Bury your Gays: The sad reality of LGBT representation in media
- Emma Lou
- Aug 10, 2018
- 3 min read
It’s a strange world out there regarding LGBT media; creators are urged to place these characters in their shows but almost always end up killing them after giving them no story, no screen time, and no development. According to a study done by GLAAD in 2017, only 6.4% (58/901) characters are explicitly identified as LGBT. Although the numbers are slowly increasing, many of these characters will eventually be pushed to the side or even killed. Bury your Gays is one of the most common tropes in television media and it has been for several years. Show-runners introduce an LGBT character for recognition and praise, but then refuse to ever expand on the storyline or even acknowledge it. It’s a disgusting tactic (queer-baiting) used to draw in more LGBT fans who are desperately hoping that maybe this time it will be different, maybe this time the storyline won’t end in tragedy, but ultimately are let down every time.
Time and time again LGBT fans, who just want to be represented in mainstream media, are forced to watch fairly common situations: the token gay character get beat up and abused, the outcasted lesbian be tormented by men hoping to ‘turn her straight’, the bisexual character is almost always forced to cheat on their partner just for the sake of drama, and the transgender character who most of the time doesn’t even exist or is given a shitty storyline with no resolution. It’s horrible how every single time the LGBT fans expect it to be different, but it never is.
It seems that the most commonly killed characters are the sapphic ones, the characters who’s relationship doesn’t involve a man, a girl who just wants to kiss other girls. The 2015-2016 television season had the highest number of sapphic deaths; 42 in total making up about 10% of all television deaths for that season. When asked about the statistic, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said, “Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a more central (and often straight, cisgender) character. When there are so few lesbian and bisexual women on television, the decision to kill these characters in droves sends a toxic message about the worth of queer female stories." It seems that, just like real life, the LGBT character is only used to develop the straight character. They are treated like a throwaway plot device and are conveniently never mentioned again after they are killed.
Gay and biseuxal men are also killed, but not as much due to the unfortunate fetishization of their relationships by cishet women. Often show-runners will announce that a certain male character is gay or bi just to gain attention and praise, but then strangely won’t mention the sexuality in the show. Hmmmm… I wonder why. We saw it happen with Dumbledore, baited with the two guys from Supernatural, and then most recently with Shiro from Netflix’s popular animated series, Voltron: Legendary Defender. The season just dropped last night, and fans are already in uproar about the treatment of LGBt characters. Show-runner Lauren Montgomery stated that “We would meet Shiro’s significant other in s7”, I don’t know what her definition of meeting is, but I don’t believe it’s 5 seconds of screen time before being blown up never to be mentioned again.
This is a blatant act of queer-baiting which is also a huge problem in TV media. We cannot continue to deal with this, something needs to be done, something needs to change. It starts with you: send tweets, write letters, get angry, make your voice heard. Without it, nothing will change, and we will continue to bury our gays.
In memory of:
Lexa
Poussey Washington
Tara Maclay
Luke Fuller
Claire Bennet
Maya St. Germain
Edward Meechum
Denise Cloyd
Xena
Oberyn Martell
Sandy Lopez
Matt Fielding
Renly
Marissa
Tricia Miller
Victoria Hand
Isabelle Hartley
Angela Darmody
Loras Tyrell
Bethany Mayfair
Adam W.
Root
Donnie
Mary Louise
Nora
Camilla Marks
Mimi Whiteman
Jack Downey
Charlotte DiLaurentis
Sarah Harvey
Thomas Abigail
Pamela Claybourne
Ella Johnson
Gina
Edward Phillipe Mott
Helen
Susan Jackson
Roz Walters
Molly Ryan
Felicity
Bridey Cruz
Ally McBeal
Lance Powell
Juliet Becker
Luke Ashton
Lance Sullivan
Carmelita
Adam Torres
Angelique
Shana Fling
Edward Drummond
and many more
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