keeping up with lesbian and bi female characters on TV. There's enough representation overall that it becomes a lot harder to track everyone nowadays. As a gay man, I'm willing to endure a terrible show for just for a male character (though Charlie was the last thread for watching Supernatural, I didn't even watch her last episode, heard she died and gave up).

Edited March 15, 2016 by Wax Lion

[Cobalt Stargazer]

For the record, I always expected Lexa to die. The dead lesbian trope is tired, but sometimes it makes sense for the character. Unless we're going to demand immortality for all LGBT characters out there, sometimes they're going to die. The problem is that Rothenberg went out of his way to aggressively court a young LGBTQ fanbase, exploiting them for hype and social justice points, and then killed off Lexa in a way that was a direct rip-off of Tara's death from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, sheesh, if you absolutely have to kill off a gay character, BTVS is the LAST show you want to copy.

 

Well.....

 

Rumor has it that it was originally Xander, not Willow, who was going to come out as gay, but for whatever reason the plotline was nixed and it was given to Alyson Hannigan instead. I always had the feeling later that Whedon got shit-scared due to the reaction of the Buffy/Angel shippers, and that was why he told Nicholas Brendon that he was more or less done with Xander as a character. I will now give you some salt to take with that theory.

 

As for Tara, that whole season was a mess, and her death was the least of it. OTOH, it pretty much gave Kennedy plot armor, since there was no way Joss was going to kill off Tara's replacement. Willow and Kennedy didn't have as many fans as Willow and Tara, or maybe even no fans at all, (I liked her well enough, but many people didn't) but regardless one set of death threats was likely quite enough. Even for Whedon.

[joelene]

I only watched the pilot of The 100 a couple of months ago (because I heard it gets good, and I didn't watch it from the beginning because I heard otherwise). I decided after that one episode it wasn't worth it to stay with it until it supposedly gets good. So while I can't comment on Lexa, I agree with galax-arena about it being tired but that sometimes it gotta happen. It's tired because it seemed to be the norm for such a long time, but I don't know that that's true anymore (although maybe it is?) so sometimes us gays are gonna bite it, sucky as it is. Of course, though, it should make sense for the character and not be done to give another actress some juicy drama to play (*cough* Last Tango In Halifax *cough*) or to help redeem another shitty character (*cough Last Tango In Halifax *cough*).

I hope they don't kill of Tara or Denise on The Walking Dead yet because I feel like Tara just got into her own in the last 10 or so episodes. I barely knew who she was before (never mind the she even was a lesbian). And now that she and Denise just got together it would really be a shame, and Denise hasn't even been around that long so it would be frustrating if two lesbians couldn't share zombie screen for a while. Same with Aaron and Jesus (if Jesus even turns out to be gay in the series). The gay/lesbian quota shouldn't be just one.

On another spot-the-gay note, this Canadian horror series called Slasher just started a couple of weeks ago and has a male gay couple (realtors, natch) in it. If you like slasher movies you might like it.

Any other new LGBTQ characters popping up anywhere? I think the only new-ish shows/shows with new characters currently airing that I'm watching that has any are Crazy Ex, Slasher, Schitt's Creek, The Real O'Neals (we'll se how long I'll keep that one up) and The Walking Dead (American Crime just ended, boo, although probably for the best cuz it was almost too heartbreaking).

Edited March 15, 2016 by joelene

[BW Manilowe]

NBC has ordered a Pilot for a reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess & the producers are promising that, this time, it won't just be subtext that Xena & her sidekick, Gabrielle, are/have been in a relationship.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2016/03/15/xena-reboot-writer-confirms-xena-and-gabrielle-lovers/81801720/

[maraleia]

I'm so used to the quick response on twitter which is why I got all butt hurt when no one replied. My apologies.

A show I'm about five seconds away from giving up is PLL since they've essential de-gayed Emily and due to the A reveal and subsequent story for that character, Charlotte, until she was killed off.

This is getting ridiculous and with so many great TV shows out there why bother with ones that insult our intelligence.

Edited March 16, 2016 by maraleia

[joelene]

Regarding PLL I think all the relationships are boring and worthless. During the Emily/Paige era of the show that was the only one I cared even a little about, but by the time Paige up and moved to Other Place I had stopped caring. It is unfortunate, in a sense, that the lesbian is the only one currently single but since I kind of hope they're all killed off in the end anyway I'm just happy that at least one of the liars don't have relationship woes since I will stick with it to the bitter end. At least Emily has had as many girlfriends during to show's run as the others have had boyfriends.

[paulvdb]

Any other new LGBTQ characters popping up anywhere? I think the only new-ish shows/shows with new characters currently airing that I'm watching that has any are Crazy Ex, Slasher, Schitt's Creek, The Real O'Neals (we'll se how long I'll keep that one up) and The Walking Dead (American Crime just ended, boo, although probably for the best cuz it was almost too heartbreaking).

I just watched the new NBC comedy Crowded and in that show the oldest daughter broke up with her boyfriend. After that the parents mentioned that they were happy that she broke up with him, but not so happy about all the rebounding. The daughter then comes down with her latest rebound who is a girl. I don't know if the show is going to make her bi or if it was just a one-time thing.

[galax-arena]

Any other new LGBTQ characters popping up anywhere?

Jane the Virgin has Luisa and Susanna. And Rose, but they killed her off only a couple of weeks before Lexa died! (For various reasons, Rose's death didn't piss me off the way Lexa's did.) Luisa and Rose aren't exactly new, since they've been around since the first season, but Susanna is.

 

I'm like 75% convinced that Susanna's going to die eventually too, because the actress is on another show filming in Canada. Crossing my fingers that the writers decide to just put her on a bus instead... 

[selkie]

I do think that TWD will keep Denise around for a while. You don't typically bring an Emmy winner onto a show and then kill off her character in 10 episodes or less.  (Unless you're talking someone whose character always seems to die ala Sean Bean.)

[maraleia]

Here's Heather Hogan's take on the state of PLL right now i.e. the de-gaying of the show http://www.autostraddle.com/the-inexplicable-de-gaying-of-pretty-little-liars-331661/#comment-655105

[SmithW6079]

Something to ponder in the wake of Lexa's death on The 100 [url=http://www.autostraddle.com/all-65-dead-lesbian-and-bisexual-characters-on-tv-and-how-they-died-312315/]http://www.autostraddle.com/all-65-dead-lesbian-and-bisexual-characters-on-tv-and-how-they-died-312315/[/url

Jadxia Dax on "Deep Space 9" was not a lesbian. The character might have been bisexual, but she was married to Worf, a male Klingon.

Despite all the slash fantasies, Xena and Gabrielle were not canon lovers.

[Wax Lion]

Even when the show was airing, there were Xena writers who said they saw Xena and Gabrielle as a couple.

 

I thought I posted this in a reply already but I guess I lost another longish post here.

Anyway, it would be really terrible for Tara or Denise to die on The Walking Dead since Robert Kirkman has a history with dead gay characters. He did a story about a gay male superhero who died when the series was cancelled and the bury your gays aspect of it was made much worse because it got drawn into a bigger controversy over stupid comments from a Marvel editor.

 

Freedom Ring was always planned as an inexperienced hero who would get beaten up constantly and probably die. I wanted to comment on the fact that most superheroes get their powers and are okay at it... and that's not how life works. During working on the book, I was also noticing that most gay characters... are all about being gay. Straight characters are well-rounded characters who like chicks. So I wanted to do a well-rounded character who just happened to like dudes. Then I decided to combine the two ideas. In hindsight, yeah, killing a gay character is no good when there are so few of them... but I really had only the best of intentions in mind.

 

He later said:
 

Frankly, with the SMALL amount of gay characters in comics in general, and how unfortunate the portrayals have been thus far, whether intentional or not—I completely understand the backlash on the death of Freedom Ring, regardless of my intentions. If I had it to do all over again... I wouldn't kill him. I regret it more and more as time goes on. I got rid of what?[sic] 20% of the gay characters at Marvel by killing off this ONE character. I just never took that stuff into consideration while I was writing.

 

So he's aware of the trope and claimed to learn from it. The Walking Dead still gets extra scrutiny for the time when it was unintentionally enforcing a one-black-man-at-a-time rule and they've tried to fix that so I'm hopeful. Then again, the series is a bit of a mess right now, probably because of the extra work of putting together that spin-off so there's a good chance they'll do something stupid without having the time to realize it's stupid.

 

That said there's one gay character I might be okay with TWD killing and that's Eric. If they killed him they'd basically be fridging him since his entire characterization is "Aaron's husband" but it might give Aaron a bigger role. I just hope if Aaron becomes a widower he and Jesus don't fall into the "The only two remaining gays in the village must hook up" trope.

 

BTW, has anyone seen the telenovela La Reina del Sur? I've seen the beginning and the end of the series and while it, too, has two dead lesbian characters, there were flashbacks that suggested the lead character, Teresa, had an affair with one of the lesbian characters, Patti, when Teresa and Patti were in prison together. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to that part now that it's on Netflix. I'm asking because there's a USA version of the series coming out and I'm wondering if we should expect the lead character to be bisexual/heteromantic.

[DearEvette]

If either Denise or Tara died now, they would have killed a Lesbian character twice shortly after putting her into a relationship with another woman, without even fleshing out the relationship. However, I wonder if the outrage would be as big as it's been with Lexa's death on The 100.

 

Man, I would hate it if either Tara or Denise got killed, but probably would hate it more for Denise because I have been enjoying her character lately.  But I am really suspicious because they had that scene where they said "I love you" to each other.  And it seemed to come out of nowhere because we never got to see the run-up.  Not that TWD is necessarily a show that is heavy on romance, but still...  And when relatively minor characters start getting meaningful face time you can almost see the clock ticking down.  The other thing is, Denise is beginning to have an interesting relationship with Daryl. Again a possible sign.... But it is the Zombie Apocalypse and I can count on four fingers the characters that are probably 99% safe on that show.

 

As for outrage, I think people would be upset because both characters are likable and it does get wearying for the supporting characters to be killed off.  But I am hearing rumbles about a major/main character being killed so if Tara or Denise are killed off, the outrage might just get lost in the bigger shock and dismay of a main character loss.

 

 

Any other new LGBTQ characters popping up anywhere? I think the only new-ish shows/shows with new characters currently airing that I'm watching that has any are Crazy Ex, Slasher, Schitt's Creek, The Real O'Neals (we'll se how long I'll keep that one up) and The Walking Dead (American Crime just ended, boo, although probably for the best cuz it was almost too heartbreaking).

 

Not really new, but I remember being pleasantly surprised by the revelation that Analise Keating, Viola Davis' character on How To Get Away with Murder is bisexual and has such a complicated relationship with both her lovers, Eve and Nate.  But then every single thing about Analise is complicated.

[Wax Lion]

Damnit damnit damnit.

I have to take back what I said about Robert Kirkman.

I'm probably a little too annoyed by this to say much for now.

[galax-arena]

I didn't watch the show in question, but you have my condolences, Wax Lion. It's been a rough month for lesbian characters on television. 

[paulvdb]

Any other new LGBTQ characters popping up anywhere?

One more show: The Family just confirmed that the oldest son's girlfriend is bisexual in a flashback where we see that she was also with his sister. The sister appeared to be trying to pray the gay away.

And we also found out that the FBI agent on the same show is gay when he mentioned his husband in a conversation.

Edited March 21, 2016 by paulvdb

[DrSparkles]

Y'all! Am I the only person who's seen Gaycation? Episodes 1-3?!?! I need to talk!

[maraleia]

Y'all! Am I the only person who's seen Gaycation? Episodes 1-3?!?! I need to talk!

I've seen them. What do you think?

[Wax Lion]

I've seen the first two episodes. It's pretty amazing. Sometimes I wish Ellen had a PoC friend because it feels a little uncomfortable for me from that angle but overall it's an amazing series. Ellen and Ian are just too adorable together.

 

I'll be honest, I find myself putting off actually watching episodes because they tackle difficult topics. The Brazil episode was excellent but sometimes hard to watch and I'm putting off watching the Jamaica episode.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Wax Lion

[maraleia]

I've seen the first two episodes. It's pretty amazing. Sometimes I wish Ellen had a PoC friend because it feels a little uncomfortable for me from that angle but overall it's an amazing series. Ellen and Ian are just too adorable together.

 

I'll be honest, I find myself putting off actually watching episodes because they tackle difficult topics. The Brazil episode was excellent but sometimes hard to watch and I'm putting off watching the Jamaica episode.

Yeah the only thing that worries me about the show is the fact that both of them are white. Other than that I don't feel like they are doing social justice tourism because they are actually getting to know the people on the ground.

[DrSparkles]

I've seen them. What do you think?

Phew! I thought they were all great. Japan was a good start, you could see how gutted Ellen was by Brazil & Jamaica.

I have to admit, I knew very little of what they uncovered/showed. I agree w Trevor Noah, I thought they might get killed in Brazil! It's beyond sad to sickening to see what LGQTB have to deal w. I personally could boycott Braxil & Jamaica based on these episodes!!!!! Jamaica was very scary too IMO.

[joelene]

I've seen Japan and thought it was great (the pair of them are adorable) but I've been putting off the other episodes because I'm dreading the inevitable sadness. There's only so many horror stories you can stand to listen to/read about each week about what's happening to us around the world, you know?

[maraleia]

I've seen Japan and thought it was great (the pair of them are adorable) but I've been putting off the other episodes because I'm dreading the inevitable sadness. There's only so many horror stories you can stand to listen to/read about each week about what's happening to us around the world, you know?

I agree and I'm feeling especially vulnerable this week with the NC law (even though I live in Chicago) and the growing list of dead lesbian/bisexual women on episodic TV.

[galax-arena]

Autostraddle's Ultimate Infographic Guide to Dead Lesbian/Bisexual TV Characters

 

Fate of Lesbian/Bisexual TV Characters:
31% died
20% were alive when the series was cancelled
28% were guest characters with no closing storyline
10% were written off
1% lost the love of their life in the series finale
10% got happy endings

Edited March 25, 2016 by galax-arena